Best Dressed at the Cannes Film Festival

Literally no one cares about the films at Cannes (trans: I don’t care about the films at Cannes). It’s all about the fashion.

I don’t know what its official motto is - ‘chaussures plates sont interdits’ perhaps? (hashtag satire) - but it should be go big or go home. Google Translate informs me that translates as aller grand ou rentrer à la maison but I feel like something’s got lost there...

Anyway, with the two week long festivities all over for another year here’s the looks that caught my eye. TL;DR: Ralph and Russo Couture won.

Fan Bingbing in Ralph and Russo Couture

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Princess on fleek. (I don’t know what that word means - because old - I hope I’ve used it right.) This dress is just stunning - the colour, the embroidery, the train - but it’s the cape sleeves that have got me all excited, my stance on capes being well known at this point. The styling is perfect too, with the tassled clutch perfectly complimenting the eastern feel of the look. So, so elegant.

Aishwarya Rai in Ralph and Russo Couture

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A second home run for Ralph and Russo. I love the architectural structure of this dress, and that it plays it up without swamping Aishwarya’s figure. The minimal but beautiful detailing let’s the structure shine as does her barely there styling - I love that Old Hollywood hair. A different type of elegance to Fan Bingbing’s, but elegance nonetheless.

Cate Blanchett in Giles

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Here’s a phrase I never thought I’d use: she looks like a cool Death Star and I love it so much! This dress is so modern, so British and so, for want of a less overused word, so edgy that it shouldn't work in classic Cannes but it really does. Mostly, I suspect, because Queen Cate is wearing it and gives zero fucks. Completely stripped back styling let the dress sing, or more likely mosh, and that Cinderella style climbing the stairs pose is one of my favourite photos of the year. J’adore.

Sophie Marceau in Alexandre Vauthier Couture

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Something else that shouldn't work on the red carpet anywhere, let alone Cannes, is a shirt dress but here we are. There’s something so French cool about this, so ‘yeah, I genuinely woke up like this’ that I just cannot get enough of. The snake necklace is a great rock and roll finishing touch, as is the bed hair and perfect ‘undone’ makeup. Summer dressing goals. 

Charlize Theron in Christian Dior Couture

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One word: statuesque. Actually two words: statuesque perfection. Yellow is so hard to wear, but you wouldn't know it from this. I think it’s the styling that seals the deal - the perfect hair and understated but somehow still massive jewels - and the poise that she wears it with. 

Theatre Review: Oppenheimer

What would you sacrifice to end war, completely, forever?

Your principles? Your friends? Control over your own ideas? The lives of around 200,000 people? 

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So asks Oppenheimer, Tom Morton-Smith’s important, frenetic and dizzyingly intelligent new play telling the story of how a small group of bafflingly bright physicists pooled their knowledge to create one of the most exciting scientific breakthroughs of the twentieth century. That that breakthrough was the most deadly weapon ever conceived of is, well, unfortunate. 

Yes, I am describing The Manhattan Project ie. the building of the world’s first nuclear bomb. No, this is not exactly a story that’s never been told (although it’s not the story told in the film The Manhattan Project, weirdly). But where Oppenheimer sets itself apart from many other retellings of this story is in choosing to focus on the titular character himself and the web of complicated and ever changing personal relationships surrounding him.

John Heffernan is magnetic in the demanding title role - another to add to my collection of outstanding male performances I've seen this year, a large collection at this point. Oppenheimer is a mercurial character who gets increasingly less sympathetic as he casts off his beliefs, his friends and his family in a relentless pursuit to make sure his name goes down in history as the man who ends war. The transformation from avuncular academic to slightly crazed military man is stark; the scene towards the end of Act 2 where he refuses to give a reference to a former student on the grounds of his communist sympathies, sympathies that Oppenheimer himself not only held but instilled in his students, is particularly repulsive. In a dexterous and passionate performance, Heffernan stops Oppenheimer becoming a villain, though. He is utterly convincing on every step of the journey from principles and dazzling intellect to ruthless ambition and a desperate quest for glory. 

Despite an excellent supporting cast, the other major star of this production is the staging. Directed with exquisitely judged pace, zipping through its three hour run time but with space for the emotional moments to breathe too, the production leaps off the stage thanks in large part to its innovative design. Veteran theatre designer Robert Innes Hopkins covers the stage and walls in blackboard paint which is itself covered in the scrawls of a cast of frantic academics as the drama progresses. The black stage is also used as a screen for the projections of diagrams that the production cleverly uses to explain some of the more complicated science (the fact that the play takes the form of lectures when these issues need to be explained properly is also really effective - and not half as disruptive to the narrative as it probably sounds). Combined with Paul Anderson’s clever lighting, including raising the house lights at key points to make the audience complicit in the action and a frightening prolonged period of intense darkness when the test bomb is detonated, the effect is of a story plunging forward; progress both inevitable and vital. And always asking the question ‘what would you do if you had this knowledge?’

Given its polarising subject matter - I mean how many people have you met that are neutral on the issue of nuclear weapons? - I also found it refreshing that the play doesn't have an opinion of its own. Oppenheimer is neither hero nor villain, nor are his co-scientists, nor the military they work for. Instead, the play confines itself to examining the characters involved and presenting a study of power: how it’s got, what effect it has on those who have it and where it really resides. And it is strikingly good at this, weaving these ideas into the plot in every moment from the big and obvious (Oppenheimer’s relationship with his military superior) and the small and fleeting (the fact that the one female scientist on the team isn't allowed to attend the test launch).

Oppenheimer does much to bolster the RSC’s reputation as an incubator for new British work and, whether viewed through in this way or on its own, is well worth your time and money. It’s not around for long though so best get your (nuclear powered?) skates on.

Oppenheimer is at the Vaudeville Theatre until 23rd May.

Best Dressed at the Met Gala

As far as I can see, there is a very specific formula that needs to be followed if you want to dress successfully for the Met Gala - New York's Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute's yearly fashion shindig and it's this:

1. Don't be boring 
2. Stick to the theme (in this case China: Through the Looking Glass) 
3. Don't go nuts (or in this case go stereotyped and/or offensive)

I'm sort of disappointed at how few people stuck to those rules tbh. 1. and 2. were the most oft broken, with loads of gorgeous-but-how-is-this-relevant? gowns gliding up the famous stairs (Claire Danes, Hailee Steinfeld, Jessica Chastain, Rosie HW, the list goes on) and a predictable trinity of ohmigodisthisstillathing all over sheer 'gowns' following them on Kim K, Beyonce and J Lo (who at least had a crack at the theme, to be fair).  Lade Gaga and Rihanna were the only ones who came close to breaking rule 3. but made their fantastical looks work through sheer force of personality if nothing else. At least their looks are memorable though.

So who did nail it? For my money, here's the top five:

Emily Blunt in Prada

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Chapter 90005 in my book of red carpet capes that I love. The theme is subtly nailed through the choice of fabric, the beautiful embroidery and the cut of this stunner. I love the contrast between the different shades of blue and silver used throughout. I love her styling - those earrings omg - and her hair and makeup even more.

Rita Ora in Tom Ford

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Going much more literal with the theme but equally stunning is this bad boy. Red is Rita's colour and the combo of this fierce gown with her fierce red pout/platinum crop combo is a perfect illustration of that. The construction of the dress is perfect too.

Emma Roberts in Ralph Lauren

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My favourite of the night. Very subtle nods to the theme (the belt, the colour, the jade accessories) combine to make this perfect. I am 100% obsessed with that green.

Anne Hathaway in Ralph Lauren

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Ralph Lauren got the memo on theme clearly. I adore this eastern inspired look, mostly because it's so sleek and cool but also because it makes a huge statement without really trying. I love the ear cuff too, a great fashion forward accessory for an otherwise minimalist look.

Olivia Munn in J Mendel

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There's so much going on here and it's all amazing. I love the colours, I love the cut out sleeves, I love the more is more jewellery and I love that it's on theme without being on the nose. Perfect paired down makeup too.

SJP Special Bonus Round
Because you can't have a Met Gala round up without bowing down at the alter of SJP. Here she is owning the theme, as she does every year without fail.

Sarah Jessica Parker in H&M

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First of all, OMG SJP doing the Met Gala in high street?! But let's be honest that's not the thing that makes this outfit a classic from her play book, the credit for that belongs firmly to her amazing Philip Treacy headpiece. Love it or hate it, you can't deny that it's 100% Met Gala. Long live the undisputed Queen of this event!

Fashionable London: Savage Beauty

I’ve often been underwhelmed by the big, high profile exhibitions at the V&A.

They’re often way too crowded, use the space poorly, are boringly presented (thick glass cases, no photos, officious staff) and are just not great value for money - especially when compared with the offerings at other museums of a similar profile and size and especially especially the vast, spectacular, innovative Met in New York where Savage Beauty was originally shown.

Honestly? I wish I’d seen Savage Beauty at the Met because as much as I enjoyed the exhibition - and I did, don’t get me wrong, I really did - my normal issues with the V&A did detract from it.

Let’s start with the positives though. This exhibition is a McQueen lovers’ dream. Covering everything from his 1992 MA show and early career as a Savile Row tailor right up until his breathtaking unfinished final 2010 collection, the pieces in this exhibition are an expertly curated greatest hits - and then some.

For me, the highlights were the Romantic Nationalism room, showcasing McQueen’s Scottish influence perfectly and including pieces from his Highland Rape and Widows of Culloden collections, and the Romantic Exoticism room, which showcased the designer’s foreign influences and included a stunning recreation of the ‘models in a box’ catwalk show. The room showcasing his final collection, Plato’s Atlantis, was also really cleverly laid out - though beware the video if you’re as snake-phobic as I am - and I adored the hauntingly beautiful hologram video of Kate Moss (and the tiny dark room it’s played in) that featured in the Widows of Culloden show.

All of my favourite rooms - and indeed most of the exhibition to be fair - were shown without glass cases (hurrah!) and you were allowed to get up close and personal with the details on these incredible creations. The exhibition space is used really well too with each of the rooms, arranged in roughly chronological and tightly thematic order, themed to match the broad topic of the collections they’re showcasing. This makes for some great, unexpected, spaces and juxtapositions (at one point you go from a dark and naturalistic cave to a traditional Scottish country club) which really emphasises the breadth as well as the depth of McQueen’s talent.

And that, ultimately, is what makes this exhibition great. Frankly, you could show Alexander McQueen’s work, especially the edit on display here, in a heap in a car park and it would still be worth paying to see. The man was a genius, and this exhibition is a fantastic advert for that fact and the idea that fashion absolutely can be art.

My issues with the exhibition, then, are almost exclusively actually issues with the V&A. Even though I had a ticket for the first slot of the day, the room was already crowded when I got in. I wish the V&A would just sell fewer tickets for these major exhibitions - I’d happily pay more if it meant I got a better view of everything. There was some dodgy curation too, especially the Cabinet of Curiosity room which had items displayed from warehouse level ceiling to floor which was spectacular but meant that there was a lot of stuff that I physically couldn’t see. And my biggest moan was that there was so little information about the exhibitions and what there was was in a tiny font scattered around the exhibits. I could barely read much of it and I have insanely good eyesight (humblebrag). Some more context would’ve been nice too. Much of this is filled in if you buy the catalogue - which is great, as is much of the merchandise (I love my tote bag and am already using it to death) - but that’s not really the point.

Overall, Savage Beauty is my third favourite fashion exhibition ever (Jean Paul Gaultier at The Barbican and Charles James at the Met, thanks for asking) and is 100% worth your time is you love fashion or even just beautiful, occasionally slightly crazy, creative objects in general.

Savage Beauty is on at the V&A until August 2nd and there are still plenty of tickets available. My advice? Go, go early and go on a weekday.

Theatre Review: Clarence Darrow

It’s much to my personal shame that I had never heard of Clarence Darrow before last Saturday night. Quite why there was a play written about him, a play starring Kevin Spacey no less, was entirely beyond me. Ignorance in this case turned out to be very much not bliss.

Directed by Thea Sharrock and with a cast of Kevin Spacey and absolutely no-one else, Clarence Darrow sees the titular American civil rights lawyer/giant/hero telling the story of his life and his most famous cases. A story which, frankly, should be much more widely known than it is. And not just by me.

Having never seen a one man show before I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I suppose, to the extent that I had expectations, it was that it would be a long monologue with an interval. But that’s not what it was. Clarence Darrow is very much a play, it just happens to be a play with only one actor.

And there are multiple characters in this play too, it just happens that all but one of them are played by empty chairs. This dodgy sounding technique - made infamous by the clusterfuck that was Clint-Eastwood-meets-Barack-Obama at the Republican convention the other year - is so effectively done throughout the play. Thanks to Kevin Spacey’s extraordinary performance (yes I'm getting to that, hold your horses) we know exactly what these chair people are saying because of the way he reacts to them. He makes them into real people - which is just genius when you stop and think about it - and, by allowing the audience to use their imagination to fill in the gaps in his exchanges with them, gives these sequences a surprising emotional power too.

The example that stands out most strongly in my memory is when Darrow’s marriage collapses and the empty chair becomes the devastated wife that he’s leaving. I could describe to you exactly the way his wife lifted her tear filled eyes, raw with heartbreak and confusion, to watch as her husband walked away. But what I'm describing there is what was going on in my head whilst I watched a man walking away from an empty chair. I cried my little heart out for that chair; testament to the power of this production and Spacey’s performance in particular. (I hope the chair is ok.)

Now, I've been very lucky so far this year to have seen some outstanding performances in the shows I’ve seen (Ralph Fiennes in Man and Superman, Mark Strong in A View from the Bridge) but Kevin Spacey in Clarence Darrow blows them all out of the water. I could spend hours elucidating exactly why this is - all the tiny details that make you feel like he’s telling his story just to you even if you’re sitting in the cheap seats, the heart rending passion with which he delivers Darrow’s soaring speeches, the sheer energy of a performance that seems to never stop moving - but I won’t because you’d get bored and I've got shit to do. All I will say is this: it’s the most breathtakingly brilliant performance I've ever seen, from any actor, in any medium. And to be honest I think that anyone who’s seen this show and doesn't say exactly the same is either lying or an idiot. Probably both.

It helps that Spacey is given such rich material to work with. David W Rintels’ script is fantastic - fast paced, witty, emotive, passionate, sad and outraged all at exactly the right moments. The script includes several passages of verbatim quotes from Darrow’s incredible courtroom rhetoric which give the productive a real moral and emotional punch. I have never cried in the theatre the way I cried watching this show and it was these beautifully crafted, pleadingly passionate verbatim passages that set me off every time. The closing speech from the famous Leopold and Loeb trial, which is also the closing of the play, almost killed me and I make no apologies for quoting the bit with which I am now obsessed in all its glory:

I am pleading for the future; I am pleading for a time when hatred and cruelty will not control the hearts of men. When we can learn by reason and judgement and understanding and faith that all life is worth saving, and that mercy is the highest attribute of man. [Source] 

There’s more that I could say about this superlative busting show - I haven’t even touched on the great set, the clever use of lighting and sound, the effective (much more effective than I was expecting) in the round staging - but having read that quote I’m about to start crying again and need to go and have a lie down. Suffice it to say it’s a privilege to have seen it.

Playing at the Old Vic until 11th April, unsurprisingly Clarence Darrow is sold out. I believe there are a (presumably very limited number of) day tickets and returns available though. Sell whatever possessions/property/family members you need to to get one.

Theatre Review: The Broken Heart

When I did A Level English Literature about a billion years ago, one of the set texts I loved most was The Duchess of Malfi. 

Written by Jacobean dramatist John Webster, Malfi is a great, weird and generally slightly unhinged play featuring amongst other things an evil cardinal, a great malcontent (I always identify with those guys…) and someone dying by kissing a poisoned book. All the ingredients for a top night at the theatre in the 17th century. And the 21st, I would argue. 

The Broken Heart, playing in the period Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe, is also a Jacobean revenge tragedy written by a dude called John. Sadly here the similarities with Malfi end. 

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This time it’s John Ford doing the writing, and said writing is clunky and slow. The plot is at best tangled and impossible to concisely describe, but I’ll have a go. Penthea and Orgilus are star crossed lovers in ancient Sparta, until Penthea’s brother Ithocles intervenes and marries her to the old and jealous Bassanes. Orgilus swears revenge on Ithocles and gets it by way of murdering him in novelty fashion (in a death chair) thus causing Calantha, soon to be Mrs Ithocles and heir to the Spartan throne, to die of the titular broken heart after condemning Orgilus to death (by assisted suicide, helped along by Bassanes who at this point is apparently the recipient of a personality transplant). Penthea meanwhile has starved herself to death. Clear? No, it’s really not.

Caroline Steinbeis’ production does admirably well in making this bramble thicket of a story easy to follow. It’s pacey without being rushed (although cutting ten minutes off act one would've been welcome) and looks beautiful, making clever use of a ‘Greek’ colour palette which sparkles and shimmers beneath the candle light. There are some decent performances too, especially from Sarah MacRae as a spirited Calantha and Brian Ferguson as an enjoyably passionate Orgilus. 

The production also has a very clear sense of what it wants to be. The problem is that it wants to be a Carry On film. Carry On Calantha perhaps.

Whilst focussing on the comedy in an archetypal Jacobean revenge tragedy is an interesting idea, the execution just doesn't work. It’s camp. So camp that even I find it too camp. And I love camp! It’s jarring, it doesn't add anything and it doesn't make sense. 

The camp problem is most evident in the portrayal of Bassanes. Played by the usually fantastic Owen Teale, who brings so much menace and nastiness to his role as Ser Alliser Thorne on Game of Thrones, he is a preening, prancing, slapstick horror, all flailing arms and arch glances through the fourth wall. For one of the big villains of the piece, at least the first act, it’s slightly baffling and lowers the stakes so far that he simply ceases to be of any dramatic interest. In fact I felt my shoulders slump every time he came on stage. Post-personality transplant, the reasons for which are never made clear, in act two he becomes more earnest and a much more empathetic character. It’s such a shame that having sat through his Julian-Clary-does-Jacobean act that I no longer cared.

It’s frustrating really, because I can see an alternate universe in which playing up the comedy would've worked. But it needed to be much more subtle and much more wry. 

Whilst the play was deeply mediocre, I totally fell for the intimacy and general gorgeousness of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse itself. A faithful recreation of a 17th century indoor theatre (as opposed to its outdoor cousin, The Globe), and famously lit only by candles, it’s a beautiful space that totally works as a modern performance venue. I can’t wait to go back and see something good there. 

Not very good photo of the SWP's painted ceiling.

Even worse photo of the SWP

The Broken Heart is on at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe until 18th April. There are tickets available for each of the remaining performances.

Theatre Review: Man and Superman

Until now, my entire knowledge of Bernard Shaw came from two sources: My Fair Lady and the obscure but brilliant Stephen Sondheim musical The Frogs. 

The latter includes a great song about Shaw which espouses his genius whilst wryly noting that he’s “a little short on brevity”. I think that sums up my opinion of the National Theatre’s triumphant revival of Shaw’s Man and Superman (running time: three and a half hours, cut down from an original five and a half) rather neatly. 

Man and Superman tells on one level a very simple story: woman (Ann Whitefield, played with aplomb by Indira Varma) wants man (Jack Tanner, a masterful Ralph Fiennes), man resists, woman persists, woman gets man. But this isn't a play about a story, it’s a play about ideas. Big ideas: the nature of humanity, masculinity, womanhood and class. It’s complicated - and I’d be lying if I said I followed it all completely - it’s long and it’s utterly brilliant.

Perhaps I'm a previously undiagnosed Shavian, because I absolutely loved the intricately crafted dialogue that fills this play and that I’d initially been very nervous of. It’s beautifully constructed, has a rhythm that’s almost musical (set some music behind this and you’d almost have an opera) and, most importantly, very very funny. Properly laugh out loud funny. Laugh until your face aches funny. Shaw just uses language fantastically well and it’s a joy to listen to, even in the occasional passages where you begin to wish he’d get to the fucking point. His construction of satire is as funny, if not funnier, than any that’s come since. There’s a universality and a timelessness to the dialogue, and the humour in particular, that gives it a feeling of relevance that many plays of a similar era no longer enjoy. 

It’s helped along by a sympathetic updating and excellent staging. The show is performed in understated modern dress and designed by Christopher Oram, who did fantastic work on the Michael Grandage West End season and does fantastic work here. Most affecting is the set he creates for the Don Juan in Hell dream sequence, where Jack Tanner becomes the infamous libertine and discusses the ideal nature of man (and woman) with the Devil. It’s a tricky scene - a dream sequence, in Hell, that deals with some very complicated, occasionally almost Nietzschean, ideas, with such scant links to the rest of the plot that many productions opt to omit it entirely - but, for my money, one of the most effective sequences in this production. 

Eschewing the traditional sets of the rest of the show entirely, Oram has created a wall of video panels which change with the dialogue. They glow blindingly white to herald our arrival in Hell, turn red when the Devil is giving his closing argument for his vision of the nature of humanity as the pursuit of pleasure and project ghostly human figures when Jack spells out his competing vision of humanity, evolution and the pursuit of the creation of the Superman. On a set stripped almost bare it’s an incredibly striking, memorable and ‘otherly’ image. Stripping it back completely also really helps focus the attention on the dialogue, which I certainly found the most difficult to follow and frustratingly verbose in the play.

The crowning glory of this production though is its performances. Indira Varma brings a modernity to the cunning, charming, sexy and generally kick ass Ann. Tim McMullan does double duty, bagging all the best lines in the process, as a love lorn Savoy-waiter-turned-Spanish-brigand and the Devil and steals scenes left, right and centre as both. Elliott Barnes-Worrell plays Jack’s street smart chauffeur with an appealing youthfulness that’s a perfect counter for his boss’ cynicism. 

And then there’s Ralph Fiennes. Barely off stage and rarely not speaking for the entire three hours plus runtime, there’s an energy to his performance that makes it mesmerising. As a feat of memory alone this performance would be worthy of mention - he has a mind boggling amount of lines and hits every one with perfect comic timing and a delivery that translates even his most complicated speeches into something understandable. His Jack Tanner, all masculinity and out-thrust crotch, treads the perfect balance between being likeable and a bit of a shit; his Don Juan is passionate and earnest without being boring. Either would be great on their own, to fit both of them into one show and maintain the energy level to do so successfully is remarkable. All of that said, his best moments come when he’s not speaking. Even from the back row of the circle his exasperated twitches and resigned shrugs were so effective. I'm not sure I've ever been as affected by a performance based on the physicality alone. Also, I've never really understood the appeal of the elder Fiennes before (Joseph was always more my bag) but I certainly do now. I would quite happily spend eternity and then some in Hell with this Don Juan, y’know.

So yeah; great play, great writing, great performances and a slamming hottie for a leading man. What more could you want?

Man and Superman plays at the Lyttleton at the National Theatre but is sold out except for day tickets and returns. It’s getting the NTLive treatment on May 14th.