Skip to main content

The Amber Trap review – stolen kisses and cruel threats in the cornershop

Theatre 503, London
The peaceful behind-the-counter romance of two young women is disturbed by the arrival of an outsider

The shelves are crammed with wine bottles, colourful tins, cereal boxes and washing powders. It’s a bit of a mess but there’s something about this ramshackle shop, designed withcareful carelessness by Jasmine Swan, that feels like home. Katie and Hope, who both work here, kissed for the first time by the counter. It’s where they fell in love. But the safety of the shop is about to be compromised and the outside world, and all the danger and confusion it entails, is about to be let in.

Little happens in the shop – but it’s a lovely kind of inactivity. Katie (Olivia Rose Smith) and Hope (Fanta Barrie, burning with energy) occasionally wipe a surface but they also juggle tangerines, steal kisses and gently tease shop owner Jo (Jenny Bolt). Nineties love songs play on the radio, although the play’s precise setting remains unclear. Lucy Adams’s lighting soothes everything it touches. Director Hannah Hauer-King keeps things cosily low key and the early scenes glow with an easy sense of affection and belonging.

Continue reading...

from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2PAMySw

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Knives Out review – Daniel Craig goes Columbo in Cluedo whodunnit

Craig grills an all-star lineup of suspects when a wealthy novelist is found dead in Rian Johnson’s sharp, country-house murder mystery R ian Johnson unsheathes an entertainingly nasty, if insubstantial detective mystery with his new film, Knives Out. Back in 2005, his debut movie Brick (a high-school thriller) paid tribute to the hardboiled noir genre. Now he does the same thing for cosy crime, although there is nothing that cosy about it. Knives Out has a country house full of frowning suspects, deadpan servants and smirking ne’er-do-wells and an amusing performance from Daniel Craig as Benoît Blanc, the brilliant amateur sleuth from Louisiana who annoys the hell out of one and all by smiling enigmatically, occasionally plinking a jarring high note on the piano during the drawing-room interrogation and pronouncing in his southern burr: “Ah suh-spect far-wuhl play!” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2L0NKO4

Thirty Years of Adonis film review: sexually explicit gay drama mixes porn and pomposity

1/5 stars The line between soft-core porn and pompous art-house cinema grows ever finer in the seventh feature by writer, director and producer Danny Cheng Wan-cheung, also known as Scud. Intended as a philosophical statement about the meaninglessness of life, Thirty Years of Adonis instead comes across as a badly misjudged piece of sensationalist filmmaking. God’s Own Country review: gay love story set in the Yorkshire countryside The film revolves around aspiring gay actor Adonis Yang... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2qgQkop

Tracey Emin decorates Regent's Park and a celebration of Islamic creativity – the week in art

Emin and others survey the state of sculpture, Glenn Brown takes his decadent imagination to Newcastle and artists offer northern exposure – all in your weekly dispatch Frieze Sculpture Park Tracey Emin, Barry Flanagan and John Baldessari are among the artists decorating Regent’s Park with a free survey of the state of sculpture. • Regent’s Park, London , 4 July until 7 October. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IDCpPV