Theatre review: The Motherf***er With the Hat is a wickedly comic, foul-mouthed romp that packs a sentimental punch June 25, 2015 Lyttelton Theatre | ★★★★★ The Motherf***er With the Hat is where you might end up if you commissioned Quentin Tarantino to write an episode of Eastenders. The plot makes the play sound like a far grimmer affair than it really is. Recovering alcoholic Jackie has just been released from prison for drug dealing. [...]
Film review: Clouds of Sils Maria May 15, 2015 Cert 12a | ★☆☆☆☆ Clouds of Sils Maria takes the acting profession so seriously the entire script could be printed off and submitted to Private Eye’s Luvvies column. Juliette Binoche plays a fading Hollywood star, Kristen Stewart her assistant, and together they hit every cliché short of air-kissing and telling each other they’re marvelous. [...]
London Capital Group churns 75pc of staff and moves Charles-Henri Sabet to CEO role as losses deepen March 25, 2015 Troubled trading firm London Capital Group replaced 75 per cent of its staff last year, and yesterday announced its executive chairman Charles-Henri Sabet has been appointed as chief executive. The firm made a statutory pre-tax loss of £7.8m for 2014, more than twice the £3.7m loss made in 2013. Its revenues from continuing operations fell [...]
Al Murray vs Nigel Farage: Pub Landlord’s FUKP takes on Ukip in old South Thanet January 14, 2015 The fight for the South Thanet seat in the next general election is turning out to be a battle of the beer swiggers, featuring two pub landlords and one ale loving MEP. David Cameron’s distant cousin-cum-comedian Al Murray, aka the Pub Landlord, threw his lager into the ring yesterday. He joins Ukip’s Nigel Farage and, [...]
Film review: The Rewrite October 10, 2014 ★★★☆☆ The Rewrite opens with Hugh Grant playing a charming yet socially inept Englishman abroad, trying to pitch script ideas to film studios. He’s not having much luck because his character Keith Michaels hasn’t written a hit since his Oscar-winning debut Paradise Misplaced. Depressed and nearing bankruptcy, he takes up a creative writing professorship in [...]
Mark Carney’s marathon metaphor moment: Sports back but it’s just not cricket July 23, 2014 We’ve learnt over the past year, in a similar vein to his predecessor, Mark Carney doesn’t need a sporting event to make a sporting reference in his official orations. But yesterday the Bank of England governor had more reason than any other time – as he spoke in Glasgow at the start of the Commonwealth [...]
FCA sets out terms for probe into bungled insurance probe April 8, 2014 It's all getting a bit meta at the Financial Conduct Authority. The regulator has set out its Term of Reference, for a probe into itself, after a briefing to The Telegraph saw billions wiped off the shares of insurers, just over a week ago. Investors were panicked by reports that a probe into the sector [...]
Glaxo drug cleared in the US November 25, 2013 BRITISH pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline got a boost last night as US health regulators said they would lift restrictions on the use of its once widely used diabetes drug Avandia after determining that it did not increase the risk of heart attacks. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), following its review of a large clinical trial [...]
Brilliant performance art poorly presented September 26, 2013 ART ANA MENDIETA: TRACES Hayward Gallery | By Joseph Funnell Three Stars I REMEMBER the first time I saw a work by Ana Mendieta. It was a film of the performance Chicken Piece, where the artist stood naked holding a recently decapitated chicken that violently flapped as life drained from its wings. It was shocking. [...]
Meta doesn’t mean better December 6, 2012 FILM SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS Cert 18 | by Alex Dymoke ** Writing a film about writers’ block is sort of confessing you can’t think of anything to say. But writing isn’t only blocked by a lack of ideas. Blockages can also be caused by too many. The latter is a problem for Seven Psychopaths, the smart [...]