Barney Conroy is the literary Frank Spencer of our time. For those too young to remember the classic British sitcom Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, Frank Spencer was the hapless but well-meaning protagonist who despite his best intentions, and there was no doubting the goodness of his heart, always Continue Reading
Tease me with trailers! Grace & Frankie, Silicon Valley, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt debut new season promos
Ah, the magnetic lure of new seasons of our favourite TV shows! Is there anything better than being given a view, however fleeting, of what lies in store for characters we have to come to know and love? Sure we want all the episodes at once, yesterday even, but that’s Continue Reading
Movie review: Family Commitments #MGFF17
“Oh! What A Tangled Web We Weave When First We Practice To Deceive” Those immortal words by Sir Walter Scott in his poem “Marmion” are full of portentous implications if your neck deep in a drama of Shakespearian proportions; but if you’re in a high farce Germany comedy about Continue Reading
My Life as a Zucchini – the imaginatively bittersweet world of one captivating boy
“There’s nobody left to love us.” That haunting phrase, uttered by one of the young children at the orphanage which acts as the sitting for My Life as a Zucchini, which is up for a Best Animated Feature Academy Award at this year’s Oscars along with Zootopia and Moana, Continue Reading
Colony: “Company Man” / “Fallout” (S2, E5 & E6 review)
No one ever said having aliens surreptitiously invade Earth under the guise of a secretive coterie of powerful collaborating human overseers would be easy. Actually to be fair no one said that at all, but in “Company Man” and “Fallout” we witness the complexities of life under the Raps, the Continue Reading
Haven’t had a chance to watch all the Oscar-nominated films? No problem
It’s almost time for the 89th Academy Awards! Now while many people are merrily making well-considered predictions about who will be clutching a golden statue on the big night and which movie will arise triumphant, I am choosing to once again Switzerland myself out of all the whole process. Continue Reading
Book review: Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
Depending on which side of the aging fence you stand, there is one of two axioms that will guide your approach to life. The first, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” presupposes that you reach a certain point in life after which all new experiences and skills Continue Reading
Little girls everywhere she turns: Miranda Hart to play Miss Harrigan in Annie
Is there anything that Miranda Hart, star of her eponymous sitcom, budding Hollywood star (Spy), author extraordinaire and lover of the word “moist”, cannot do? I say no – she is simply too much “such fun” to not be absolutely brilliantly, fabulously, hilariously jolly good and far too versatile. Continue Reading
Movie review: Moonlight
There is a point towards the end of Moonlight, an achingly poignant examination of identity, loss and love, that you realise how much damage can be done to one person’s sense of self by the thoughtless words and ill-thought-out deeds of those closest to them. Chiron (Travant Rhodes as Continue Reading
Daffy Duck finds his Gangsta’s Paradise in this marvellous mashup
In the unexpected cartoon/musical marriages made in mash-up heaven, may we introduce you to the joining together of Daffy Duck in all his gloriously hilarious cantankerousness with Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise”, which you’ll recall was the standout song on the soundtrack for 1995’s Dangerous Minds film. This impressive mash-up is Continue Reading