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.