Close-Up Culture

Independent journalism on the things we love

Personal Shopper Q&A with Director Olivier Assayas

‘THIS is a ghost story. It deals with the invisible.’ So says Olivier Assayas, director of Personal Shopper, a film which boldly confronts perceptions of the supernatural. Maureen Cartwright (Kristen Stewart) is a young American woman in Paris who makes a living selecting clothes for a rich celebrity. The work is thankless and unfulfilling but…
In Other Words – A Play About Dementia That Hits Hard (Theatre Review)

LIVING longer is all well and good but it sometimes comes at a shocking price. It is a point vividly made by the latest play to come out of The Hope Theatre in Islington, London which quite rightly badges itself as ‘the little theatre with big ideas’. And a big heart too. The play, In…
Antonio and his glorious weeping guitar (Live Music Review)

ANTONIO Forcione may not presently be on every music lover’s radar but he should be. Believe me, if you want to listen to someone who can extract extraordinary sounds from a guitar that others cannot, he is the man. Search him out. On Monday night, at Crazy Coqs in London’s West End (part of Brasserie…
Kong: Skull Island and Elle (Film Review)

BEAUTY and the Beast does not arrive in cinemas until this Friday (March 17) but I was treated to my own cinematic beauty and beast – of sorts – on my recent trip to the Curzon in London (a sublime Victoria and closure-threatened Soho). Kong: Skull Island is the second ‘MonsterVerse’ film from Legendary Entertainment…
Limehouse – ‘Woy’ would have loved it (Theatre Review)

‘WHAT if?’ It is the question asked by Debbie Owen right at the end of Steve Waters’ splendid new play Limehouse at the Donmar Warehouse about the Gang of Four and the setting up of the Social Democratic Party in January 1981. ‘What if there’d been no Falklands War?’ she reflects, referring to the electoral…
Premier League Fringe Theatre In London’s Islington

LONDON’S Islington is gaining a fine reputation for fringe theatre. And quite rightly so. Within a distance of a mile and a bit of each other – a brisk walk – three theatres are currently waging their private war for local bragging rights. Having visited all three in the past month, there is little to…
“The Haçienda was everything” -Do You Own The Dançefloor Q&A at the Curzon Soho

PRESENTER Claire Bueno opened this entertaining evening at the Curzon Soho in London with a poignant thought. We were about to watch a film, she said, about a building that despite making a profound impact on people’s lives had been demolished. A fate, she added, that awaits the Curzon Soho if Crossrail 2 gets Government…
Picturehouse Q&A with Viceroy’s House director Gurinder Chadha

TWENTY five years ago, Gurinder Chadha became the first Asian woman to make a feature film in Britain with Bhaji on the Beach. Fourteen years ago she then directed Bend it Like Beckham, a film that launched the career of a certain Keira Knightley and was a box office success story. Unbelievably, as Chadha’s latest…
A day at Curzon Mayfair – Fences and Moonlight (Film Review)

A day at Curzon Mayfair is normally a cause for celebration. But with two Oscar nominated films lined up the occasion felt more like a special birthday or Christmas. First up, the long awaited big-screen adaptation of August Wilson’s play Fences. It has been close to 30 years since Paramount bought the movie rights to…
In Second Heaven with Sarah Jane Morris (Live Music Review)

BY her own frank admission, Sarah Jane Morris is menopausal, causing her to break out into hot sweats on stage. But the flushes and the occasional waving of a cooling red paper fan have done nothing to dampen her mercurial stage presence and her ability to mesmerise an audience. As evidenced by her recent 102-minute…