Category: Media

Categories Charles II aka The Last King: The Power and Passion of Charles II Print Media

Charles II: The Power & the Passion Review

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Sexual Politics and Gorgeous Costumes

by Charity Bishop | Charity’s Place | November 16, 2003

This film is more about sexual politics than anything else. The costuming is gorgeous, but the script falls short. It fails to set up conclusive history for the characters, so anyone unfamiliar with Charles II won’t be able to follow it.

In the 1600s, Parliament overthrows and beheads the king. His son Charles (Rufus Sewell) and those loyal to the crown, including his mother (Diana Rigg) and best friend George Villiers (Rupert Graves) have fled to France, where they remain in exile, plotting their return to power. Through various political maneuverings George returns to England. The government imprisons him. Not long thereafter, the government invites Charles to return to claim the throne, since the common people are rebelling in the lack of a monarchy. Parliament fears losing control and thus will accept the lesser of two evils.

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Categories Lucky Jim Print Media Reviews

Masterpiece Theatre cracks a smile with the charming “Lucky Jim”

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Get “Lucky”

by Don Dale | January 1, 2003 | Style Weekly

PBS-TV’s next “Masterpiece Theatre” broadcast, “Lucky Jim,” is a winsomely charming comedy, likeable for a number of solid reasons. Chief among them is the story, based on a book by Kingsley Amis; the two main characters, played by Stephen Tompkinson and Keeley Hawes; and the nostalgic 1950s soundtrack.

Amis created quite a stir in British literary circles when “Lucky Jim” was published in 1954. First called an angry young man, Amis quickly established himself instead as a master of satire, malcontented rather than irate. His target was the intellectual milieu and those who wallowed in it, and the eponymous hero of “Lucky Jim” was something new: a working-class man, well-educated but unapologetically middlebrow.

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Categories Media Print Media Reviews Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night at the Donmar Warehouse – Review

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Harrowing hilarity

By Paul Taylor | October 28, 2002 | The Independent

He looks as though his copious blubber has been constrained from birth in a wing collar and buttoned-up pinstripe suit and that he must have emerged from the womb with that self-important beard and punctilious moustache. His gait is an effeminately officious cross between a march and a scamper; his tone is a prissily sibilant sneer; and he is forever consulting his watch with righteous impatience. At night, his locks are lovingly protected by a lady’s hairnet.

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