Culture Tiger

POSE is an award-winning U.S TV show with a third season in the pipeline. Yet the series barely gets a mention in workplaces and dinner parties (is the silence just in the UK?). It's not enough that my partner and a few queer friends and acquaintances have watched POSE. This is a must for everybody to learn about an often ignored part of LGBTQ+ history and culture that's not whitewashed. It's also packed with great performances. So I'm going to keep promoting the hell out of POSE.  Created by Ryan Murphy, POSE is a drama centred around the New York ballroom culture in the 1980s and early 90s. Marginalised black, latin, gay and trans competitors dance and walk for trophies in multiple categories. This is an underground scene that influenced Madonna (which season 2 touches on) and is frequently referenced in Rupaul's Drag Race.  The pilot bursts open with a thrilling break-in. Ran by the glamorous and domineering Elektra (Dominique Jackson), the House of Abundance wil...

Nottingham Playhouse’s innovative production of 1984, adapted by Robert Icke and Duncan MacMillan, returns to London’s Playhouse Theatre following a successful year. George Orwell’s dystopian novel was published in 1949 and still feels highly relevant to the present day with Edward Snowden’s revelations, of NSA and GCHQ surveillance activities, and the Communications Data Bill which could potentially pass under the current UK government. This adaptation of 1984 is a compelling yet uncomfortably bumpy ride through the oppressive Oceania. Scenes end with blackouts and sounds of mechanical screeching and electrical sparks. Matthew Spencer plays everyman protagonist Winston with a sensitivity that draws you in - every touch of hope or paranoia expressed brings out empathy yet also makes you question what is reality and imagination in Winston’s world. Everyday scenes are repeated such as the same interactions with the same colleagues in the same work canteen. The monotony of life in Oceania...

Pedro Almodóvar’s 1988 film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown has the ingredients for a great musical theatre adaptation - love, passion, heartache, drama, humour and strong complex characters. Transferring a highly revered cinematic modern classic onto the stage has its risks as a balance has to be met between being true to the soul of the original yet allowing new interpretations to come through.   Both Almodóvar fans and theatregoers less familiar with his work will not be disappointed with the musical production currently in its final week at the Playhouse Theatre. Set in a colourful and vibrant Madrid going through a post Franco cultural and sexual explosion, the story follows actress Pepa who struggles with her lover Ivan’s unceremonious leaving. On top of the personal hurt and confusion Pepa crosses paths with Ivan’s bitter unstable wife, his shy put-upon grown up son and snobbish uptight future daughter-in-law. There is also Pepa’s best friend Candela who finds...

Michel Gondry’s latest fantastical cinematic offering, Mood Indigo, is an adaptation of a Boris Vian novel and stars the ever-versatile Romain Duris as Colin, a wealthy carefree man living with his lawyer and cook enthusiast friend Nicolas (Omar Sy). The pair reside in a bright, spacious apartment and indulge in delightful pastimes such as playing the “pianocktail” (different keys and tempos empty cocktail ingredients into a glass - a Willy Wonka-esque creation for grown ups). Colin’s life takes an even brighter turn when he meets Chloé (Audrey Tautou) who he soon marries. Everything changes dramatically for the newlyweds when Chloé has a water lily growing in her lung and Colin tries to do what he can to afford the growing medical expenses.

The last show I attended in 2013 was The El. Train - three one-act plays by Eugene O’Neill put together for the first time in a single production. The venue was the Victorian grade II listed Hoxton Hall which had been transformed into 1920s New York with a “Hell Hole” saloon bar serving up period-inspired cocktails and blaring out melancholic jazz. The theatre itself was turned into a cramped dark tenement block with the piercing sound of a railway train racing overhead followed by live music and the heart-rending vocals of Nicola Hughes. The first two plays, Before Breakfast and The Web , were directed by Sam Yates with Ruth Wilson as the female leads. Before Breakfast sees Wilson’s embittered Mrs Rowland getting ready for work while talking to her silent husband Alfred of whom one could vaguely make out a silhouette in the curtained off bedroom. As the play progresses, anger rises and falls in Wilson’s east coast drawl which also sounds exhausted by everything. Increasingly more ...

www.stjamestheatre.co.uk Oliver Reed - actor, prolific boozer and professional hellraiser - had a life and career so talked about to the point where he became like a mythical ancient god found in fables of romp and drama. Even if you know nothing about the drinks and the punch ups, Reed’s film roles showed a one-off individual who left a lasting impression. My first introduction to “Ollie” Reed was in Oliver! as brutal criminal Bill Sykes - a dark scary presence amongst the gaiety of ‘Oom-pah-pah’. For other audiences, a first Reed experience could have been 'Women in Love', which bore the first ever male full frontal nude scene in British cinema, or the heavily censored 'The Devils' with its explicit themes of sex, violence and religion.