Tony Bevan at Ben Brown Fine Arts: The tree of life, death and the mind November 23, 2014 Painter Tony Bevan speaks ahead of his show at Ben Brown Fine Arts. Tony Bevan established a name for himself with blood-coloured self-portraits that snarled and gurned and twisted into the white of the canvas. Meeting him today, you’d be forgiven for asking, where are the devilish flared nostrils, the vast egg cranium [...]
Next generation: top five British painters to watch November 23, 2014 Gillian Carnegie With her black and white paintings of cats, bottoms, stairs and flowers, Camberwell graduate Gillian Carnegie turns hum-drum domesticity into scenes of elegiac beauty. Catherine Storey Conceptual painter Catherine Storey contrives connections between hollywood and the artistic movements of the twentieth century with abstracted paintings of early film equipment. Dexter Dalwood Dexter Dalwood [...]
Photography review: World Press Photo 2014 November 21, 2014 Royal Festival Hall | ★★★★☆ The World Press Photograph of the Year has been running since 1955, with the numbers of entries increasing steadily. For this year’s competition a record-breaking 5,754 photographers from 132 countries submitted 98,671 pictures, with subjects ranging from the Boston Marathon bombing to the collapse of the Rana Plaza in [...]
Theatre review: Behind the Beautiful Forevers November 21, 2014 Olivier Theatre | ★★★☆☆ The dirtiest thing in the Annawadi slum is the language. Above the din of arriving and departing planes (Annawadi is located right next to Mumbai airport) millions of slum-dwellers bicker, joke and philosophise in words as colourful as the advertising hoardings above their heads. American author Katherine Boo depicted [...]
Film review: Get On Up November 21, 2014 Cert 12a | ★★★☆☆ Many films don’t feature a single scene in which two female characters talk about something other than a man. I’m not sure this film features a single scene in which any two characters talk about something other than James Brown. Like many biopics, Get On Up subscribes to [...]
Film review: The Homesman November 21, 2014 Cert 15 | ★★★☆☆ Many an American fictional character has dreamed a dream of loading up the wagon and heading way out west to roll the dice on the frontier. It says much of The Homesman’s contrarian spirit that it does the reverse. In his second directorial outing, Tommy Lee Jones trudges backwards [...]
Film review: The Hunger Games – Mockingjay Part I November 20, 2014 Cert 12a | ★★★☆☆ So what happens now The Hunger Games are over? The previous two instalments of the franchise revolved around these Battle Royale-style tournaments, in which two “tributes” from each district of dystopia Panem fought to the death in a grisly reality TV show devised by a fascist regime as a pretty [...]
Something for the weekend November 20, 2014 For a festive treat: winter wonderland Ice rink? Check. Fun fair? Check. 200 fairy-lit Bavarian wooden chalets? Check. Winter Wonderland, London’s most extravagantly christmassy spectacle, returns to Hyde Park today. Open every day from 10am-10pm. For a Christmas ride: Tally ho! cycle tour Tally Ho! have organised a cycle ride around all London’s best Christmas [...]
Christmas in London: Start planning your festive season November 20, 2014 As usual, London will be buzzing over the Christmas period. Here’s our selection of the best seasonal activities Swedish Christmas at Fika Head to Brick Lane for a Christmas dinner with a Scandinavian difference. Swedish bar and kitchen Fika is offering a traditional Scandi Christmas dinner from 1-23 December. The small, independent restaurant [...]
Graciano: An obscure but memorable wine from Rioja and Navarra November 18, 2014 It’s not often I come across a completely new wine these days. But that’s what happened when I was wandering through the vineyards of Rioja a few weeks ago at harvest time. Intriguingly, it is a wine made from a grape variety that has been around for more than a century. The grape varietal [...]