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TV Review: Black Earth Rising

A cast led by Michaela Coel, Noma Dumezweni, John Goodman and Lucian Msamati make Hugo Blick’s complex Black Earth Rising watchable if not quite essential

“That is why I made a deal like that”

A tricky one this. At this point, you know what you’re getting with a Hugo Blick drama (qv The Shadow Line, The Honorable Woman), weighty complex dramas with amazing casts tackling inscrutable global conspiracies. And Black Earth Rising is no different, as it puts the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath under the microscope, examining Western colonial and capitalist attitudes towards Africa along with the role of the Iinternational Criminal Court.

And with a cast led by Michaela Coel, Noma Dumezweni, Harriet Walter, John Goodman and Lucian Msamati to name just a few, it is naturally eminently watchable. Coel plays Kate Ashby, a young woman with a complicated relationship with her barrister mother Eve (Walter). Eve adopted Kate from Rwanda years back but her decision to take on a case prosecuting a Tutsi general who, after helping end the genocide, went on to commit war crimes in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, outrages Kate who is also Tutsi.
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Film review: Making Noise Quietly (2019)

Despite an excellent cast, Robert Holman’s Making Noise Quietly gains little in this transfer to the big screen

“I think you’re being very hard on him”

Being asked to review things is always a privilege but when the matter at hand is based on a play I found interminably dull, it can be a tricky business. Directed by Dominic Dromgoole, Making Noise Quietly is based on an elliptical triptych of short plays by Robert Holman, all centred on the human effects of war.

From 1944 to 1982 and then on again to 1996, the film examines how the shellshock of major conflict can reverberate all the way back to the home front, and the varying routes it can take. From conscientous objectors to death in service to inescapable cycles of abusive and violence, the scope is huge. Continue reading “Film review: Making Noise Quietly (2019)”

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Film news: trailer for Making Noise Quietly released

Ahead of the film’s release on 19th July, a new trailer has been released for Making Noise Quietly

“Not with those muddy boots on”

Since his decade at the helm of Shakespeare’s Globe, Dominic Dromgoole has turned his hand to Oscar Wilde seasons with his new theatre company Classic Spring and has also set up the film company Open Palm Films – no resting on his laurels here. Not only that, but he’s also now making his directorial feature film debut with an adaptation of Robert Holman’s Making Noise Quietly. Continue reading “Film news: trailer for Making Noise Quietly released”

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TV Review: Harlots Series 1

The best TV show you haven’t heard about? Harlots just might be it!

“When the time comes, I hope your quim splits”

I suppose that it is good that we have so many more options for good television to be made these days. The flipside to that is that it can be harder to keep track of it all. Harlots is fricking fantastic, a hugely enjoyable and high quality drama but airing on ITV Encore (and Hulu in the US),  it has languished in the doldrums of the unfairly unheralded.

A glance at the castlist shows you how much of a waste this is. Samantha Morton and Lesley Manville at the head, Jessica Brown Findlay, Hugh Skinner and Dorothy Atkinson among the supporting, Fenella Woolgar, Danny Sapani and Kate Fleetwood popping up now and again too. This is luxury stuff and yet criminally few know about it. Continue reading “TV Review: Harlots Series 1”

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The Complete Walk, from the comfort of your sofa #3

“A lot of fighting ensues”

The Globe’s Complete Walk is being released in dribs and drabs for all to see and given the helter-skelter busy-ness of a blogger’s life, it’s actually working out quite well in working my way through them slowly. Click on the links for the first lot and the second lot for read about them and head below for 

Dominic Dromgoole is one of the directors lucky enough to secure the same actor for his film as for the stage versions of the play – Jamie Parker took on Henry V to great acclaim in 2012, clips of which we see here, but there’s a special thrill in seeing him on the fields of Agincourt, chatting incognito with Joel MacCormack’s sceptical soldier. And the final shot, showing Agincourt for what it is today is subtly but beautifully done.


Henry VI Part 1

Taking in clips from the 2012 touring version from the Globe and the adaptation from National Theatre Belgrade, Henry VI Part 1 is served well here. But it’s Olivia Ross’ Joan of Arc speaking from the splendour of the Château de Loches in the Loire Valley that truly stirs the soul, especially once it moves into spectral strangeness.


Going for a kind of London gangster film feel, Nick Bagnall puts Henry VI Part 2’s civil unrest in the heart of Spitalfields Market as Neil Maskell’s Jack Cade – Rebel and Dean Nolan’s Dick the Butcher – Nutcase butt heads viscerally, contrasted with the Globe’s touring show’s more restrained take on its momentous events.


Trapped in the unforgiving gloom of the Yorkshire moors, Towton Battlefield to be precise, Alex Waldmann’s Henry VI witnesses the moving lamentations of David and Tom Burke’s Father and Son as the civil war comes to a bloody climax. For me though, I could have done with more of the Macedonian version of Henry VI Part 3 which looked, and sounded, stunning, representing the Globe to Globe Festival.

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TV Review: The Sound of Music Live

“It’s quite different after you’ve grown up”

The hills are alive, with the sound of questions. Like, why. The UK’s first fully live musical theatre television broadcast saw ITV produce Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music though the result was a curious experiment that fell uneasily between two stools. Lacking the crucial energy that propels the best live theatre (which comes from an audience too), the production values (though often impressive) naturally fell short of the opportunities of filmed work

Which ultimately begs the question, what’s the point. Is the UK hankering for a new production of the show? It’s hardly as if we’re lacking for productions popping up regularly in theatres across the land. Is it showcasing the best of British musical theatre talent? In that case why cast someone like Strictly winner and former Eastender Kara Tointon as Maria and shunt the likes of Julie Atherton (one of the most outstanding performers we have, bar none) into the nun ensemble. Continue reading “TV Review: The Sound of Music Live”

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Review: The Oresteia, Shakespeare’s Globe

“Why must we go over and over the woes of the past?”

There’s something a little unfortunate about labelling your version of Aeschylus’ The Oresteia as “a radical reinvention” when Robert Icke’s extraordinary reinterpretation of the same source material for the Almeida has now successfully transferred to the West End. Nevertheless, Rory Mullarkey’s adaptation for Shakespeare’s Globe also emerges as something rather arresting, not least in director Adele Thomas’ canny use of creatives pushing well outside the visual (and aural) aesthetic normally associated with this venue.

Hannah Clark’s design pulls on a wide range of influences to provide a wealth of striking images – niche cinema like Angelopolous’ The Travelling Players (the almost shifty looking Chorus) and Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain (Clytemnestra’s magnificent posturing) mix with contemporary security uniforms (the opening messenger) and traditional Greek costumery as we know it (Agamemnon’s battle-dress). Along with Mira Calix’s diverse (including electronics) score, it’s an eclectic mix to be sure but one that pays off to create an out-of-time strangeness which really suits the production.

Mullarkey’s textual adaptation is also an unwieldly collation of disparate elements, poetic rhythm slips into modern-day colloquialisms, epic speeches slides into operatic sung passages. The shifts may be a little jarring at times but again the cumulative effect is rather impressive. The three acts follow the woes of the House of Atreus – Agamemnon sees the war veteran suffer at the vengeful hands of his wife Clytemnestra for sacrificing their daughter, The Libation Bearers sees her suffer at the hands of her son for killing his dad and The Eumenides pops him on trial and established trial by jury, as you do.

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Review: Measure for Measure, Shakespeare’s Globe

“Which is the wiser here, Justice or Iniquity?”

You don’t get many Measure for Measures for the pound, in the grand scheme, so Outgoing Artistic Director Dominic Dromgoole probably thought he was onto a winner in choosing it to be part of his final summer season and indeed the last play he’ll direct as AD. But these things come in threes and we’ve been blessed with two other major productions – Cheek by Jowl’s Russian-language version shook the rafters of the Barbican earlier this year and Joe Hill-Gibbons promises to do the same at the Young Vic with Romola Garai in the Autumn.

But no matter, we can be assured of diverse interpretations – for the first two at least – and Dromgoole’s version for the Globe does precisely what he does best, unfussily traditional productions blessed with a striking clarity (best evidenced by his superlative 2013 A Midsummer Night’s Dream). Here, we get to see Mariah Gale, one of our finest young Shakespeareans, deliver a stunning account of one of Shakespeare’s more complex female characters in Isabella and we also bear witness to Dominic Rowan ascending to the leading man status (with which he has arguably merely flirted before) as Vincentio. Continue reading “Review: Measure for Measure, Shakespeare’s Globe”

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Review: Henry V, Shakespeare’s Globe

“Must I bite?”

Marking the final entry in the Globe to Globe festival is the UK with this production of Henry V which reunites Jamie Parker with the role of Prince Hal that he played in 2010’s Henry IV Part I and II. The boy has now become king and the play covers his attempt to reconquer the English gains in France, most notably at the battle of Agincourt, and his growth into a leader who can inspire men to follow their duty to their country. Parker clearly has a close affinity to this character and it was a clever move to wait a couple of years before taking on this particular part as he is able to bring even more clear-spoken gravitas, colour and detail to this very human king.

Around him though, is a production by Dominic Dromgoole which errs very strongly towards the broadest crowd-pleasing comedy it can manage. Bríd Brennan’s beautifully versed Chorus and Olivia Ross’ poised Princess Katherine impressed as did the multi-part antics of Chris Starkie and Beruce Khan (additionally stepping in as understudy for an indisposed Matthew Flynn). But too often, the overreliance on the comic tone just fell flat for me. The Pistol, Bardolph et al antics were as bawdy as they have ever been, which ended up undermining their darker side (is the treatment of the French soldier really a subject of comedy?) and the tragedy of their fates (Boy is particularly hard done by). Continue reading “Review: Henry V, Shakespeare’s Globe”

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Review: Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare on 3

“What should it be that they so shriek abroad”

After Twelfth Night, the Shakespeare on 3 radio season continues with Romeo and Juliet with the same company, plus a few additions, taking on the Bard’s work again. Whereas there’s a nice sense of continuity about it, it’s an odd choice as there’s another play, The Tempest, to complete the season which uses a different cast. And it is also a slightly difficult choice in the limitations it imposes on the casting, although this may just be a personal thing as it took a long time for me accept the idea of Trystan Gravelle, an actor I really like, as the teenage Romeo.

His voice is so melodiously identifiable that I completely failed at convincing myself I was listening to Romeo rather than Gravelle, and even if you’re not familiar with him, I’m pretty sure he just sounds too old and experienced for the role. Paired with Vanessa Kirby as Juliet, whose voice I struggled to warm to in Twelfth Night, it made for an ignominious beginning despite the evocative sound design of the piece. But something eventually clicked after about an hour, whether it was my preconception finally dying down or the production finding another gear or some combination of both, and from their post-coital glow of tenderness I completely bought into them as a couple. Continue reading “Review: Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare on 3”