Libor Pains…and Other Stories
We have all become too desensitised to the Libor scandal. It will down us.
Screengrab: Before Butch
Richard Lutz asks: “Breathes there a man with soul so dead who hath never said: ‘Boy, I groove on Butch and Sundance’? I mean, what a film and, gulp, it’s more than 40 years old and still sharp as a tack.”
Review: A Visual But Flawed Feast For a Forgotten Empire
“It isn’t often that the star of a show is the costume designer. But Eloise Kazan has fashioned beautiful outfits for this play”, writes Richard Lutz
Screengrab: Thank God for Tuesdays
Richard Lutz puts down his remote to tell us what’s good on the box when it comes to movies
Tale of Two Barclays: What Price, Money?
Two big Barclays stories pound away at Richard Lutz like dual sledgehammers proving what a skewered maddeningly tilted world we live in.
Screengrab: The Hitch Abides
Wimbledon, Euro Cup (sans England), the grinding inevitability of the London Olympic bunfight…what you need is a good movie on the box to get you away from well endowed men and women doing sports
Review: An African Tale by Shakespeare
Director Greg Doran spent some time in South Africa and while there an actor told him: ‘Julius Caesar is Shakespeare’s African play.’
Review: A Cheeky Dick and The Monster Within
Richard III Royal Shakespeare Theatre Stratford on Avon from Richard Lutz You can’t separate history from art. When Shakespeare wrote Richard III in about 1592, he was always looking over his shoulder- or rather above his shoulder- at what the monarch and her cronies thought. It had to be that way. Otherwise your…
Video Launch for Ammalife Charity
Ammalife, the medical charity officially backed by this site, has produced its own video to show the work it carries out around the world.
Screengrab: An Offer You Can’t Refuse
There’s a major classico this week on the box, says our man with the remote Richard Lutz
Screengrab: The Duke Goes to War- Hollywood Style
What with all the Jubilee stuff, the finals of The Voice, the re-intro of Big Brother and, finally, Greece ready to pummel Russia 5-0 in the opening of Euro 12, I guess flatscreens will be burning bright throughout this blessed isle.
Jeremy Hunt: Still Under a Murdoch Cloud
There’s nothing more disheartening than having a journalistic rant when everyone seems to agree with you, says Richard Lutz
Screengrab: Weird and Whacky Britain (and a sequel) Comes to a TV Near You
Britain makes great creepy movies, says RICHARD LUTZ. And none comes creepier and weirder than a great film from 1973.
Of Machiavelli, Murdoch and The Media
RICHARD LUTZ peers into a crystal ball to see how the Murdoch Saga might really be playing out behind the tattered scenery.
Birmingham’s Lord Mayor: Drawing Lines In The Sand
Petitioners have started circulating an E-campaign to stop controversial Birmingham councillor John Lines from taking up his role as Lord Mayor.
Screengrab: The Week of the Big Chuckle
Richard Lutz says the tv is filled with some classic film comedies this week. There is no doubt that Nicholas Cage, that on again off again Hollywood star, can make you laugh. Not at some of his over the top musclebound turkeys. But quite simply as a good screen comedian. Two are on the…
Leamington Sparring
Mention Leamington Spa and several things come to mind: the healthy spa waters, its Regency buildings and the shadow of local middleweight Randy Turpin who beat Sugar Ray Robinson sixty years ago.
Review: King John
Richard Lutz reviews the RSC production of King John – “The wrong king in the wrong time when the barons made him sign his name on the Magna Carta?”
Helmand: Six Years On From the First Military Death…And What?
by Richard Lutz In June 2006, Captain James Phillipson, died while rescuing ambushed colleagues in Helmand Province. He was Britain’s first combat casualty in that bleak part of Afghanistan. Today UK forces are still there, protecting, patrolling and fighting in this benighted patch of earth. And last week, The Ministry of Defence had the…
Screengrab: White Whales and Kirk Douglas Drag Us Into The Deep Blue Hollywood Sea
from Richard Lutz Stolid if not boring Gregory Peck takes to the high seas in Moby Dick (Mon, Ch5; 14.15) It was a great novel. Still is. It is a laughably appalling movie. Director John Huston made a mega mistake by signing up po- faced Peck to be Captain Ahab in pursuit of that…
Review: Two World Premieres and Dave Brubeck for City’s Ballet
Birmingham Royal Ballet Three Short Works Crescent Theatre Richard Lutz received a pleasant surprise when he sat down for a night of dance. I was psyched up for the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s production that uses Dave Brubeck’s classic jazz number Take Five. I we always felt it was meant for dance. But what…
Opera Conductors Take To The Tv Screen
Both Paul McGrath and Michael Rosewall lead English Touring Opera musicians through Barber of Seville and Eugene Onegin for the next two weeks in both University of Warwick and Cheltenham’s Everyman Theatre.
My Marathon to Save Lives: Relief, Pride, Joy and Pain
Birmingham midwife Amie Wilson chronicles her long run through the streets of Paris to raise cash for Ammalife, our sponsored charity.
Screengrab: De Niro and Comedy
from Richard Lutz There is a nice anecdote about Robert de Niro that is either god’s honest truth..or else a nice anecdote. It goes like this: Close to forty years ago, the young de Niro just came off his Johnny Boy tour de force in Mean Streets. He played a crazy street thug who…
Theatre: King Lear (in Scotland)
As the World Shakespeare Festival kicks off in Stratford, we sent critic Mark Berman north to discover how the playwright fares in Glasgow
Theatre Review : The Tempest
Richard Lutz reviews The Tempest; “It is done beautifully. Hats off to the director David Farr and Jonathan Slinger.”
RSC: Loads of Tricks and Lots of Treats
Twelfth Night Royal Shakespeare Theatre Stratford By Richard Lutz This is a play about the pursuit of love in a crazed, tricky and askew world. Most of the characters are not what they seem. But they all want the same thing: partnership and passion. Twins separate and crave each other; lovers pine for an…
Birmingham Doctors Break New Ground in Bladder Cancer Treatment
Adding chemo to radiotherapy halves risk of dangerous cancer returning. Laurie Southgate reports Bladder cancer patients given low doses of chemotherapy combined with radiotherapy were nearly 50 per cent less likely to relapse with the most lethal form of the disease compared to patients given radiotherapy alone, a major Birmingham trial funded by Cancer…
Screengrab: Best Western Ever?
Richard Lutz picks out the best movies on the box this week. I’ll kick off this column with a tribute to the 2010 film of the year: Meek’s Cutoff (Wed; Film4, 22.50). A group of tired and thirsty wagon train travelers are heading west in 1845. They may be lost or they may…
And Here Is Lots of News- North of the Border At Least
by Richard Lutz Banished to Scotland for a while, and thoughts turn to tv once I tire of haggis flavoured crisps, ‘interesting’ weather patterns and monomanic Old Firm sport coverage ITV’s local franchise STV, out of Glasgow, is an intriguing offer. Whenever I come north of the border, I notice it…