The Mandalorian Season 2, Episode 8 – S2E8 finale is pure Star Wars brilliance December 18, 2020 *** SPOILERS AHEAD: If you haven’t watched the most recent episodes of The Mandalorian Season 2, look away now*** So here we are at the end of season two, with The Mandalorian having been largely successful in its second season efforts. The show has managed to raise the stakes while not losing the episodic nature [...]
How Cyberpunk, the generation’s most hyped game, turned into its biggest disaster December 18, 2020 The Witcher 3, released in 2015, is rarely far from the upper echelons of “Best Game Ever” lists. Developed by Polish studio CD Projekt Red, it was a sprawling, hugely ambitious RPG that refused to offer players a neat solution to its deftly written quests. In its squalid, low-fantasy world, sparing the life of some [...]
Bushmills’ Causeway Collection is the perfect Christmas dram December 15, 2020 Bushmills has the largest collection of single malt whiskey on the island of Ireland. From its 400,000 or so barrels, Master Blender Helen Mulholland has been carefully monitoring the development of select casks to create their new Causeway Collection. Helen began working at the Bushmills distillery as an intern in the early 1990s, and during [...]
‘I just feel like crying’ – chefs react to ‘cruel’ Tier 3 restrictions December 14, 2020 London restaurateurs and chefs reacted with frustration and despair at the “cruel” news London will enter Tier 3, a period of virtual lockdown that will see bars and restaurants closed until the new year. Unlike the first lockdown, Tier 3 allows non-essential shops to remain open, adding to criticism from the hospitality sector that it [...]
Catch The Dumb Waiter at Hampstead Theatre while you can December 12, 2020 Pinter, the greatest of modern playwrights, is probably best known for his love of a good pause. Well there have been plenty of those involved in this production of one of his most brilliant works, The Dumb Waiter. Originally slated to open in the spring, coronavirus has been jabbing at the pause button for months, [...]
Dreamland review – Margot Robbie saves this flat chase movie December 10, 2020 The fourth film produced by Margot Robbie for her Lucky Chap Production company, the Aussie A-lister also stars in this drama set during the Great Depression. Finn Cole plays Eugene, a young man living with his family in a small rural American town. His humdrum life is turned upside down when he finds Allison (Robbie), [...]
The Prom review – Meryl Streep saves this party from disaster December 10, 2020 If there’s one thing we’ve seen a lot of this year, its celebrities making things all about them. Anyone who cringed their way through Gal Gadot and friends’ Imagine cover in March will know how the rich and famous can often misjudge the tone during hard times. With this in mind, Netflix’s expensive musical The [...]
Wolfwalkers is a charming animated film for the holiday season December 10, 2020 The festive season is usually a prime time for family movie spectaculars, and Apple’s streaming service is offering the highly anticipated new film Wolfwalkers from Cartoon Saloon, the company behind Song of The Sea (2014) and The Breadwinner (2017). Wolfwalkers is an animated fantasy set in 17th Century Ireland, in a city occupied the English [...]
David Fincher’s Mank is a classic about a classic December 5, 2020 There is a sad irony to David Fincher’s love letter to Old Hollywood being a big new release for Netflix. Mank is the company’s big hope for Oscar glory, as films about the film business tend to go down well with the people in it (Birdman, La La Land, The Artist, Adaptation… we could go [...]
Drink up to help out: The gin raising funds for hospitality December 5, 2020 Even with the lifting of the second national lockdown enabling some bars and pubs to reopen this week, hospitality remains one of the sectors worst affected by Covid restrictions. Hospitality Gin is a not-for-profit gin brand created to support the industry during the pandemic, offering the drinking public the opportunity to order in to help [...]