Category: Reviews

By Misty Delembre

It seemed like a fitting Valentine’s Day choice: Secretary (2002), the offbeat, kinky romance that had once felt refreshingly different from Hollywood’s sanitized love stories. I remembered it as tender, strange, darkly funny – a film that challenged normative notions of desire and control, of what it means to be in love and be seen. But on rewatch, there is something near insidious about the way Secretary is able to seduce its audience. It masquerades as a love story. But beneath its neatly tailored surface, something far more perplexing simmers. Steven Shainberg’s film walks a fine line between empowerment and conditioning; liberation and entrapment. It is a film that titillates while making us uneasy, that plays with control while never quite relinquishing its own.

Although this time, I couldn’t ignore the details. The imbalance. The erasure. He is Grey; she is Lee. He is the boss; she is the secretary. He is older, composed, in control. She is younger, uncertain, and  shamelessly desperate to please. It is not lost on me that he refers to her by her first name, while the film never allows us to know him as anything but ‘Mr. Grey’. Even in language, the hierarchy is maintained.

Yet the film romanticises their dynamic as a kind of mutual discovery. Lee, a woman who has spent her life in quiet self-destruction, finding solace in the structure of submission; Grey, a man daunted by his own desires, learning that he can allow himself to indulge. But this concise narrative arc collapses when observed too closely. The truth is in the unspoken details, the ones the film never asks us to interrogate too deeply.

Grey has done this before. Lee is not the first. She is not special. This is indeed a pattern. A hiring practice. A cycle. The film never lingers on the implications of this – the other secretaries who sat at that desk, typed those letters, ceremoniously bent over at his command. Were they discarded when they got too close? Did they leave, shaken, distraught and  ultimately unsure of what had just occurred? Secretary treats their existence as a footnote, a quiet admission that Lee is merely another in a line of women funnelled through Grey’s carefully constructed world.

And yet, the film asks us to perceive this as love. It asks us to believe in the sincerity of their connection, to rally when Lee proves her devotion by sitting, hungry, exhausted, near-delirious, at his desk for days, waiting for him to decide she is worthy of his affection. Her submission, once playful, becomes obscured by undertones of abuse. And while the film frames this as an act of self-actualisation, of agency, I cannot shake the unease. Would this be as palatable if Grey were less conventionally attractive? If his office were not bathed in warm, rich mahogany? If the camera did not romanticise his touch, his control, his power?

The mise-en-scène aids in facilitating this deception. The muted tones of Lee’s home life, occluded thick with repression – soft pastels, smothered under fluorescent lighting – give way to the deep, intoxicating reds integral to her transformation. Lee’s wardrobe transforms from frumpy skirts to fitted, dark-hued dresses, the deep red of her lipstick echoing the welt of a fresh handprint. This is a film obsessed with texture, attune to the unfolding of control. 

The cinematography intently mirrors this descent into submission, shifting from the sterile, detached framing of her early life to the sensual close-ups of her and Grey’s interactions – the tension built in the pause before a touch, the breathy silence that replaces dialogue, the way even diegetic sound seems to hush itself in anticipation. The camera lingers on the sensuality of small movements – the stroke of a hand against skin, the weight of Grey’s gaze. The lighting is warm and intimate, coaxing us into complicity. We are seduced alongside Lee, drawn in by the same slow unraveling of control. And perhaps this is the film’s greatest trick – it somehow makes submission feel like freedom. But whose freedom?

Lee’s submissiveness, for the most part, isn’t framed as a weakness but as a kind of self-actualisation. She does not suffer under Grey’s control; she flourishes. And yet, the film is careful about how it allows Grey to exert that control. Unlike the overt brutality of, say, The Night Porter (1974) or the performative excess of Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Grey’s dominance is measured, almost hesitant. His punishments are not arbitrary; they are rituals of structure, discipline, imbued with intimacy. He is not cruel, but he is afraid – his desires are tinged with a hesitant edge, unsettled by the implications of his actions.

It is here that Secretary becomes its most fascinating and most troubling. For all its transgressiveness, the film is not truly radical. It does not upend traditional gender dynamics so much as repackage them in a new and palatable aesthetic. Yes, Lee initiates – she even pushes for more when Grey recoils. But in the end, it is still the man who holds the power – who dictates the terms, who punishes, who ultimately decides when and how the relationship will function. Even the film’s climax – Lee’s days-long protest of stillness, her body growing weaker with each passing hour – reads as both a declaration of agency and a disturbing surrender. And here’s the real provocation: is Secretary feminist, or does it simply disguise submission as empowerment?

It would be easy to frame this film as a story of liberation, of a woman embracing her true desires. But to do so neglects the larger context in which those desires are inherently shaped. BDSM, in its most idealised form, is about mutual exchange, about negotiation. But in Secretary, there is no conversation about limits, no safewords, no clear indication that Lee’s desire for submission is anything but an extension of her lifelong craving for structure and discipline. She moves from self-harm to being disciplined by a man in a position of authority. The film never interrogates whether this is a choice or simply another coping mechanism.

There is perhaps a version of this story where Secretary is genuinely radical, where Lee’s desires are explored with the complexity they deserve. A version that does not gloss over the troubling reality of power dynamics, where Grey is forced to reckon with the fact that he has done this before, and will likely do it again. Instead, we are given a fantasy – a love story built on omission.

Watching Secretary again, I am not sure if I find it beautiful or horrifying. Perhaps both. It is a film that complicates pleasure, that forces us to question the narratives we have been given about power and romance. It is intoxicating, yes. But so is a lie, when told well enough. 

And this, I think, is Secretary’s real legacy – not as a film about love, but as a film about the stories we tell ourselves to make love feel safe. Even when it isn’t.

Image credit: MUBI

By Sarah Humadi

Baker’s cinematography is striking; the muted, industrial landscapes of Brooklyn and commercial Vegas contrasting with pops of vivid neon lights of the strip club, metallic, glittery streaks throughout our star character’s hair, blankets, scarves and scratches of deep red enveloping her when she’s wounded from Vanya’s betrayal – I find myself reminiscing of Edward Hopper’s lonely Americana. Upon my first watch, I’m already comparing particular scenes to Hopper’s works such as his famous Nighthawks, Chop Suey, Morning Sun, Manhattan Bridge Loop. The moments of tenderness and desperation woven into the everyday. Anora’s visuals are enticing, exciting to look at. Baker plays with light and color in a way that captures the isolation of late-stage capitalism—the glow of a strip club sign, the sterile excess of oligarch wealth, the dull flickering of a cheap motel TV. It echoes Edward Hopper’s paintings, which similarly frame the American Dream as a distant, melancholic illusion. But where Hopper’s subjects feel unknowable by design, Baker’s characters are supposed to be fully realized—people we see, hear, and understand. The problem is, I don’t always believe them. And while Anora is gripping, it’s hard to ignore the lingering feeling that its perspective—like Tangerine and The Florida Project before it—comes from an observer, rather than someone who has truly lived these experiences.

Sean Baker has built a career chronicling America’s fringes—trans sex workers, struggling single mothers, and broke motel-dwellers in their passage to survive in a system rigged against them. With Anora, he takes on another precarious life: a Brooklyn stripper on the edge of living a life she’s dreamed of – money, social capital, friends, someone so captivated by her he wants her till death does them part – only to have the dream shattered. It’s devastatingly real and emotionally raw—but I end up asking myself who is telling (or rather showing) us this story?

Baker is an upper-class white man drawn to stories of the marginalized. His intentions seem good—his films rarely feel exploitative but at a certain point, we have to ask: why is Hollywood so eager to give these stories to filmmakers like him, rather than those who have actually lived them?

This isn’t just about Baker. It’s about an industry that consistently funds privileged directors to tell underprivileged stories while sidelining voices from those very communities. The problem isn’t that Anora exists—it’s that someone with Ani’s real-life experiences likely wouldn’t get the same funding, platform, or audience reach.

It’s almost like, ironically, the story of the American Dream is not just told through the plot of the film, but perhaps even more so behind the scenes of its making; it’s people like Ani that rarely, if ever, are recognised for their ambitions/work (to note, we hear little to nothing about Ani’s backstory or ambitions, although this might have been an intentional choice to have her walls up as part of her character) to make it to the top, or at least at the same level as directors such as Baker.

The media we consume shapes how we see the world. If the majority of films about sex workers, immigrants, and struggling single mothers come from a distanced perspective—one that studies rather than lives—then audiences will take that as truth. And while no community is a monolith, there’s something dissatisfactory about an outsider defining the mainstream depiction of these lives.

Image credit: Neon

By Rory McAlpine

Marking 75 years since their inception, DULOG theatre company chose to celebrate this anniversary by bringing the enduringly powerful and beloved Crazy for You musical to life on the Gala Theatre stage. And I choose the phrase ‘to life’ intentionally, for every character and every song performed was a stellar display of creativity, energy, and talent that captivates me throughout the run time. 

We are, on opening, introduced to Bobby Child (Michael Nevin), son of a wealthy banking family whose domineering mother is pushing him to take control of part of the family business, but who dreams of pursuing a career as a dancer. Yet, his attempt to audition for producer Bela Zangler (Ollie Cochran) is comedically unsuccessful, quashing his hopes. At the behest of his mother, and to escape his long-term fiancé Irene Roth (Lucy Rogers), Child heads to Deadrock Nevada with instructions to foreclose on the local theatre on behalf of the bank. However, arriving in Deadrock, Child meets and falls for Polly Baker (Connie Richardson), daughter of the theatre owner who, upon finding out his identity as the banker coming to take her family theatre, rejects his pursuits. From there spirals a complicated and ambitious plan by Child to save the theatre, win the heart of Polly, and break free from the life his mother has pre-determined for him. We watch Child’s elaborate scheme unroll and unravel bringing hilarious and unforeseen effects as his best laid plans inevitably go awry.  

Nevin’s display of acting, singing, and tap dancing as Child is a delight to behold; his exaggerated facial and body movements strike the balance between comedy and believability, and we simultaneously sympathise and find comedy in his plight. The burgeoning romance between Child and Polly is conveyed in many instances through dance and both Nevin and Richardson are talented in infusing their dance with meaning and truth. Despite a lack of words, we can discern Richardson’s growing love for Child constrained by feelings of betrayal by how she moves and dances with him. This ability to so clearly communicate feelings through choreography is credit to both the actors and choreographers. 

Cochran is talented in embodying Zangler’s ‘short fuse personality’, switching from composed suave businesslike to utterly exasperated and enraged when things do not go according to his plan or aims. His character arc from sleazy egotistical producer to local theatre patron occurs in the second act and Cochran’s ability to depict this transformation as a gradual softening of the character is highly effective. 

The show travels between two places: New York City and Deadrock Nevada. Impressive set backdrops denote the change in location, but it is the ensembles that create these places. In New York Zangler’s girls, a group of dancers, exude New York glamour and talent while in Deadrock the rocky cowboys we meet are lazy, easily entertained and, to put it politely, not the brightest bulbs in the box. All the ensembles fully embrace their characters, and their interactions are the catalyst of much of the humour. When the Zangler’s girls are recruited by Child to help put on a show in Deadrock, the colliding of these two works and attempts to organise the cowboys to rehearse and learn to dance is a masterstroke in choreography and physicality. All this, with the Zangler’s girls’ beautiful moves contrasted by the bumbling and shuffling movement of the cowboys. 

With its status as a musical, the role of the orchestra should not be underplayed. Out of sight in the orchestra pit, they flawlessly inject the vibrancy and rousingness characteristic of Gershwin’s scores in their music performance, while also matching the energy of the cast. Additionally, the complicated yet seamless set changes and the use of light and sound to enhance the performance is testament to the hard work of the whole backstage team. 

Arguably one of Crazy for You’s most iconic numbers, ‘I Got Rhythm’, contains the refrain who could ask for anything more? And when it comes to DULOG’s performance I found myself leaving energised with the music still playing in my head and itchy feet that were keen to dance and so I truly, in answer, could not have asked for anything more. 

By Martha Thornycroft 

Despite being nearly seven years behind the trend, I started the New Year reading Rachel Cusk’s Kudos (2018), the third in her Outline trilogy. The three books follow a novelist – Faye – as she navigates life as a divorcée and mother to two boys, whilst simultaneously working and juggling a career with personal demands. What makes the trilogy so interesting, however, is how the narrative voice blends into the background (as evidenced by the title Outline), allowing secondary characters to occupy the foreground and transform the narrative with their distinctive voices. Cusk writes the trilogy in such a way that there is no prescribed reading order. This flexibility means that each novel can be approached independently, allowing you to dip in and out of her novels as you wish. It was for exactly this reason that I reached for the final novel, Kudos, around the 1st of January, knowing my reading would contain some much-needed wisdom, and encourage some self-reflection for the New Year.

Cusk’s language is deceptively simplistic, providing profound insights into the human experience. Flicking through my well-thumbed copies, the many dog-eared pages speak volumes. Her books are eminently quotable and almost every chapter contains a universal truth worth remembering. For instance, in Outline, she writes, ’What Ryan had learned from this is that your failures keep returning to you, while your successes are something you always have to convince yourself of.’ As Alexandra Schwartz writes in The New Yorker, the characters in Cusk’s trilogy ‘swoop from the minute banality of personal experience to touch on the great themes of human life and society and back again.’ For this reason, Cusk manages to subtly capture the essence of what it is to be alive in the early 21st century – an elusive sentiment to define, considering that we are still living in it.

Whilst reading Kudos, I was struck by the honesty and frankness of Cusk’s depiction of Faye’s encounters with the various characters she meets, sharing deeply insightful and unfiltered aspects of their life. It made me question the narrator’s role: is the narrative voice (and Cusk herself) analysing the people she meets, or are these characters, in fact, analysing themselves? On this basis, the narrator (and Cusk) seems to occupy a therapist-adjacent status, not only for the novel’s characters but also for the reader. Cusk’s novels invite introspection, where the characters’ process of identifying their faults prompts us to do the same. There is something cathartic in recognising a shared trait in another person – albeit a fictional character. Frequently, while reading the trilogy, I found myself thinking: “Maybe that’s why I behave like that.” or “I know exactly who this reminds me of.” By relating to Cusk’s characters, I gained a more lucid understanding of myself. Therefore, in this sense, her novels have a dual function – serving as both entertainment and self-help novels.

Why do I think this trilogy, particularly Kudos, is pertinent to 2025? In a year coined ‘202thrive’ on social media, I believe it is fair to say that the social culture of wellness and mindfulness is gaining more and more traction – with myself included. Cusk’s novels offer a more feasible way of actioning that New Year’s resolution of being more introspective or aware of how we interact with others. Reading the Outline trilogy is, in my opinion, the ideal way to have a reflective start to 2025.

By Mopsy Peel

The art of female anger has rarely been a subject for delicate inspection, particularly in film. More often, it is crammed into tight archetypes – shrill, hysterical and unreasonable. Yet in Wicked Little Letters, directed by Thea Sharrock, we are offered a rare portrayal of this emotion as something complex and empowering. Based on a true story, Wicked Little Letters weaves fact with flair, turning an improbable tale of scandal and subversion into a rich exploration of female rage, defiance, and the power of the written word.

Olivia Colman takes the helm as Edith Swan: a buttoned-up spinster of 1920s Littlehampton whose Christian virtue is matched only by her insufferable smugness. She is a figure moulded by propriety – every glance a judgment, every utterance calculated. Yet, beneath the starch and rosary beads simmers an anger that will not stay suppressed. Her weapons of choice are anonymous, venomous letters brimming with blasphemies and insults, mailed to unsuspecting neighbours. These are no simple verbal outbursts to be easily dismissed or forgotten. Instead, they are immortalised in ink, transcending the fleeting nature of spoken anger and embedding themselves in the consciousness of their readers. This transference of voice is a potent mechanism. The letters, read aloud by their recipients, remove ownership from Edith while amplifying her defiance. It is a small yet seismic rebellion against the silence demanded of women in this era. The act is, in its own way, a kind of liberation.

The tradition of letter-writing as an outlet for female emotion is nothing new. For centuries, women have turned to the pen to articulate passions too dangerous or unbecoming to voice. In Edith’s case, her repressed fury at her overbearing family and the suffocating norms of her community spills out in scrawled obscenities. It begins as a small act of defiance but quickly morphs into an addiction. Where others might step outside for a cigarette, Edith retreats upstairs, pen in hand, to unleash lines like “you foxy-arsed old whore,” or, my personal favourite, “you mangey old titless turnip”. 

The film presents Edith’s venom alongside Jessie Buckley’s feisty Rose Gooding, an Irish maid whose presence electrifies every scene she graces. Buckley’s accent dances on the edge of the poetic, rolling profundities off her tongue with an ease that both disarms and delights. Rose is everything Edith is not: brazen, unafraid, and unapologetically alive. Her rebellion is not cloaked in anonymity but lived out loud, an enchanting spectacle of fearlessness in an era that demanded women shrink themselves.

The humour in Wicked Little Letters is an art form unto itself, a tapestry of wit and absurdity woven through its every scene. Anjana Vasan and Lolly Adefope, whose comedic talents are already well-cemented (Adefope especially delighting audiences as Kitty in the BBC show Ghosts), bring a vitality to the film that elevates its mischief. Joanna Scanlan, brilliant as ever and fondly remembered as Terri Coverley in The Thick of It, adds her own brand of comedic gold, her expressions delivering punchlines as sharp as the letters themselves. Together, this trio creates a riot of perfectly timed quips and glorious deliveries, transforming the prim 1920s setting into an unrelenting parade of laughter, their modern comedic genius crackling through the tension of a period drama-turned-caper.

The power dynamics within the film’s domestic sphere sharpen this portrait of female rage. Edith’s family is a depiction of repression: a meek, passive mother and a controlling father whose rigid discipline keeps the household in check. It is no wonder that Edith, faced with such stifling circumstances, finds solace in her ink-stained rebellion. In the film’s final act, Edith is arrested – a culmination of her transgressions. But the moment is far from one of shame or defeat. Instead, it is a release, a shedding of the expectations that have shackled her. As she is led away, there is satisfaction in her eyes. For the first time, she is free, not just from her family, but from the burden of maintaining her mask of propriety.

As the final frame settles, Wicked Little Letters leaves us suspended in a paradox, refusing easy catharsis. Edith’s defiance doesn’t culminate in a tidy reckoning; instead, we feel both relief for Rose’s vindication and quiet optimism for Edith. Bridging these two emotional extremes through contradictory empathy strikes me as both a masterful achievement in writing and a testament to the enduring strength of the theme itself, transcending the situation at hand. Edith’s imprisonment, though a downfall by conventional standards, resists tragedy. Her rebellion is not undone by punishment but crystallised in it. 

This depiction of female defiance is refreshing in its honesty. It does not glamorise or sanitise Edith’s anger but acknowledges it as a natural, even necessary, response to her circumstances. Her letters are not polite cries for help; they are visceral, unfiltered eruptions of a rage long ignored. And yet, they are also an affirmation of agency, a refusal to be silent. Wicked Little Letters invites us to consider the power of words, not merely as tools of communication but as vessels of emotion and rebellion. In Edith’s story, anger is not something to fear or suppress. It is something to write, to read, and, perhaps most importantly, to understand.

Feature Image: Jessie Buckley and Olivia Colman in Wicked Little Letters. Photograph: Toronto Film Festival. [The Guardian]. 

By Edward Bayliss

Since he was nine years old, Robert Eggers says he has been ‘obsessed’ with W.F. Murnau’s 1922 vampire horror, Nosferatu. In his years long process of writing the screenplay, one can imagine his rubber wearing faster than his lead. He arrives now on Christmas day, 2024, at one incredibly well researched and well loved iteration of Bram Stoker’s original. This title bears all the familiar Eggers-hallmarks of the folkloric, the gothic, the supernatural, and Willem Dafoe as our wild eyed occultist. The film looks exceptional – its creation of a dim atmosphere of unnaturalness is remarkable, and due credit is owed to DP Darin Blaschke. To use Mark Kermode’s favoured phrase (now especially apt), it’s heart is in the right place – a sentiment with which I think only very few would contend. All this, but my praise comes caveated. Though Eggers’ world creation is ever imposing, there isn’t much in the way of sharp arrest, or sudden stabs to our side. Let it be said, I am not a lover of movies made just of ‘moments’. I do however want to feel the instant chill of putting on cold clothes in the morning, but instead I somehow only get the constant sensation of a loose shoe-lace.

The story of Nosferatu remains almost unchanged from the Murnau original, save some added sexual ornamentation. This is one aspect of reinvention. The traditionally white fanged, bulbous headed vampires with high collared cloaks won’t run. Neither also will their simple object of blood. Instead, Nosferatu here has bloody and bodily lusts, as well as a period accurate Transylvanian outfit.

Bill Skarsgård, originally pitted to play solicitor and husband figure Thomas Hutter, firmly hits the mark as Count Orlok. The original film, being silent, leaves Eggers with a playground of sound to explore. Skarsgård’s voice vibrates with a delicious bass, his training from opera singer Júníusdóttir becoming very apparent as he masters the tones and textures of the undead Romanian aristocrat. The heft of Orlok’s 1590s era authentic cloak plays brilliantly against Lily Rose Depp’s (Ellen) diaphanous night gowns and floral fabrics. Costume designer and longtime Eggers collaborator Linda Muir leaves us very impressed.

The tagline for Eggers’ film reads: ‘succumb to the darkness’. In a film so submerged in shadow, with only a lick of flame or shard of moonlight to illuminate our characters, we can’t help but surrender to the darkness. Pulling at the coattails of Kubrick, Eggers uses as much natural lighting as possible, avoiding VFX at all costs. The quality of the picture is outstanding. Some sequences are slowly unsettling; it feels almost as though it is midnight at midday at Orlok’s castle, recalling some of Magritte’s disorientating works. At the Roma village below, the air is thick with flamelight which sits heavily on smoke, affording a stuffy and full feel to the shot. To set this supernatural fable against such an urgently realist backdrop is a great achievement. Gypsy rites, accents, costumes, and interiors of the period have clearly all been studied meticulously – Eggers uses academic articles to supplement his vision, as well as past productions.

The original Nosferatu plot of 1922 is relatively bare, leaving Eggers opportunity to add some flesh to the bones of the action. We have added intrigue to Lily Rose Depp’s character as she goes more through the catharsis of the sacrificial ‘saviour’ figure. While her writhing and body contortions are striking and seem convincing without the support of special effects, they are too frequent and so dilute their initial shock. Eggers should have exploited the sexual weirdness between the triangle of Orlok, Ellen, and Hutter to a greater degree, this being the location of great narrative potential. Similarly to Ellen’s fits, the menacing silhouette of Orlok is brilliantly conceived at first behind a shifting curtain in the fictional German town of Wisborg, but the motif is repeated too often afterwards. I was never terrified during the screening of Nosferatu, though I didn’t find the appearance of Orlok amusing as critic Peter Bradshaw did. I think he has infantilised the great research and ingenuity of Eggers in his creation of the done-to-death Dracula character.

The camera work is first rate. We skim over seas and mountains, devil-set crossroads and cold stone corridors. The lens is at its best when we follow Hutter on his journey to Transylvania, producing some truly arresting wide angle shots. It feels often like miniature sets are used in tilt shift, especially when we see Orlok’s shadow (again) cast over the roof tiles and spires of Wisborg, adding a kind of fantastical unreality to the image. Eggers had custom lenses fitted to create the Murnau inspired blue tint to much of the picture – one of the main aspects of homage that doesn’t go missed.

This isn’t Eggers’ best work, contrary to what Roger Ebert critic Zoller Seitz would have you think. It lacks the penetration and sheer terror of The Witch, and falls short of the crippling bizarreness of The Lighthouse, but it certainly isn’t half hearted. It doesn’t bite us with the intensity we might want, but certainly it gnaws at our heels with the tenacity and investment of a director who knows his craft.

By Emilia Brookfield-Pertusini

I hate tradition. I possess a bah-humbug approach to these supposedly ‘heart-warming’ events we must trudge through for time’s sake. However, I allow myself three indulgences, exceptions to the rule: 1) re-read The Secret History every December. 2) Listen to the King’s College, Cambridge choir carols on a blistering walk. 3)Watch a theatrical telling of A Christmas Carol. Upon hearing A Christmas Carol was descending upon Durham’s vastly beautiful wintery mood, I couldn’t help but be delighted (my student finance imposed tightfistedness, echoing Scrooge, in my refusal to see The Old Vic’s Carol this year). Upon watching, this elation hasn’t departed. Whilst Walkabout’s production doesn’t attempt to sugarcoat the obvious haunting and wrath that lies within this tale, the delicate adaptation of Dickens’ most recognisable plot, the craftsmanship of the design team, and the bravado of the actors cannot help but bring an audience to smile with pure, innocent joy. Lily Gilchrist and Harry Threapleton, the directors and adaptors, have marvelled in their sharp, poignant, and ultimately Victorian, to its truest sense, production. 

The bustle of the stage works in A Christmas Carol’s favour well. To be moved by a cast, who stop, look at you, extend their arm and holiday wishes, before moving on, retiring in their own magical scenes elsewhere, that you are privy to, is a truly magical voyeuristic experience. All whilst a superbly talented choir is fully incorporated into the momentum of the play, embellishing the scenes with further tenderness. These Victorians manoeuvre around a set, designed by Carrie Cheung and her team, that strikes a careful balance between kitsch Victoriana, and haunting minimalism. With the names of cast members upon gravestones in the corner, and a hearty dinner setup in the other, the balance is struck brilliantly between the two moods of the story and is maintained as audience moves carefully between the two, savouring in each. Charlie (Cara Crofts), our dutiful tour guide of Victorian London encapsulates this boundless energy that possess us during such festivity. The bubbly nature of a character who drives the plot, and encapsulates the cultural artifice that Carol has become, was not lost; this is an actor who understood their role to their fullest potential and brought the Dickensian prose into startling, striking life. The now diffuse and diluted term of Dickensian is often misused, not in the case of Crofts however, who elevated the practical necessity of her character to a person an audience member was delighted to see shepherd us spritely and provide us with brilliantly timed witty asides. 

Wit is often prescribed to Scrooge in order to make the shamelessly brutal character easier to digest. Gilchrist and Threapleton’s adaptation struck a considered balance with Scrooge, allowing Edward Clark to channel the disturbing miser to his fullest, whilst giving the audience moments of comedic breathing space, necessary to hammer home in the absurd, condemnable nature of Scrooge. Clark’s masterful performance delved into the psyche of such a miser at points, humanising Scrooge with pathos carefully being delivered in beautifully fraught and tender moments between Clark and his cast mates. Whilst I have often been considered as someone who enjoys the bleak moroseness that theatre can harbinger, Clark’s performance of a transformed Scrooge was simply too joyous to consider. The beauty of immersive theatre, I believe, lies in the fact the audience become less isolated, both from the actors and their fellow audience members; upon being shook by a contagiously gleeful Scrooge, I couldn’t help but smile, catching the same elation beaming out of Scrooge, and in my shock of being touched by both theatre and character, looked around to witness my fellow travellers through Victorian London beaming in the same manner. The strength of the adaptation of this complex figure, and the magisterial delivery of Clark, was something to behold.

Mark Gatiss remarks on how Carol’s “status as a ghost story has been somewhat undervalued”. This is shocking considering the Victorian preoccupation with ‘the other side’ yet cannot be said about this production; the consideration of lighting (Rory Collins) emulating the haunting necessity of the story thrillingly from the offset, despite not being utilized as fully later on. The introduction of our first ghost, by means of a howling metamorphosing doorknocker, confirms Carol’s status within the ghost story genre, with Raphael Henrion’s Marley being a startingly frightening, yet darkly humorous figure. Despite the script occasionally lapsing into the silliness that often grasps adaptations of Carol, Henrion managed to create a presence that channelled irksome impressions of the lost, tormented souls of Dante’s Purgatorio that Marley should be reminiscent of. The spectral reigns are then taken up by the Ghost of Christmas Past (Nell Hickson), who catapults us through the pangs of Christmas nostalgia with a foreboding deliverance. Her delivery and duplicity came into full force in her scathing departure from a relenting Scrooge, leaving both him and the audiences’ jaw on the floor. Bounding on stage after is Grace Heron as Present, emitting such a warmth onto stage it is hard to believe the phantom categorising of this being. A bountiful harbinger of news, we, like the marionettes cleverly chosen to physicalise the ghosts’ message, are caught up in the rapturous display of Christmas truths, forcing the message of change and charity to the forefront of the production; an understanding of the duality of this character, and the tale itself, was on full display. Finally, Future (Iphis Critchlow), who’s silent existence on stage sliced through the audience, allowed for the spectral potential of the production to be achieved in its completion. Each actor of this sinister quartet played with the audience’s perception of haunting, bring performances that kept the pace of the haunting at a constant revelry. 

The whimsy and magic of the immersive experience embraces the auditorium, handling every aspect with such clear sensitivity. The Cratchits are, despite my fond revisiting of this tale annually, cause for contention; Tiny Tim and his family cawing in mockney Victorian poverty pomp behind him makes one cringe under the amount of Victorian ‘virtuous’ poor narrative and disability fetish typically on display. However, a refreshing, modern consideration for the family were incorporated against the Victoriana. The pity porn was replaced with a quintet of talented actors who handled their roles with care, creating tender scenes; their warmth on stage was something to behold, and the dynamic between Charlotte Walton’s Bob and Scrooge was masterfully handled without the usual retreat into caricaturist workplace abuse. Instead, the ignorant optimism reserved for them was wholly invested into the pompously cheerful Fred (Nemo Royle). Adorned in a perfectly festive turquoise blazer, we were captivated around the dinner table, whilst he stood on a chair, like a true festive host, to address us, his guests, into parlour games; whilst at points the character began to sentimentalise and err on the side of tangent, the gusto of deliverance was to be relished, and an invitation back to his table would be received wholly.

The playfulness of the novella is fully anticipated when, on sofa or on theatre seat, one sits down to watch A Christmas Carol, yet the unbridled, unrelenting imaginative magic is full realised when we’re invited into stand within the tradition of this tale. If only more people could be invited to spend an evening around a Dickensian Christmas tale, then perhaps this tale would not need to be told year upon year, as the cast, crew, and production team clearly understood in their adaptation the unfortunate poignancy of the charitable message, which, as Scrooge does in the final moments of the play, grips you. The combination of theatrical enchantment and spectral illusion ensures that Christmas magic is released upon all who enter into this glimpse of Victorian London. The fun, nuanced, and gripping production affirms why A Christmas Carol is a powerhouse of a Christmas tradition. 

By Esme Bell

This is an easy pun to make, but it was with genuine sadness that I left Durham’s Gala cinema last week, after watching Ridley Scott’s latest sequel, Gladiator II.

It is perhaps unfair to say that it completely lacked entertainment value. It was a fun spectacle, at least, peopled with a dynamic and watchable cast – and, as my (Irish) friend Rachel mistily remarked, we can’t forget Paul Mescal’s ‘lovely Gaelic thighs’.

But Gaelic thighs alone cannot – and should not – make a film; and even a whole legion of Irish heartthrobs, no matter how well-muscled, could not atone for Gladiator II’s sins.

I have to preface the rest of this article by asserting how much I love the original, 2000 Gladiator; and so what follows could be seen as irritatingly nit-picking, or a failure to appreciate the new film for its own sake. I (obviously) disagree: Gladiator II as a commercial concept rests entirely on the deserved victory of the first one, and it actively appropriates the plot, music and even physical clips from its originator. This worked well in a film like Top Gun: Maverick, for instance – which proved that a loving sequel to an adored original can absolutely pay homage to its roots, but be completely successful in its own right. Gladiator II, however, fails on both counts.

Perhaps the gravest flaw – which catalyses most of the rest of the issues – is in the screenplay. It is, quite simply, lacking – in warmth, subtlety, heroism, and frankly, any sense of memorability. 

I, too, would probably lose a battle against an invading Roman army if I had to listen to Mescal’s attempt at an opening rallying speech. It falls so fatally flat, and seems so painfully self-aware of its inferiority, when compared to the glorious ease of Russell Crowe’s speech at the opening of the first film. This inevitable comparison continues: we have nothing to rival ‘Are you not entertained?’ or the chilling intensity of ‘Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife’ speech. And, again, this didn’t have to become such a glaring problem, but when Mescal’s Lucius is literally and metaphorically Maximus 2.0 – how can we ignore all the ways in which he fails to live up to him?

This brings me to my next point, which I make reluctantly, but truthfully: Mescal was a fundamentally underwhelming leading man. His occasional lapse in accent is forgivable, as Crowe also frequently slips into an Australian drawl; given the Roman Empire’s sprawling nature, it perhaps makes sense that someone’s accent might “travel” too. And, I also concede that most of Mescal’s flaws are the product, again, of the script and the plot, which allowed his character very little nuance or softness. But, the fact remains that, across the film, he acts and speaks on one, growly, broody, bear-like level, with very little variation.

One of the most powerful moments of Gladiator is not a battle, but simply a conversation early on, when Maximus describes his home to Marcus Aurelius: his house, his olives, his vines, the earth ‘black as my wife’s hair’, the wild ponies who tease his son. Crowe’s curt, cropped-haired violence is layered effortlessly with a tender, but never mawkish, vision of Maximus the farmer, who longs only for hearth and home. And this is crucial: we have to believe in his home, in his love – in the holistic man beyond The General – to then share in his grief, accept his need for revenge, and understand the man he becomes. 

We are granted no such insight into Lucius as he grunts, rolls, shouts, fights, and rolls again across the screen (Mescal does spend a lot of time on the ground with his tunic riding dangerously high – little wonder his thighs became so significant). And this critical distance from the audience’s empathy and understanding is not just frustrating, but becomes actively confusing. He asserts his passionate hatred for Lucilla (his mother) and Rome in one moment, and shortly afterwards declares his intention to die for the ‘dream that was Rome’ – with seemingly little emotional or logical backing to explain the swift change.

The cast in general though was the film’s strongest asset. Both Connie Nielsen and her character had aged well, and I felt she had more gravitas and purpose in the sequel. Pedro Pascal as the sympathetic general/ go-between was also engaging with his few lines – but his character was so unsatisfyingly written that his warmth and furrowed brow were cruelly wasted. 

The twin emperors, played by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger, were less slimily menacing than Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus – but entertaining nonetheless, and they had Denzel Washington to bulk up the explicit “villainy” a bit more. As Macrinus, he was the stand-out performance for me: he walked a compelling line between power-hungry mad man and charismatic mentor. If, at times, it felt like a reprisal of his role in Training Day, this was in no way a bad thing – and an accidental detail I loved was the way that he would constantly twitch and fidget with his robes. In real Ancient Times, it must have been a logistical nightmare murdering/scheming etc. with such long sleeves.

But even an undoubtedly star-studded, TikTok-approved cast cannot perform in a vacuum: and a plot and screenplay which moves confusingly and unsatisfactorily through story and character will struggle to serve anyone.

I do think too much has been made about how “unrealistic” the shark-infested Coliseum was. The entire plots of both films require a significant suspension of disbelief; a CGI Great White can’t be the final thing that disrupts it. But, although a slight fancifulness of story is in keeping with the original spirit of Gladiator, the rest of the “scaffolding” of the film – the effects, the soundtrack, even the inexplicable image of Tim McInnerny’s senator reading a newspaper –  are just further disappointments.

Far too much energy was expended on the computer-generated baboons that Lucius faces in the arena, and their Planet of the Apes-level screams rivalled Mescal’s own acting at points. The cheesy black-and-white rendering of (presumably) the River Styx and Charon claiming Lucius’ loved ones felt similarly jarring and wrong. The music was a particular let-down, also. Zimmer’s original score is so stirring and literally iconic – and the only vaguely memorable musical moments from Gladiator II were the few times that the original theme was re-worked. Zimmer does steal from Holst’s ‘Mars’ in the first film, so I suppose there is a Gladiatorial tradition of reusing and adapting, but it didn’t happen enough to feel like a deliberate choice, and just came across as artificial, lazy – like homework that had been done the night before.

And, in essence, I think this is the ultimate problem with the film. Like James Cameron with Avatar: The Way of the Water, Ridley Scott seems to have been subsumed by his own success, and has forsaken the integrity of his original. Like an emperor trying to win cheap approval, he has treated his loyal watcher as just part of the mob, to be fobbed off with bread, circuses, CGI sharks – and a sad dilution of an initial masterpiece. 

Even the excellent ticket price at the Gala (a joyously democratic £5) doesn’t make up for what, in this sequel, we have irretrievably, unforgivably lost: strength and honour.

By Emily Hough

Paddington 2 and Paddington in Peru: like asking da Vinci to recreate the Mona Lisa with different paints. 

This past Saturday, I sat down to join my, slightly hungover, housemates in our scheduled navigation on what Netflix has to offer. After a couple of rejected suggestions of horror films, dramas and cheap-looking Christmas films, we paused over Paddington 2. 

“You know, I read somewhere that it’s the highest-rated film on Rotten Tomatoes,” my housemate shared. My other housemates responded in sheer excitement: “It is, quite literally, the best film I’ve ever seen.” This challenge alone had us sold. We pressed play and began watching, what I can confidently say, was one hour and forty-four minutes of complete and utter joy. 

Now, I understand that this may sound dramatic, and for the purpose of making this article readable it is to some extent, but the internet is all in agreement of the filmmaking phenomenon that is Paddington 2. 

In Peter Bradshaw’s The Guardian review, he called the film ‘a tremendously sweet-natured, charming, unassuming and above all funny film with a story that just rattles  along, powered by a nonstop succession of Grade-A gags.’ In fact, the ‘Grade-A gags’ Bradshaw refers to here is what possibly makes screenwriters Paul King, Simon Farnaby and Jon Croker’s creation so brilliant. It was the simple sequence of window cleaning that had us five students in fits of laughter. It’s hard to imagine how a bucket of water and a pulley could create comedic genius, yet it is the simplicity but effectiveness of the slapstick humour in Paddington 2, that gives it such a feel-good feeling.

 The Charlie Chaplin-esque humour alongside Hugh Grant’s convincing performance as a washed-up celebrity, had us ending the film with the disbelief but certainty that this was truly the best film any of us had ever watched. But what about these Paddington films makes them so addictive? How do they leave you with such a warm glow and a sunny perspective on life? 

One of my housemates seemed to offer the answer, stating “I think whoever wrote these films must just be the happiest person alive.” I think her comment pretty much answers these questions for me. So, in the hopes of continuing this winning streak, within 20 minutes of the end credits rolling, we had booked to see Paddington in Peru (the newly released third Paddington film) that next evening in Durham’s finest Gala  Theatre (£5.50 by the way, absolute steal).

With Paddington 2 achieving a 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the film’s successor,  Paddington in Peru, was a hot topic of conversation in the industry in the build-up to its release this month. Critics were waiting in anticipation to watch the newest instalment of  Paddington’s adventures and see whether the trilogy could continue to get even better with every release. As it turns out, so were my four housemates and I as we waltzed into the Gala Theatre’s Cinema at 7.50 pm (a whole TEN minutes early for the adverts, we were that keen) with a bag stuffed full of an array of Tesco’s sweet treats.  

The third and final, for now, Paddington film follows the bear and the Brown family’s adventure to  Peru in search of his missing Aunt Lucy. The film opens strongly with a hilarious scene of  Paddington taking his passport photo, involving his polite responses to the automated speaker message, which sees him taking instructions a bit too literally and ending up in a pile of newspapers in Paddington station. We can see again how the writers are so talented in adding vibrance and humour so easily to mundane experiences we can all relate to. It seems the essence of Paddington’s character is to add light and cheer to parts of life we never thought would need it, like taking a passport photo or doing laundry, although in his case for his fellow prisoners.  

As we follow the Brown crew to Peru, we are introduced to Olivia Coleman’s  delightfully creepy character of Reverend Mother, the woman in charge of the  retirement home for bears that Aunt Lucy has mysteriously disappeared from. Her  opening musical number perfectly exhibits the ridiculous nature of her character, with  her humorously villainous smile giving away her not so inconspicuous identity. 

Ben Whishaw, of course, returns as the voice of Paddington, once again proving he is the one and only man to breathe life into this comical, good-hearted protagonist of the franchise. 

Paddington in Peru does face its challenges though, with a new ‘Mrs Brown’ as Emily Mortimer who takes over from Sally Hawkins in the role. There is also a new  director as Dougal Wilson takes charge, succeeding Paul King who directed Paddington 2. The directorial changes are notable, with reviews that do not shy away from the fact that the humour of Paddington in Peru does not quite match that of  its widely celebrated predecessor. 

Peter Bradshaw returns some seven years later to review Paddington in Peru for The Guardian, in which he comments that ‘just as jolly as the previous two films, but not really as  funny, Paddington in Peru is a sweet-natured and primary-colour family adventure  which takes Paddington Bear back to his South American homeland.’ Bradshaw, amongst other critics, says what the audience is thinking: no, it is not funnier or even as  funny as its previous film. However, that is not to say that it was not a perfectly  enjoyable experience, costing not much more than a pint in The Swan, and I would recommend watching the film to children and adults alike.

There is lots to be learnt from Hugh Bonerville’s loveable portrayal of Mr Brown. In this third instalment we see him adopt the mindset of his new American boss, Mission  Impossible’s new ‘it-girl’ Haley Atwell, and ‘embrace the risk’. Bonerville is a master of  bringing quintessential English humour to any character he touches, and in Paddington in Peru he is no different. His ‘under the breath’ comments brought a chuckle from all in the  cinema, and his fear of spiders is an aspect of his character I can greatly relate to,  although his triumph over it, is not.  

The film wraps up Paddington’s character arc in a neat and tidy bow. Whilst taking the  story out of London causes it to lose some of the humorous interactions with British  culture, it seems necessary to take Paddington beyond the space we typically see him  in and discover where our titular character comes from. 

The end of the film explores that all too important question of where do we belong? As  Paddington grapples with the duality of who he is, the cinema air is tense with  anticipation, broken with a sigh of relief as we see him once again choose London as his  home. The writers make one thing clear: You can take the bear out of London, but you can’t take London out of the bear.

Walking out of the Gala Theatre into the crisp November night, we wondered as a house at what point did we stop watching these ‘kids’ films in the cinema and concluded there comes a time when we  should all revert to these nostalgic stories.  I would urge you to take an evening and to come and fill your boots with the happiness that these types of films offer. After all, these lessons on family, adventure, and discovering things about ourselves may be  aimed at children, but I think we can all be reminded of them from time to time.

By Lydia Firth

At the beginning of this month, I had the absolute pleasure of attending one of Laura Marling’s four nights of residency in Hackney Church. In case you’re not familiar with Marling, she has been a steady presence in the indie folk and singer-songwriter world since the 2000s, releasing her first album ‘Alas, I Cannot Swim’ at the age of just 18 and winning the Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist in 2011. Her classic sound has led her to be compared to the likes of Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez. Having been a fan for a few years, I was excited by the prospect of seeing her in such an intimate and atmospheric venue. 

Marling opened with a fifteen-minute number of four interwoven songs from her 2013 magnum opus ‘Once I Was an Eagle’. She joked we’d passed the endurance test, but really it was no challenge: her intonation is addictively Bob Dylan-esque and she sings lines like ‘I will not be a victim of romance’ as if they’re an incantation, with an admirable acerbity. The crowd were engrossed: to her, singing and playing is entirely instinctive. The first half of the concert was dedicated to her reasonably extensive back catalogue and for the second half she was joined by strings and a choir to perform the entirety of her new album, ‘Patterns in Repeat’, as well as a couple of cult-classics. 

Alongside her quintessential odes to women persecuted or misunderstood, the principal focus of her new album is motherhood. Alluding to Cyril Connolly’s assertion that parenthood and creativity are incompatible, she stated on the album release day that she hoped ‘if nothing else this album serves to represent the possibility that the pram in the hallway is not, as it turns out, the enemy of art’. She is undoubtedly successful at proving Connolly wrong. Almost paradoxically, reflecting her precise use of words, she sings in the title track ‘I want you to know that I gave it up willingly / Nothing real was lost in the bringing of you to me’. Despite this complete candour, the album never borders on saccharine, she retains a dark edge: her artistic integrity and storytelling capacity runs too deep.

From the new album, ‘Caroline’ has quickly become a classic. Reminiscent of Leonard Cohen, it’s haunting and utterly timeless. The ingenious idea of forgotten lyrics (‘A song I only just remember / That goes oh, something something, Caroline’) reflects Marling’s wit, which was delightfully highlighted for me during the gig when a fan shouted out ‘we love you, Laura!’ and she replied, knowingly, ‘good, good’. Her quiet confidence is palpable: even when she sang the wrong lyrics in one song and suffered some technical guitar malfunctions, she resumed the song unfazed, clicking back into an almost ethereal state of absorption which was incredible to watch.

Recorded in her home, the new album features faint baby gurgles and chirping birds, which complement the soaring string sections to tether the album to a strong sense of reality, different from earlier albums of which the narratives are more fantastical and abstract. ‘No one’s gonna love you like I can’ is another standout: a gut-wrenchingly beautiful two-minute song which she performed on the piano. It is perhaps the closest to sickly-sweet she gets, but she retains her usual playful blend of sentimentality and sharpness (‘You were saying something strange just to make me misbehave’). Hearing this song live, it’s apparent that the album is more hopeful, expansive, and forwards-looking than her previous works; the song takes flight with the help of the strings as she sings ‘And if life is just a dream / I’m gonna make it mean something worth a damn’. 

With no opening act nor encore, something Marling fans have come not to expect, she closed the show with the song ‘For You’, from her 2020 album ‘A Song for Our Daughter’. Released three years before having her daughter, she now refers to the album interchangeably as ‘Premonition’. The tone aligns with that of the new album as she sings ‘I thank a God I’ve never met / Never loved, never wanted (For you)’. A fusion of her innate scepticism and her joy at becoming a mother, with a lilting rhythm, it rounded up the concert charmingly. She waved quickly at the audience, unslung her guitar, and headed off-stage, embodying her understated and underrated genius.