Culture Tiger

One of the small blessings of lockdown, has been the opportunity to watch even more films than usual. Supernatural horror has become more prominent in my viewing choices - there had always been affinity with the genre's outsiders but this time it is also a brief escape from reality. The VVitch, which premiered at the 2015 Sundance festival, had been on my list for a while.  The VVitch follows a family of 17th century English settlers who, banished from their New England colony over a religious dispute, set up a new home in an isolated clearing next to a dense forest. Tragedy begins when the baby vanishes while the adolescent daughter Thomasin (Anna Taylor-Joy) plays peek-a-boo with him. Somewhere in the forest, an elderly woman rubs herself with an ointment of bodily remains.  Secrets and paranoia suffocate the family. Thomasin increasingly receives accusations from both parents and siblings, over thefts and unholy activity, as unexplained misfortune strikes again - her verge ...

One of the joys of London is the multilayered history found at every tube stop. 10 minutes from Elephant & Castle, The Cinema Museum transports its visitors back to the glory days of cinema, in a former Victorian workhouse which once homed a young Charlie Chaplin. Founded by Ronald Grant and Martin Humphries in 1986, the museum is home to a staggering collection of cinema signage, seating, projectors, lighting fixtures, hand painted posters, usher uniforms, hundreds of film reels spanning back to the late 19th century and so much more. There are surprises behind each door which would fascinate everyone from technical enthusiasts to Old Hollywood glamour fans. Both Martin and Ronald guided the visitors on the tour I attended. Ronald, who started his career as a apprentice projectionist in 1950's Aberdeen, started the collection by rescuing items from closed down cinemas which would otherwise have been destroyed. The Cinema Museum has been a lifelong work of love and de...

Bold and elaborate costume design exhilarates me. When I’m low on energy, I google images of Bob Mackie creations instead of buying chocolate as a little pick-me-up. What A Way To Go!, a star-studded dark comedy from 1964, is the visual equivalent to a freakshake-induced sugar rush. Shirley MacLaine stars as small-town girl Louisa May Foster who desires a simple life. But Louisa ends up marrying men - played by Dick Van Dyke, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum and Gene Kelly - who become incredibly wealthy overnight. The success, greed and vanity of the husbands kills them in outlandish ways leaving Louisa re-widowed, richer and sadder. With costumes designed by the legendary Edith Head, MacLaine’s character is frequently reinvented as she moves from one doomed spouse to another. Before money enters Louisa’s world, she is as sweet as apple pie in frills and red polka dots. With each husband comes a different lifestyle as well as a more sophisticated image. Living in bohemian Paris, with Paul...

If your life inspired a film or TV series, what would be on the soundtrack? Cinematic stories tend to exclusively feature songs released at the time they are set. But real life cultural influences are never straightforward. I spent the 90s listening to the likes of Suede and Blur. Yet this was also the decade where I bought CDs of Dusty Springfield and Iggy Pop. My parents played Paul Simon and Bob Dylan. So how did I discover pop and rock songs, from before I was born, that were not performed by blokes with raspy voices and boring jumpers? Being a weird only child guided my musical discoveries. I spent hours bingeing on VH1 which, pre-reality TV, was the auntie to MTV’s cool teenager. The Box channel, in its infancy, played decade-old videos by Cyndi Lauper and Blondie as well as the latest singles by East 17 and Salt N Pepa. My music television phase also coincided with the 90s’ embrace of nostalgia. This was the decade where Erasure, dragged up in lurex, covered Abba and Kula ...

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.

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.

Hollywood Costume is the V&A’s latest show stopping event, dazzling with an immense collection of costumes from silent film  to contemporary blockbusters and a highly thorough insight into the painstaking work that goes into creating costumes. Walking into the exhibition evoked the feeling of walking into a darkened cinema  - spine-tingling dramatic music and a huge screen ahead of you with a montage of popular films from the past century. Rather than using the orthodox method of showing exhibits in chronological order, Hollywood Costume is laid out according to subject such as characters’ backstory and ever-changing technology so you’d have exhibits made in different time periods placed right next to each other. There are also in-depth case studies such as the research that went into each character’s costume in Ocean’s Eleven - brilliantly displayed with the costumes (with actors’ faces on suspended small screens) sitting around a table filled with projected images of s...