Mini Reviews

Jeffrey Holland plays an aging Stan Laurel, talking to his friend and long time partner Oliver Hardy in an imagined visit to the latter’s sick bed. We don’t see or hear from the stroke victim Hardy; he is represented by an empty bed frame.

This is a touching and sad piece as the two men are at the end of their long careers: Hardy critically ill and Laurel looking back on their careers and lives with some pride and some regrets. Yet the play also celebrates through Laurel’s recollections the 100+ films these pals and comedy partners made. We learn that Laurel, despite playing the dumb one on film, was the brains behind the duo: writing many of the gags and scripts, directing and producing.

It is a credit to the script and Jeffrey Holland’s acting that a one man performance with a chair and a bed frame for props kept the audience totally engaged.

A lovely piece that deserves more outings.

Janet Murray. An obituary for my friend and tutor

An obituary of the journalist and lecturer Janet (Jan) Murray who dies at the Marie Curie Hospice in London on the 1st of July 2016

Review: The Trouble with Scott Capurro at The Bill Murray @CamdenFringe

“They’re just jokes – I’m not even gay!”

Scott Capurro greets “all my imaginary friends in the front row” as he skips onstage at The Bill Murray. The front row is conspicuously empty – who after all would be so foolish as to sit there? But there’s no escape later in the set when he begins to interact with members of the audience. Before long a man who came out at the age of 30 is describing…

Committee a Musical at the Donmar Theatre

Committee A Musical is the Donmar’s new play based on a Parliamentary Inquiry into the high profile childrens charity Kids Company. 

Theatre review: The Collaboration

Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn fetched £158 million in May at Christie’s New York to become the most expensive 20th century artwork sold at auction, overtaking Jean Michel Basquiat’s Untitled which sold for £90 million in 2017. In fact Warhol and Basquiat knew each other and they even worked together. The artists were introduced by art dealer Bruno Bischofberger who persuaded them…

Book review: Golden Hill by Francis Spufford

Pacey and fizzily plotted, Francis Spufford’s Golden Hill is a breathless romp of a novel. The year is 1746, and Mr Smith, a glib tongued and amiable English charmer, is newly pitched up in Manhattan with an order for one thousand pounds in his pocket.

The Power of the Still Image: Inspiration for Photo series during Covid-19 Pandemic

Four award-winning photographers who each chose to document the Covid-19 Pandemic and the ensuing lockdown discussed their work at an online event hosted by the Frontline Club on 4 February 2021. The photographs reveal their individual styles but they all share the same aspiration: to use their pictures to build empathy.

Julia Fullerton-Batten

Julia Fullerton-Batten’s…