6 h. ago This Bitter Earth at Soho Theatre review: Billy Porter makes an assured directing debut

This tale of an interracial couple in America is a fresh and illuminating take on recent social and political history that’s already being rewritten elsewhere

Politics

48 h. ago Photos: Billy Porter Makes London Directorial Debut With This Bitter Earth

Photos: Billy Porter Makes London Directorial Debut With This Bitter Earth  Playbill

Culture

4 d. ago 'All time favourite' war film with 'greatest actor' now streaming for free on ITV

Henry V was written and directed by Kenneth Branagh in his feature directorial debut

Culture

5 d. ago ‘What are you trying to incite?’ Billy Porter asks thorny questions with This Bitter Earth

The Cabaret and Pose star is making his UK directorial debut with Harrison David Rivers’ play about love and activism. We join rehearsals with Omari Douglas and Alexander LincolnWhen Billy Porter talks, people listen. They have no choice. The actor, fresh from a stint as Emcee in the London run of Cabaret, and about to reprise the role on Broadway, speaks in a poised, purposeful, regal fashion. Each word is selected with care and weighed in his hand as if it were an avocado in the fruit and veg aisle, the gaps between words so lengthy that it isn’t always clear when he has finished speaking. Seated around the table in the south London studio where Porter is overseeing rehearsals for This Bitter Earth, which marks his UK directorial debut, are the playwright Harrison David Rivers and the actors Omari Douglas (It’s a Sin) and Alexander Lincoln (Emmerdale). Everyone maintains an attentive silence while Porter is speaking, until there can be no doubt that he has completed his thought.“T...

Politics

1 week ago Stormzy takes on Hollywood with Merky films and teams with Oscar winner

South London rapper launches #Merky films to champion new talent and lands his lead role debut in a short film by an Oscar winning director. The film is shot entirely on an Apple Iphone.

Events

2 w. ago Even Elysium’s director thinks his film is a mess – but a decade on, it deserves a second chance

Matt Damon runs around the US in 2154, when civil liberties are eroded, healthcare is for the rich and wealth inequality is soaring. But its sci-fi!Get our weekend culture and lifestyle emailWhen director Neill Blomkamp followed up his acclaimed debut feature, District 9, with the cyberpunk dystopia Elysium in 2013, it was met with a resoundingly mediocre reception. It’s a movie that even Blomkamp has disavowed. “I fucked it up,” he said bluntly in a 2015 interview. But I think he’s too hard on himself: a decade on, Elysium might be worthy of re-appraisal.In 2154, Earth is an overpopulated, polluted dust bowl. The wealthy elite live on the luxurious space station Elysium, where they have access to advanced medical technology and other essentials denied to the surface population. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago London Clown Festival returns to Jacksons Lane and Soho Theatre this summer

London Clown Festival returns to Jacksons Lane and Soho Theatre this summer  Islington Gazette

Culture

3 w. ago John Early: The Album Tour review – a rich slice of larky self

Soho theatre, LondonChatty waiters, visiting the loo in company and overinvesting in sexual role-play are uproariously discussed alongside covers of Madonna, Britney and Dolly PartonFor fans of a certain brand of comedy – the comedy that exposes self-fashioning in the age of social media as ridiculous performance – this flying UK visit by John Early has been keenly anticipated. The outre star of millennial self-satire Search Party and sidekick to the brilliant Kate Berlant, Early has spent his career perfectly situated where generational social commentary meets flamboyant silliness. At his best tonight, he richly delivers on the expectation. And even if his best doesn’t sustain from start to finish, in the first half, when the Tennessee man addresses himself to frightened, vacuous, deracinated American modernity, he’s riveting.What’s interesting about Early’s approach is that – unlike Berlant, Leo Reich, and others – he doesn’t hide behind a character, or a grotesque version of hims...

Politics

3 w. ago Letitia Wright's directorial debut will show the devastating toll of knife crime

Black Panther actress Letitia Wright's directorial debut is a "love letter" to young Black men in response to the knife crime crisis in London and her personal experiences and loss

Events

4 w. ago Bring Her Back review – Talk to Me directors return with a film you’ll watch from between your fingers

Sally Hawkins is intensely disturbing as the foster parent from hell, with Jonah Wren Phillips playing a creepy kid for the ages in the Philippou brothers’ new horrorAustralian horror film-makers have spectacularly overdelivered in the last few years, conjuring various nerve-shredding bangers including Late Night with the Devil, You Won’t Be Alone, You’ll Never Find Me, Sissy, Leigh Whannell’s underrated Wolf Man reboot and Talk to Me. The latter – which revolves around thrill-seeking teenagers who converse with spirits instead of taking recreational drugs (kids these days!) – marked the fiendishly good debut of Adelaide-born directors Danny and Michael Philippou.They’re back – or baaa-ack! – with another serving of macabre bravado pulled from the black cauldron. Bring Her Back is lighter on thrills and spills for the midnight movie and heavy with thick, abject horror and despair, featuring an intensely disturbing performance from Sally Hawkins as a foster mother from hell. She play...

Politics