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  31 Aug 1997 — Diana’s Death This isn’t a review of Earl Spencer’s biography of his sister Diana, but hearing that it’s being published it made me think of the years between that day in August nearly thirty years ago. I had just started living in London and for a while at least I was lucky enough to live quite comfortably despite having little money, in a bedsit in Judd Street, just by Kings Cross St Pancras and Russell Square. The job wasn’t especially good but it was a good foundation, and having access to the centre of London was a thrilling prospect. I mostly looked at things that I couldn’t afford, or wandered around near to ‘forbidden’ places like the BT Tower which proclaimed on a sign that it was not open to the public. I would go out to the theatre or cinema when I could, and I had some American friends living in the same building. On this particular weekend they were not around, and suddenly at around 3 in the morning (I’d slept with the radio on) the news broke that...

In Project Hail Mary is the discovery of a science fiction movie that draws a clear line from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Arrival . Based on the novel by Andy Weir, whose debut The Martian set the pattern for witty and scientifically-minded prose against an excellent plot, made it a successful movie. It feels like a long time ago, but here we are with another archetypal hero-by-default who wakes to find himself on a spacecraft approaching Tau Ceti (11.9 light years away), with no idea who he is or why he is there.   We soon learn that he’s a schoolteacher, having been drummed out of the scientific community for an unpopular opinion which—as they sometime do—become popular later on. A microbial form of alien life is draining the sun of its energy, and how can there be life in the extreme heat of the sun? The book and the film deal with the science without treating the audience as incapable. Weir gives us a science teacher who can talk to kids without patronising them, and the fi...

Jamie Lloyd’s production of the Lloyd Webber/Rice musical fills the London Palladium on a hot evening, famously even spilling onto the balcony which has caused some newspaper pieces as well as social media ‘fuss’. Rachel Zegler, who has just been in the Snow White live action remake, takes the title role and genuinely she is the best thing in the show—not just with the sweet voice of a Disney alum, but raunchy in a production that sexualises almost every character including many of Peron’s military associates. The staging is limited to an ascending platform, like the seating at a sports arena, and otherwise all is darkness pierced by light. And the volume is set to loud. The story of Eva Peron’s rise, written in the seventies and sounding every bit like the Englishmen who wrote it, has somehow retained popularity because of the songs and the quality of the casting. Formerly a concept album it has gone as far as finding itself on film and the casting of Latino performers gives it more p...

Sweet Mother of all things preposterous, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning is a long and enjoyable movie. The story follows on from the previous, with Cruise’s Ethan Hunt on the run from his own good guys with a key which will unlock some theoretical antidote to the AI which is taking over the world’s nuclear arsenal in every nation. The first hour or so is the set-up, and the opening titles occur quite a long time into the film. Why, even before the first scene we get Actual Tom Cruise thanking us all for coming to see the film on the big screen as the makers intended. Cruise’s commitment to the big-screen experience is laudable and Christopher McQuarrie knows how to put together a tense action scene. In this case there’s a set-piece underwater sequence where Hunt has to go to the stricken submarine from the previous movie. He has to recover a part which has the source code of the AI which can be used to destroy it. Meanwhile the establishment is suspicious. President Angela ...

Up until his death, Stephen Sondheim was working on one final show. The man whose achievement in musical theatre died in 2021. For me, Sunday In The Park With George and Into The Woods are beyond compare—and Assassins is acerbic and wonderful but emphatically not for everyone. Sweeney Todd is another masterpiece. It always seemed that Sondheim had a difficult time assembling money for productions, and took a lot of time to develop the works in intense collaboration with his librettists. When he died, few knew that he had a final work in progress. Based on The Discreet Charm of The Bourgeoisie and The Exterminating Angel , two films by Spanish director Louis Bruñuel, which I’ve not seen. In Act One a group of rich friends assemble for Brunch, but the plans have not been set up. They go to a series of restaurants where their desire for food is unmet until they reach the Moranda embassy. One of the friends is the ambassador to this fake hispanic state. Another is a revolutionary who is c...

No-one would have believed, back in the early 80s when I first heard the album, that I’d be sat forty or more years later watching the hugely popular Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of The Worlds : the album is a classic piece of 1970s ensemble musical performers plus the gravitas of Richard Burton’s unmistakable voice. That the album is a classic meant little to me back then: that its running time was a bit more than you could fit on a 90 minute cassette was the big problem. So you listened on vinyl or you missed the rather important end… They’ve re-worked the piece, with some inserted commentary from HG Welles at the beginning of the 20th Century, then after the two world wars. It’s part of the show’s message about the arrogance of post-Victorian Empire being brought low by an overwhelmingly violent takeover from the alien red planet. We know that it’s not red weed that gives that world its colour, but almost everything else about the message of this piece rings very differently ...

Shakespeare’s most popular comedy is the perfect romantic comedy: it’s got the two lovers who can’t function together because they’re both in love; and it’s got the ridiculous pairing between Hero and Count Claudio, and the drama when Hero is accused of secretly “speaking” to another man on the eve of her wedding. It’s a lot of fun and the tragedy of Hero’s false allegation can be seen as what pulls Beatrice and Benedick together. Directors of the play have to come up with joyful conceits to make everything work. And the very stylish young Jamie Lloyd has decided that a 90s club musical is the way to go. As usual the stage is completely bare and there’s confetti and pulsing lights to go with the classic tracks—which are neatly placed between scenes for all of the first half. Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell are both fantastic in a performance which uses all the Shakespearean wit plus nods to the pair’s Marvel roles and Hiddleston’s reputation is being very popular with the ladies. The...

The way that breaking news was reported on television changed on September 5 1972 when Black September, a pro-Palestinian terrorist organisation, stormed the Israeli camp of the Olympic Games and took hostages. The Games were intended to announce the return of West Germany on the World Stage, only decades after the end of the war. And the ABC crew who were on the scene, and with equipment to show live film around the world, were sports reporters who now had to cover an event where news-gathering precedents could potentially be created. This is a taut and impeccable thriller about the various people in the studio whose job it was to make this work. Looking back on it now the archive footage, especially at the beginning when the technology is heralded—there’s a shot of the World Trade Center which isn’t necessarily intended to make a point, but does. And the Holocaust and German complicity haunts the film. Young studio manager Marianne ( Leonie Benesch ) fields questions about how much h...

  The story of how Bob Dylan started out as a precocious young folk singer to his breakout success following being called “Judas!” At a concert is the topic of James Mangold’s film, with Timothée Chalamet starring, it’s a charming and occasionally brilliant evocation of specific music in the 60s. Dylan comes to New York and hears that Woody Guthrie is dying in a hospital. It’s unusual for people to visit, but he goes there and happens to meet Pete Seeger. He plays for Seeger and the mute Guthrie and it goes very well. Dylan gets introduced to Folk music people and soon meets Joan Baez ( Monica Barbaro ), with whom he begins a tempestuous professional and occasionally sexual relationship. This is to the disadvantage of Sylvie Russo ( Elle Fanning ) who is a version of Dylan’s partner at this time—the partner you can see on the cover art of The Freeweelin’ Bob Dylan . This is a joyful introduction to the Sixties from the point of view of Dylan’s musical community. There’s an exce...

Don't read this if you intend to watch the film unless spoilers don't bother you... Vengeance Most Fowl isn't just a further adventure of Wallace & Gromit. The occasional films about one eccentric inventor and his dog is many things: a perfect festival of visual jokes and film references;  a gloriously multicultural production, without wearing that on its sleeve. And a repudiation of technology for its own sake, especially where it inadvertently crushes humanity. And that’s very cool because obviously Aardman Animation’s main method is painstakingly hand-animated plasticine. You can see the fingerprints in the clay, There is little or no CGI and it must take ages, and that makes me feel so happy because the content has to be as close to perfect because you can’t lose confidence in a joke or a routine and quickly redo it. And as before the friendship between the mad scientist Wallace and the single-minded and practical dog Grommit is the heart of it. As before Wallac...

  In the 80s Starlight Express was the brash follow-up to Cats —the show that seemed unlikely to succeed but became a phenomenon with an eventual 25 years run. Starlight is about trains as characters: the engines who compete in a race—the stuff of a boy’s dream—with locomotives attached. Each character has their own personality, and there’s trash-talk and rap as well as a sweet love story and the mystical notion underpinning growing self-belief. This new production in Wembley is the third version in the UK: The Apollo Victoria theatre was the home to the groundbreaking premiere, but it was also leg-breaking and the production was scaled down in the early 90s, with some new songs. And amazingly it ran to 2004. Now, with the Wembley production there are more new songs and some gender-changes. Poppa is Momma, Greaseball and the gang are ladies, and there’s a Nitrogen powered locomotive. Most importantly the auditorium has been built around the production, so it’s no longer crammed int...

This new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Christopher Hampton’s glitzy 90s take on the 1950 Billy Wilder film is overall a phenomenal re-interpretation. The stage is spartan and dark, the cast is racially blind and there’s none of the opulence that went with the original set. The enduring image of the film and the musical was the body of Joe Gillis floating in a swimming pool. Gillis narrates how he got there and we find out. But of course the big songs and the big drama emanate from the screenwriter’s killer—faded movie star Norma Desmond. There’s a lot to say about the different women who have taken this role, with Glen Close probably being the most famous. This time it’s Nicole Scherzinger. Norma is on stage before the overture begins, and is an omnipresent figure throughout. Joe Gillis (Tom Francis) emerges from a body-bag to narrate his story: fleeing creditors who want to repossess his car, he goes to Paramount Studio to pitch an idea to a producer, but the studio doesn’t l...