Critical Week: Walking in a winter wonderland

The holidays are descending upon us, as seen by those out-of-the-office email "gone for Christmas" bouncebacks. But year-end work for film critics is in full swing these days, with a steady stream of awards announcements in the news and best/worst of year pieces beginning to pop up everywhere. In a final flurry of screenings for the year, we had two of this week's big releases: Mufasa: The Lion King is a prequel animated in the photoreal style of the 2019 remake and directed, somewhat surprisingly, by Barry Jenkins. It looks great, but the story and tone feel rather awkward, while the songs are oddly unmemorable. But fans will enjoy it. Fans will properly love the sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which rights several wrongs about part 2 with a funnier script and more clowning goofiness centred around Jim Carrey's nutty Robotnik and, this time, his mad-scientist grandpa (also Carrey). Yes it's very silly.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Count of Monte-Cristo
Vengeance Most Fowl
Babygirl • The Brutalist
ALL REVIEWS >

Because I'm between voting deadlines, I've taken it a bit easier with the awards contenders this week, only seeing three. I've also needed to spend rather a lot of time readying the London Critics' Circle nominations to be announced. My catch-up movies this week: Andrea Arnold's Bird, a strikingly powerful fable that mixes gritty realism with magical realism, with terrific performances by Barry Keoghan and Nykiya Adams as father and daughter. The Count of Monte-Cristo is a lavish new French adaptation of the classic Dumas novel that, at nearly three hours, feels both epic and snappily paced. It's a real treat. From Denmark, The Girl With the Needle is more demanding, but it's a proper stunner, an involving, intensely moving story about a young woman battling the system. It's shot gorgeously in early 1900s period style (silent movie-style black and white, but with sound).

This coming week I have several films to catch up on, and it will depend on the time available to watch them. Movies on this rather eclectic list include The Day the Earth Blew Up, The End, Love Lies, Ghostlight, The Six Triple Eight, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, 2073, Sugarcane and Robert Zemeckis' Here. Happy Christmas!

Stage: This is the greatest show

Ball & Boe
For Fourteen Nights Only
director Tom Parry
with Adam Riches, John Kearns
Soho Theatre, London • 10.Dec.24-4.Jan.25 ★★★★

Pretty much the perfect fringe show, this pastiche comedy has a freewheeling sense of carefully controlled chaos that is thoroughly winning, largely because it's also hilarious. Adam Riches and John Kearns are veteran comics, and yet here they are playing Michael Ball and Alfie Boe, as if they are rehearsing for their next big tour together. In between a number of big-energy songs, they play games with each other and the audience, read fan mail and clash egos. And one of them loathes Michael Bublé. 

Strictly speaking, Riches and Kearns are not singers, which is a large part of the joke, but they're not deliberately bad either, making up for any lack of talent with sheer gusto. They also don't really bother to do impersonations, and the show doesn't hinge on having prior knowledge about Ball and Boe. While fans will no doubt catch more references, the patter offers the context needed to make the gags land. Meanwhile, both performers create proper characters on stage, with Riches' blithely louche and insensitive Ball as the perfect foil for Kearns' intentional and more openly emotive Boe.

All of this is held together by a vague plot that circles around broad-appeal entertainers who sing cover versions so they can keep everyone happy. Ball is fine with this, as it feeds his desire to be loved, while Boe would really like to sing an original song for a change. But this might jeopardise the brand sponsorship deal Ball has set up. These jokes are very funny, and they're also knowing criticisms of an industry that uses and discards performers without a thought. And the songs are fabulous.

So there's rather a lot more going on here than just watching, as they describe themselves, "naughty little schoolboys in their 50s". While we laugh at the general silliness that runs all the way through the show, and we sigh at some of the more moving aspects to this friendship, there are also things that provoke serious thought. This is a sparky and sharply well-assembled one-hour show, expertly played by two actors who work so well together that the audience is likely to become die-hard groupies.

For details, SOHO THEATRE >

photo by Matt Stronge • 12.Dec.24

Critical Week: It's showtime

Awards season has cranked up another gear this week with the announcement of the Golden Globes nominations. This is my third year voting in these awards, and it's now 334 voters in 85 countries - a very big change that is reflected in the enjoyably eclectic nominees. Now this weekend is the voting deadline for the London Critics' Circle, which will have its own distinct personality reflected in nominees announced next week. As for movies I've seen lately, one standout was The Last Showgirl, a surprisingly involving ode to old world Las Vegas razzle dazzle anchored by a lovely performance from Pamela Anderson. The two big releases this week are Kraven the Hunter, the Spider-Man adjacent Marvel movie with a cast (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ariana DeBose, Christopher Abbott) that's far better than the script. But it's more watchable than The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which is beautifully animated in an anime style but has a personality-free, over-earnest screenplay that stretches the patience over two and a quarter hours.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
September 5 • Nickel Boys
The Last Showgirl • Queer
PERHAPS AVOID:
The War of the Rohirrim
ALL REVIEWS >

Intriguing awards-season movies include the earthy thriller The Order, starring a wonderfully grizzled Jude Law; the slightly over-egged but riveting and hugely involving biopic Bonhoeffer; the dark drama Reawakening, with Jared Harris and Juliet Stevenson; and the beautiful but eerily humourless Italian drama Vermiglio. I also saw the hilarious comedy show Adam Riches and John Kearns are Ball & Boe for Fourteen Nights Only at the Soho Theatre.

This coming week I'll be watching the photo-real animated prequel Mufasa: The Lion King, the action-comedy sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the French epic The Count of Monte-Cristo, the Danish drama The Girl With the Needle, Asif Kapadia's innovative doc 2073 and more...

Stage: A gleeful panto mashup

Potted Panto
by Daniel Clarkson, Jefferson Turner, Richard Hurst
director Richard Hurst
with Daniel Clarkson, Jefferson Turner, Marie-Claire Wood, Sammy Johnson
sets Simon Scullion • costumes Nicky Bunch
music Phil Innes • lighting Tim Mascall
Wilton's Music Hall, London • 4.Dec.24-4.Jan.25 ★★★★★

First staged in 2010, this show has become a perennial hit with audiences for the way it cleverly mashes up Britain's holiday pantomime tradition into a high-energy comedy extravaganza. And even after more than a decade, Potted Panto still has the feel of improvised chaos in the way it weaves together a blinding array of hilarious references, from classic shows to comical riffs on this week's news headlines. Indeed, creator-stars Dan and Jeff show no signs of slowing down.

The idea is to take the audience on a whistle-stop tour of Christmas pantomimes, as the intentional Jeff introduces the six key fairy tales that are retold in these stage productions each year. Although the clownish Dan wants to include other classics like Mary Poppins, A Christmas Carol, The Sound of Music and the John Lewis Christmas advert. After a brisk history of panto traditions, the first up is Jack and the Beanstalk, although since all the roles are being played by the two of them, Dan can only play the back half of Jack's cow. He also does the traditional gender swap to play Jack's mother ... as Dame Barbara Cartland.

In Dick Whittington, the panto tradition of audience call-and-response comes into play, plus a gorgeous fairy surprise (Wood). Sleeping Beauty introduces the ghost gag (it's behind you!) and Dan's ridiculously preening Prince Charming, who pops up again in both Cinderella and Snow White, which is performed, more or less, in traditional rhyme. Finally, Dan subverts Jeff's attempt to play out Aladdin by turning it into A Christmas Carol instead.

All of this is performed as a riot of physical slapstick and cheeky vulgarity, with a fiendishly clever stage set, quick-change costumes and wigs galore. The script is packed with a constant stream of meta gags, plus the expected double entendres, puns (sheik your booty), wacky musical numbers and constant malapropisms (a moose lays the golden egg). There's a 3D chase through the woods that involves Santa and a water gun. Children in the audience come up with the final punishments for the villains. And of course it ends with a big singalong.

Frankly, this is the kind of show that you wouldn't mind watching each year, as it brings together everything you love about pantos with a fresh blast of chaotic energy. And we don't have to worry about the over-familiar plots, because Dan and Jeff subvert them hilariously with a constant barrage of surprises, twists and knowing gags that play beautifully on the joys of live theatre. So in the end, it's both a celebration of a centuries-old musical-comedy artform and a gleefully silly night out.

For info, WILTON'S MUSIC HALL > 

photos by Geraint Lewis • 6.Dec.24

On the Road: Like a rolling stone

I've just spent the last three weeks in Los Angeles where my priority was to spend time visiting friends and family around the Thanksgiving holiday. But of course I also couldn't help catching some films along the way, and I even got to attend a couple of terrific awards-season screenings. The nicest surprise was James Mangold's dazzling A Complete Unknown, starring an impressive Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan with terrific support from Edward Burns (as Pete Seger) and Monica Barbaro (as Joan Baez). I also really enjoyed the powerful biopic Unstoppable, starring Jharrel Jerome as Anthony Robles and Jennifer Lopez as his mother Judy (we even got to meet Jharrel, Anthony, Jennifer and Judy after the emotional screening). And Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson are excellent in the Halina Reijn's raw, complex drama Babygirl.

And then there was the animated sequel Moana 2, a crowd-pleaser that feels a bit simplistic compared to this year's much more innovative animated movies. That Christmas is another rather easy-going, unchallenging but enjoyable animated adventure. Further afield and far more ambitious, September 5 is a staggeringly well-made real-life thriller with Peter Sarsgaard and John Magaro set at the Munich 1972 Olympics. Jack Huston's impressive directing debut Day of the Fight is an unusually personal boxing drama starring Michael Pitt. And Iranian exile Mohammad Rasoulof's The Seed of the Sacred Fig is a riveting dramatic thriller about a family straining against official morality.

And then there were the films I watched on the long flights. Colman Domingo is fantastic in the bracingly authentic prison drama Sing Sing. Tig Notaro's comedy Am I OK is packed with knowing observations and hilarious dialog. Dev Patel is astonishing as writer, director and star of the Indian action thriller Monkey Man. Channing Tatum goes evil for the darkly creepy Blink Twice. Zac Efron and John Cena team up for the rude but entertaining comedy Ricky Stanicky. And the documentary Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero is refreshingly unfiltered as it explores the musician's explosion into the limelight.

This coming week I have more films to catch up with for awards voting, and also some that are coming to cinemas this month, including Jude Law in The Order, Tilda Swinton in The End, the animated epic The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, Kerry Washington in The Six Triple Eight, Ralph Fiennes in The Return, Jared Harris in Reawakening, the Hong Kong comedy Love Lies, the comedy sequel Heavier Trip and the French epic The Count of Monte Cristo ... as time allows.

Critical Week: A new friend

These have been busy days with a variety of events and lots of errands before I travel over the coming weeks. But I caught up with two terrific all-audience movies that have been showing up at festivals and will likely feature at awards time. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is the loveable Aardman duo's first film in 15 years, and it's a pure joy. It's so much fun, in fact, that I can't imagine how it could be any better if it tried - a barrage of terrific verbal and visual gags, pastiche moments and a superb thriller-style plot. And then there's the Latvian animation Flow, which is a bit rough-looking but also utterly mesmerising as it follows the astonishing adventures of a cat as its world is flooded.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Last Dance
All We Imagine As Light
ALL REVIEWS >

And then there was this season's big awards movie, Brady Corbet's The Brutalist, a four-hour epic (including an intermission) about an immigrant architect (Adrien Brody) in mid-20th century America. It's riveting and powerfully pointed. Daniel Craig is fully immersed in an unusual role for Luca Guadagnino's Queer, based on the William Burroughs novel about sex and drugs in Latin America. It's a stunning film, if a little enigmatic. And Isabelle Huppert is at her understated best in Hong Sang-soo's loosely observational drama A Traveler's Needs. I also attended the UK premiere performance of the exhilarating Exit Above at Sadler's Wells.

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be visiting friends and family in Southern California, and I'm sure to see some awards screenings before my ballots are due. There's also the question of what I might watch on the plane! I'll be posting about the movies as I see them...

Dance: Walk away the blues

Exit Above
After the Tempest / D’après la Tempête / Naar de Storm
choreography Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
music Meskerem Mees, Jean-Marie Aerts, Carlos Garbin
dancers Abigail Aleksander, Jean Pierre Buré, Lav Crnčević, José Paulo dos Santos, Rafa Galdino, Nina Godderis, Solal Mariotte, Mariana Miranda, Ariadna Navarrete Valverde, Cintia Sebők (danced by Margarida Marques Ramalhete), Jacob Storer
musicians Meskerem Mees, Carlos Garbin
scenography Michel François
lighting Max Adams • costumes Aouatif Boulaich
Sadler's Wells, London • 12-13.Nov.24 ★★★★

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's Belgian dance company Rosas brings this show to the UK for the first time. The approach is refreshingly offbeat, creating a loose atmosphere that often feels improvised but actually involves complex layers of movement tracing elaborate geometric patterns on the stage. This tone shifts and evolves throughout the performance, intertwining music and movement to create a powerfully visceral catharsis.

The first to take to the fully deconstructed stage are guitarist Carlos Garbin and vocalist Meskerem Mees, both of whom participate in the dance numbers as well. To an engulfing soundscape, Mees recites the words of philosopher Walter Benjamin, exploring the nature of history and the storm that is progress. Then a single dancer throws himself into the air and back to the floor in spiralling gymnastic moves, while a shimmering curtain wafts overhead.

From here, the show surges through an expansive series of dance styles, with performers on their own, in pairs or as one. The demanding choreography is expressive and broad, drawing on huge physicality as the seriously gifted dancers spin, jump, lift, balance or stand silent and still. But mostly they are walking ever forward, tightly connected to each other and the music. Accompanying this is Garbin's guitar, which cycles through a series of blues numbers that are sung by the angelic Mees, shifting the mood from pulsing rhythms to searingly pure tones. 

With lights positioned far above, the shadow of the rigging is projected onto the walls, creating an elemental space that's augmented by some lighting trickery. A spotlight traces slow circles around the stage, which is covered in geometric lines. The dancers echo the light's movement, creating a kind of counter-clockwise whirlpool. All of this is exploring the idea of everyday movement, walking ahead regardless of what's happening in our lives. It may feel a bit meandering, but there's also a strong sense of both individuality and community. And in the later scenes, as dancers fling off clothing in abandon, their connection grows powerfully strong, leading to a series of stunning final sequences.

For information, SADLER'S WELLS > 

photos by Anne Van Aerschot • 12.Nov.24