3 d. ago MindsEye review – a dystopian future that plays like it’s from 2012

PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox; Build a Robot Boy/IO InteractiveA lot of work and ambition have gone into this strange, sometimes likable cover-shooter throwbackThere’s a Sphere-alike in Redrock, MindsEye’s open-world version of Las Vegas. It’s pretty much a straight copy of the original: a huge soap bubble, half sunk into the desert floor, with its surface turned into a gigantic TV. Occasionally you’ll pull up near the Sphere while driving an electric vehicle made by Silva, the megacorp that controls this world. You’ll sometimes come to a stop just as an advert for an identical Silva EV plays out on the huge curved screen overhead. The doubling effect can be slightly vertigo-inducing.At these moments, I truly get what MindsEye is trying to do. You’re stuck in the ultimate company town, where oligarchs and other crooks run everything, and there’s no hope of escaping the ecosystem they’ve built. MindsEye gets this all across through a chance encounter, and in a way that’s both light of touc...

Politics

5 d. ago Magdalena, Woman of Joy review – sex, sin and saintliness with a tour de force host

Playhouse East, LondonLily Sinko rages, writhes, provokes and teases her way through the horrifying life story of her storyteller with cartoonish abandonMagdalena appears from the dark, perched on a bar stool, cigarettes and liquor by her side, an array of hanging lamps casting a sultry glow. Her first words set the tone – “You want to fuck me,” she says – and lead us into an uncompromising introduction, littered with sex, violence and sideways jokes.She is the creation of French-English actor and writer Lily Sinko, and as her character’s name suggests, we’re hurled through a life of saintliness and sin, despair and redemption, as Magdalena does the best with the hand she’s dealt. We travel to her childhood in Marseille with a hostile “Papa”, an airport abduction that sees her deposited at the Virgin Mary School for Bad Bad Girls (Cash Only), and a wild escape through the streets of France, finding fleeting refuge in a cathedral.At Playhouse East, London, until 28 June Continue read...

Politics

6 d. ago Mario Kart World review – a riotous road trip for every player

Nintendo Switch 2; NintendoThe Nintendo Switch 2’s flagship game is a winner, and often feels more like a journey with your friends than a straight competitionI realised that we might have a Mario Kart World problem in our house when my sons ran up to me after our first few hours with the game, proudly showing off circular indentations on their little thumbs from holding down the accelerator button so hard. Mildly alarmed, I examined my own thumb to find the same evidence of getting over-absorbed in the knockabout, chaotic fun of our tournaments. You can play Mario Kart online now – even with video chat, in World – but it’s just not the same as playing with people on the couch next to you. I imagine this game will revive living-room multiplayer for millions of families.God only knows how many hours I have spent racing Mario and his pals around their cartoon wonderland circuits since 1992 – this series has accompanied me through my entire life, the reliable mainstay that everyone wan...

Sport

6 d. ago Toyota Urban Cruiser prototype review: Toyota is still playing catch

We get an early drive in Toyota’s second EV, a small SUV rival for the Renault 4, Kia EV3, Volvo EX30 that promises some off-road prowess

Politics

7 d. ago Yoshitomo Nara review: cutesy terrors swear, smoke, play guitar and burn down houses

Hayward Gallery, LondonThe Japanese artist’s instantly recognisable delinquent infants fill a huge show that also includes more sombre – and still angry – work made since the Fukushima disasterThere’s a video online of 100 kids playing football against three adult pros. The kids get absolutely annihilated. But they’d do a whole lot better if they were more like the menacing, knife-wielding little terrors who populate Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara’s world. Try dribbling past a toddler when he’s just jabbed a shiv in your calf, Lionel Messi.For 40 years now Nara has been dealing in cutesy kitsch with a vicious edge. His paintings and drawings of adorably bug-eyed little nippers are singularly Nara: love it or hate it, he’s carved out his own instantly recognisable aesthetic path. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Review: I went to see Stranger Things actor play his TikTok megahit ... now I understand what the fuss was all about

It's easy to be cynical about an actor turned singer. But Djo is the real deal.

Events

2 w. ago Viva Vitinha: how PSG’s deep conductor proved Lionel Messi wrong | Barney Ronay

Midfield fulcrum was not rated by the Argentinian maestro or Wolves but was central to Champions League triumph“Not only are you bad, but you’re hurting me.” The words, there, or so it was claimed, of Lionel Messi; and however you spin it, a fairly tough six-month performance review from the greatest player of all time and your own footballing idol.Back in February 2023 Vitinha was very quick to deny that any such training ground altercation had taken place between himself and Messi, whatever the reports in the French football press at the time (another version of that conversation has Messi saying: “Do you see? This is why you’re shit.”). Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Elephant at Menier Chocolate Factory review: Anoushka Lucas' play still captivates and provokes

Lucas is a soulful and magnetic interpreter of her own and others’ writing

Politics

2 w. ago The Frogs at Southwark Playhouse review: bursting with unfulfilled promise

Stephen Sondheim’s weirdest show gets its moment in the spotlight

Events

2 w. ago Monster Train 2 review: Hell will freeze over before we're done playing

Monster Train 2 is a superlative sequel that takes everything that made the first game great and amps it up with smart new systems and even more replayability - here are our thoughts

Politics

2 w. ago Autumn review – amazing landscape plays central role in Portuguese wine

Set in the Douro valley, Antonio Sequeira’s softly drawn portrait of a family in flux never quite ferments to anything more than a light tipple about the passing of timeThis wistful Portuguese film is a pointillist portrait of a nuclear family over the course of an eventful year; it has plenty of earthy flavour, perhaps like the wine the paterfamilias of the story, Otávio (Miguel Frazão), produces on his small plot in hills above the Douro river. In oenological terms, you can really taste the terroir – the land on which it’s made – with notes of nostalgia and melancholy and a tangy, slightly humorous spice. But there’s also maybe a touch too much sweetness in the blend, given writer and director Antonio Sequeira’s script occasionally slips into a tannic, sentimental theatricality. If it weren’t for the fact that the stunning landscape plays such an integral part in the film’s atmosphere you’d assume that this must have started as a stage play given the tidy scene breaks, dividing th...

Politics

3 w. ago Supergrass at the Roundhouse review: a playful, energetic trip down memory lane

The band reunited to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their hit record of I Should Coco - which they did in style

Politics

3 w. ago Pierre Boulez: Éclat/Multiples album review – two of his most significant works are played with fabulous precision

Collegium Novum Zürich/Ensemble Contrechamps/Wendeberg(Bastille Musique)In the composer’s centenary year, this disc showcases two of his most substantial worksAlmost all the major works from the second half of Pierre Boulez’s composing career developed in the same way: their starting point is a small-scale ensemble or solo piece that served as the kernel for the much expanded and elaborated later score. That was the process that led to the final versions of works such as Mémoriale, Anthèmes and explosante-fixe , and to the pair of substantial pieces that are played with fabulous precision and incisiveness on this disc.Éclat/Multiples, completed in 1981, began life in 1965 as Éclat, a kit-like eight-minute exploration of the sound world Boulez had first created for the central movements of his masterpiece Pli selon Pli, and which he then expanded to a work for 25 instruments. For Sur Incises, which grew by stages through the mid 1990s, the starting point was a solo-piano piece, Incis...

Economics

3 w. ago The Rocky Horror Show review: Jason Donovan deals with malfunction like a true pro in flawless show

Review: The Rocky Horror Show was being played at

Economics