Film,Review

Won’t the real Robin Hood please stand up?

Won’t the real Robin Hood please stand up?

First things first. There is no “correct” Robin Hood. The history surrounding the hosieried vigilante and his merry, forest-dwelling men is so sketchy that for filmmakers through the ages he has been pretty much fair game. Still, if you are going to make a new Robin, as Ridley Scott has with his new version released today, you’d better have a damn good reason. [Read more...]

Film,Review

The triumphant return of Chris Morris

The triumphant return of Chris Morris

We will not lie to you: when Chris Morris got up to address the small audience before last week’s screening of Four Lions, his brilliant new comedy about a cell of hapless British jihadis planning a terrorist outrage, we experienced a tangible buzz of excitement. After so long away, the great enigma of British comedy was back in business. [Read more...]

Culture,Review

Let’s get this Party started

Let’s get this Party started

Such is the intention, at least, of the five characters in Tom Basden’s new comic play, Party, which has just opened for a two-week run at Soho’s Arts Theatre, about a group of misguided students attempting to redefine politics from the safety of a garden shed. (Sorry, “summer house”.) As you would hope of a production that got rave reviews at Edinburgh, it is funny, well observed, and in some instances, a little painfully familiar. [Read more...]

Food & Drink,Restaurants,Review

Bring on the clowns

Bring on the clowns

We love it when a minor royal ups the people-watching ante when we check out a new restaurant. The night Esquire visited new cabaret club Circus in Covent Garden Princess Beatrice (accompanied by bodyguard and obligatory boat and ballet-shoe wearing posse) was there. Had somebody tipped her off we were coming? [Read more...]

Film,Review

Trading places for Tobey and Jake

Trading places for Tobey and Jake

“Only the dead see the end of war. I have seen the end of war. How do I go on living?” The closing words of Brothers, the new movie from director Jim Sheridan, make for an unconvincing finale to a film that threatens to grip the audience but never retains a significant hold. [Read more...]

Music,Review

Never Mud the Buzzcocks

Never Mud the Buzzcocks

This year’s Nozstock Festival landed on the wettest day in the wettest July since 1888. The site, on a farmer’s land near Bromyard in the West Midlands, is entered via narrow roads with hedgerows as high and foreboding as the maze at The Overlook Hotel in The Shining. The reason for our soggy mission? The legendary Buzzcocks.

[Read more...]

Film,Review

Tackling cliché head-on

Tackling cliché head-on

The majority of movies about sport tend to focus on the tired old fairytale of the kid from dirt-poor origins whose natural talent makes him a legend. But one of this week’s film highlights, Rudo Y Cursi (out this Friday), subjects that same fairytale to some tough-eyed scrutiny. [Read more...]