Film

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

11/06/18

Another day, another instalment of a well-worn movie franchise.

I’ll be honest with you, when I first heard about this, I wasn’t overly inclined to bother with it. Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World (2015) was okay, but nothing in it instilled in me the appetite for another monster helping. But then I noticed, that this time out, the movie was to be directed by J A Bayona and my curiosity was aroused. I’ve admired his three previous offerings, all very different beasts – The Orphanage, The Impossible and A Monster Calls, exceptional films, every one. Could he possibly bring something new to the table?

Fallen Kingdom begins with news that the ex-theme park of Isla Nubla, now a dinosaur haven, is in big trouble. The island’s resident volcano has decided to blow its top and its saurian inhabitants appear to be doomed to extinction all over again. John Hammond’s former partner, Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) has devised a rescue mission, which means that eleven different species will be captured and shipped off to a new, safe haven. Lockwood is terminally ill so the organisation of this complex mission has been left to his young assistant, Eli Mills (Rafe Spall), a man we just know at a glance is not entirely trustworthy. Mills calls in Clare Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) to help with the mission and she enlists former love interest, Owen Grady (Chris Pratt, as affable as ever), to assist her. With a couple of young associates in tow, they head off to Isla Nubla. (The good news is that Clare actually remembers to pack some sensible footwear this time!) Once on the island, they quickly discover that the mission is nothing like as straightforward as they originally supposed…

All right, so the first third of the movie is beautifully filmed and there are some decent people-versus-lava scenes. The dinosaurs are state-of-the-art CGI and, though there’s nothing here to disgrace Stephen Spielberg’s game-changing original, neither is there very much in the way of surprises. Indeed, this first section is haunted by that most deadly of dinosaurs, the Nothingnewbeforeus. Isla Nubla goes up in smoke and I start to think that this is the fate that’s inevitably going to befall the franchise.

But then the action shifts to Benjamin Lockwood’s estate in California and the film instantly takes a big step up, heading in a different, and much more compelling direction. The idea here is that no matter how well intended an original idea is, there are ruthless people waiting in the wings, ready to step in and monetise it. In comes the ever-dependable Toby Jones as Gunnar Eversol, a smug and utterly repellant dino auctioneer. He’s there to sell off the ‘rescued’ creatures to the highest bidder. There’s also a new addition amongst the specimens, a hybrid dinosaur called the Indoraptor,  a super killing machine that’s just crying out to to be ‘weaponised.’

When the auction goes a bit haywire, Bayona ramps up the suspense to almost unbearable levels and, there are some scenes that ride very close to the wind in terms of the film’s 12A rating. Best of all, there’s a fabulous sequence where Lockwood’s granddaughter hides in her bedroom, as the Indoraptor resolutely makes its way towards her. Bayona uses shadows and music to create something both menacing and enchanting – like a dark Grimm’s fairy tale with the wolf replaced by the most terrifying creature imaginable. If the film had all been as good as this, we’d be talking a much higher star rating.

Still, against all the odds, Bayona has managed to imprint his own DNA into this over-familiar franchise and in so doing, has created his own hybrid beast. The concluding announcement of yet another new direction for the series seems suddenly a much more interesting proposition. If they can get Bayona to direct, I for one, am in.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Dr Strangelove: or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

10/06/18

I first viewed this film at an RAF cinema shortly after its initial release in 1964. I was around fourteen years old at the time, and I can still remember how amazed I was by it, how disorientated. I had literally never seen anything quite like it, this weird blend of cartoonish hilarity and overwhelming terror. In those days of ‘Protect and Survive’ leaflets, we spent much of our time worrying about impending nuclear Armageddon. Wouldn’t it be lovely to be able to claim that now, more than fifty years’ later, such fears are firmly behind us?

On Burpelson Air Force Base, the extremely paranoid Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) has become convinced of a communist plot to poison the American water supply and, with this in mind, promptly orders a nuclear missile strike on Russia (as you do). General ‘Buck’ Turgidson (George C. Scott) is the man charged with the tricky task of breaking the news to President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellars in one of three roles he plays in the film), whilst also pointing out that, because of the clandestine nature of the protocol that surrounds such events, it’s going to be nigh on impossible to call the whole thing off. Meanwhile, Major ‘King’ Kong (Slim Pickens) and his crew of airmen are determined to carry out their orders, no matter what stands in their way.

Co-written by director Stanley Kubrick, with Terry Southern and Peter George, Dr Strangelove is a ground-breaking satire with a bizarre, cartoonish storyline that really ought to be totally beyond belief, but sadly, given recent world events, feels all too prescient. There are some extraordinary performances here. George C. Scott is a particular delight, gurning masterfully through his scenes, while in the role of the American president, Sellars’ telephone conversation with the unseen Russian premier is a masterclass in comic understatement. ‘Well, Dimitri, how do you think I feel about it?’

Showing as part of the Cameo Cinema’s Kubrick retrospective, it’s great to have a chance to reappraise this little gem on the big screen. Shot in super crisp black and white, it now clearly displays the shortcomings of its low budget combined with ‘still in their infancy’ effects – the many shots of the Flying Fortress en route to deliver its fifty megaton payload do occasionally look rather shonky and it’s hard to believe that, only three years later, Kubrick would deliver the technical milestone of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the film that pretty much set the bar for all special effect movies thereafter. Also, viewed through contemporary eyes, Sellars’ climactic grandstanding in the titular role of a crippled former Nazi scientist brushes a little too close to a whole host of -isms and -phobias for comfort, even if it does tickle the funny bone.

But, as I’ve said before, all films are a product of the times in which they were made and should be viewed accordingly – the parts that really work here are so luminous, so utterly compelling, they tend to outshine those bits that are starting to show their age. It’s an important film in Kubrick’s pantheon – the one that first showed that he was more than just a capable director, the one that hinted at the darkly disturbing wonders to come. Returning to it after so long away proved to be a singular delight.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

My Friend Dahmer

04/06/18

My Friend Dahmer is a serial killer movie with a difference: there’s no killing in it. In fact, there’s barely any violence at all. Instead, this is a study of the boy who made the man. Based on the autobiographical graphic novel by John ‘Derf’ Backderf, the film depicts Jeffrey Dahmer’s final year in high school. The young Dahmer (Ross Lynch) is troubled: his parents’ volatile marriage ends in an acrimonious divorce, his mother and father fighting for custody of his younger brother and ownership of the family home, without seeming to care what happens to him.

At school, he’s a bit of an outsider, but Derf (Alex Wolff) is intrigued when Dahmer ‘spazzes out’ in the hallway, pretending to have an epileptic fit. The audacity and impropriety are enough to make Dahmer a bit of a legend; in response, Derf and his friends Neill (Tommy Nelson) and Mike (Harrison Holzer) form ‘The Dahmer Fan Club’. At first, Dahmer is flattered: he has friends to hang out with and is no longer ignored, but he soon realises that the trio are laughing at him as much as with him, that he’s a kind of sideshow novelty who just amuses them.

Meanwhile, his fascination with ‘the inside of things’ is thriving, even after his concerned father tears down the shed where he has been dissolving roadkill in acid (‘I like bones,’ he says, like that explains something). Neighbourhood pets are found dissected; a local doctor (Vincent Kartheiser) becomes an object of malign fantasy as he jogs past Dahmer’s house each day. Dahmer starts drinking, knocking back bottles of vodka in the schoolyard. The future is beckoning; they’re all supposed to know what they want. But he just mumbles, ‘biology’ when he’s asked about his interests, and clearly has no real idea what path he wants to take. He tries to fit in; he even asks a girl to prom, but it’s all too much. He can’t.

This is a compelling film with an unusual perspective, demonstrating as it does that Dahmer is not that different from any other reluctant outsider, his quirks and perversions not so very peculiar. There’s a real attempt here to understand rather than monster him, to examine the distinct set of circumstances that inform his later crimes.

Ross Lynch’s performance is remarkable: the utter, unrelenting misery of the ignored, invisible child is conveyed in his shambling gait, his closed-off expression. Occasionally, Lynch shows us who else Dahmer might have become: the way his face lights up as Derf invites him to sit with him at lunch; the fumbling charm with which he asks Bridget to the prom. But these fleeting moments of belonging are dwarfed by isolation, and ultimately we are left with a sense of someone who’ll do anything to make sure people notice him.

It’s fascinating – definitely one to watch.

4.4 stars

Susan Singfield

Cargo

04/06/18

Just when you think you’ve seen quite enough zombie movies for one lifetime, along comes A Quiet Place. And no sooner have you said, ‘okay, great stuff, but that really is enough now,’ than this film appears ready-to-stream on Netflix and you find yourself thinking, ‘You know what? Maybe there is room for just one more.’

Despite a depressingly over-familiar premise, Cargo succeeds largely by putting a new twist on the old ‘Apocalyptic epidemic of the undead’ scenario and by casting Tim from The Office in the lead role. He’s frankly nobody’s idea of an action hero and, somehow, that really works in the film’s favour. We care about him before he’s said so much as a word.

We are in the Australian outback and ex-pat Andy (Martin Freeman) and his Aussie wife, Kay (Susie Porter), are puttering along a river in their spacious houseboat, with their baby daughter, Rosie, at their side. But this is no holiday cruise. The couple are staying well away from the river banks which are now infested with cannibalistic zombies (yes, I know, but bear with me).  Of course, the constant search for food means that they do have to take some chances occasionally and, when Andy spots a wrecked yacht up ahead, he knows they’ll have to row across to it and investigate. The yacht provides some much-needed rations, but also something rather less welcome – a bite from one of the ‘infected.’ In this world, people in such a predicament are provided with a special medical kit which includes a handy sort of ‘illness tracker.’ This gives the victim a 48 hour countdown to their own doom – and, for those who can’t handle it, the manufacturers have thoughtfully included a lethal injection. The problem is that Andy and Kay’s main priority is Rosie and they soon realise that they need to get her to safety before they succumb to their own impending bloodlust.

Meanwhile, on shore, eleven-year-old aboriginal girl, Thoomy (Simone Landers), is trying to come to terms with the fact that her father, Willie (Bruce R. Carter), is himself rapidly succumbing to the same infection. She has come up with her own unusual methods of keeping him under control…

Writer/directors Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke have fleshed out their 2013 short of the same title and have managed to create something which, against all the odds, feels fresh and gripping. I love the fact that the zombies themselves are not given centre stage in this film. Indeed, for the first half of it we barely glimpse them; they remain a terrifying offscreen presence – but we are aware at all times of the possibility of their imminent arrival. (Zombie purists might like to know that these creatures are of the George Romero persuasion – i.e. slow and shambling, rather than their more recent fleet-footed iterations).

What Cargo has in abundance is suspense, which ramps steadily up from the opening scenes and at various points has me shouting ‘don’t go in there!’ at the screen. But of course, people do go in there, repeatedly, which works brilliantly. I love the fact that the film incorporates aboriginal mythology and shows the native Australians to be the ones who clearly know how best to handle the zombie situation (there’s a clear colonial allegory here). Also, the ‘48 hours to doom’ scenario lends the proceedings a breathless, race against time quality that keeps me hooked throughout.

You’d think, that with such a doomed and downbeat premise, it would be impossible to pull a feelgood ending out of the bag and yet, somehow, they’ve kind of managed that too.

So, yes, good stuff… but… that really is enough zombie movies now.

Isn’t it?

4.3 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Edie

30/05/18

Bravo, Sheila Hancock! Okay, so these words have probably been said countless times about this gloriously strong-willed actress – and likely in relation to more successful projects – but still, bravo! Because her physical accomplishment here is nothing short of astonishing.

The eponymous Edie (Hancock) is a widow, free at last from the tyranny of a long and unhappy marriage, but in the process of being coerced into a nursing home by her daughter, Nancy (Wendy Morgan). Nancy and Edie don’t exactly see eye to eye, and – in a fit of rebellion – Edie decides to fulfil her long-held dream of climbing Mount Suilven, a mountain in Scotland that she’s only ever seen in photographic form. But the mountain is a talisman, a reminder of the wild young girl she used to be, and of her father, the only person who encouraged – rather than curbed – her adventurous spirit.

Alighting from the train in Inverness, the enormity of her endeavour strikes Edie, as she discovers not only is there no bus to take her to the hotel she’s booked, but her hiking equipment is hopelessly ancient, unsuitable for the task ahead. Salvation comes in the unlikely form of Jonny (Kevin Guthrie), a local man who literally collides with her, and then offers her a lift. Initially hostile, they reach an uneasy truce as Edie realises he can help her to achieve her aim: Jonny – who needs the money – agrees to train her for her climb.

It’s a decent – if predictable – premise, and the performances are great. Hancock – who is eighty-bloody-five – actually climbs the mountain; there’s no green screen (or sedan chair) to augment this reality. The scenery is almost as breathtaking as the octogenarian’s fitness, and the two central characters are very well realised.

But there are some real issues here, although they’re kind of hard to pin down. There’s an odd stagnation about the film, so that it never really flies (it flutters occasionally and looks as though it might take off, but always falls back down to earth). Some moments are just peculiar, with people behaving or speaking in ways that don’t ring true, or appearing very briefly for no apparent reason (what’s the point of the German hiker, for example?). The dialogue is clumsy, the telling overwrought.

It’s a shame, because there’s clearly a good movie here, just fighting to get out. A lighter touch with the script might have made all the difference.

But still. Bravo, Sheila!

3 stars

Susan Singfield

The Breadwinner

29/05/18

While most of the accolades for animation tend to be hoovered up by bigger studios like America’s Pixar and Japan’s Studio Ghibli, it’s important to note that there are a few smaller independents doing incredible work out there – and Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon is certainly one of the finest. What’s more, they deserve all the plaudits going for having the sheer guts to tackle this difficult and heartrending tale of everyday survival.

Set in Kabul in 2001, when the Taliban were exercising total control over the war-ravaged city, The Breadwinner, based on a novel by Deborah Ellis, tells the story of Parvana (voiced by Saara Chaudry), an 11 year old girl faced with a tough decision. When her father, a crippled war veteran, is imprisoned for the unspeakable crime of possessing books, his wife and two daughters find themselves in an impossible situation. Women are not allowed to leave their homes unless accompanied by a man, so the most basic tasks – shopping, fetching water, going for medicine – are now forbidden to them. Trapped in their house, they face possible starvation. In desperation, Parvana cuts off her long hair, dons the clothes that belonged to her deceased brother, Sulayman and heads out into a hostile and dangerous world to try and make ends meet. Meanwhile, she is determined to visit the prison where she knows her father is being held captive – and, each evening, in order to take the family’s mind off their sorrows, she tells her little brother, Zaki, a made-up story about a boy’s heroic quest.

It’s hard to convey just how powerful and heart-wrenching The Breadwinner is. The animation is beautifully done, the simply-rendered characters managing to convey so much with every expression – and there’s a wonderful juxtaposition between the grim reality of Parvana’s daily life and the more whimsically-animated sequences that illustrate extracts from her regular storytelling sessions. The family’s story arc is suffused with an almost overpowering melancholy and there are scenes of harsh brutality here, that manage to be all the more effective for being told so economically – be warned, this really isn’t a film for younger children, who may find much of the content disturbing.

Director Norma Twomey has done an incredible job marshalling the talents of the hundreds of animators who worked on this and the way the film builds to a compelling and pulse-quickening climax is just one of its many strengths. The only disappointing thing for me is watching it in a  cinema where only a few people have bothered to turn up to see it. Please take the time to catch this wonderful film on the big screen, where it looks absolutely ravishing. Not only is it a considerable artistic achievement, it’s also a powerful and important story from the world’s recent history.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

On Chesil Beach

 

This image released by Bleecker Street shows Saoirse Ronan, left, and Billy Howle in a scene from “On Chesil Beach.” (Bleecker Street via AP)

27/05/18

I’m surprised to realise I haven’t read On Chesil Beach. I’ve read most of Ian McEwan’s ouvre, but not this slim novella. Maybe I’ve just balked at paying a standard paperback price for so few pages. Whatever. When friends suggest we meet up and make a day of it – a film in the afternoon; a meal in the evening – I’m more than happy to give this one a go.

It’s a decent movie, adapted by the author. Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle give excellent central performances as Florence and Edward, the clever young couple whose love for one another is evident, but who cannot negotiate the weight of expectation on their wedding night. They are wounded and humiliated by their failure to consummate their marriage; their naivety and innocence is heartbreaking to see. Too angry, too proud, too fragile, they don’t give themselves a chance, and their relationship is over before it’s even really begun. Their excruciating attempts to initiate sex are depicted here in agonising detail, their awkwardness and vulnerability cleverly conveyed.

We learn their history through flashbacks, which is quite effective in slowing down the pace and emphasising the couple’s interminable embarrassment. They meet when Edward blunders into an Oxford student CND meeting, bursting with the news that he’s gained a first in his degree. With no one to tell, he turns to a stranger – and Florence, who has just graduated with the same grade, is happy to help him celebrate. They come from very different backgrounds: she from the status-obsessed upper middle-classes, with an academic mother (Emily Watson) and an angrily competitive father (Samuel West); he from a more bohemian country life – his mild-mannered father (Adrian Scarborough) is head teacher of the village school; his mother (Anne-Marie Duff) is an artist, ‘brain-damaged’ after an accident. No matter; Florence and Edward fall in love. And, after their disastrous wedding night, they fall apart.

Much has been made of McEwan’s ingenuity in condensing the rest of the couple’s lives to a kind of footnote, thus highlighting the significance of their failure on that fateful day. But –  for me at least – this is the film’s failing. It feels like a careful set-up followed by a sketchy summary, and I am disappointed by the broad strokes of the final third.

Still, I’m glad I’ve seen it. It’s a sad tale of an experience that is hopefully far less commonplace, now that the silly notion of ‘saving oneself’ for a wedding night is a thing of the distant past.

3.8 stars

Susan Singfield

 

Sunshine On Leith

23/05/18

A show set in Edinburgh, about Edinburgh people, with music by two of the city’s most celebrated sons… little wonder the King’s Theatre is rammed to the rafters this evening and even less wonder that the audience is lapping up every line of Stephen Greenhorn’s earthy script. Which is not to take anything away from Sunshine On Leith. This exuberant, warm-hearted musical has much to recommend it.

Davy (played tonight by John McLarnon) and Ally (Paul James Corrigan) are two young friends, recently returned from a punishing tour of duty with the British army in Afghanistan. Delighted to have emerged in one piece, they head back to their homes in Leith (not Edinburgh, mind you. The script takes great pains to point out that there’s a big difference). Ally is going out with Davy’s sister, Liz (Neshla Caplan), a nurse dreaming of a brighter future, and she arranges a blind date for Davy with a colleague, English girl Yvonne (Jocasta Almgill). The two soon strike up a relationship but how far is Davy prepared to go in order to secure their future? Meanwhile, Davy’s parents, Rab (Phil McKee) and Jean (Hilary Maclean), are approaching their 30th anniversary and preparing to celebrate – but something from Rab’s past appears like a bolt from the blue, threatening to jeopardise the couple’s long-standing relationship.

Sunshine On Leith is an absolute charmer, a celebration of working class experiences and aspirations. It’s beautifully and economically staged, the revolving sets giving a genuine feel for the various locations and there’s a band onstage throughout the show from which key members interact with the cast and, at times, even establish characters in their own right.  And of course, there’s the music of The Proclaimers, which is cleverly tied to the story and, unlike many pop-culture musicals I can think of, is never allowed to feel superfluous. Even if they’re not your cup of Irn Bru, you cannot deny the power of the Reid brothers’ music and, from the opening chords of the climactic I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles), the entire audience is delightedly clapping hands and stamping feet with a force that seems to shake the beautiful old theatre to its very foundations. I’ve seen standing ovations here before, but they have rarely felt as well-earned or heartfelt as the one we witness tonight.

And if you don’t come out humming that poignant title song, well, there’s clearly something very wrong with you.

4.7 stars

Philip Caveney

Withnail and I

22/05/18

It’s always interesting to revisit an old favourite. You’re never entirely sure how well it’s going to hold up after the passage of so many years. Withnail and I (1987), shown here in a spanking new high resolution print, is a good case in point. I saw it on its first release when working as a reviewer for Manchester’s City Life Magazine and fully remember being absolutely blown away by it, laughing hysterically from start to finish. Though I’ve seen it a few times on TV over the years, it is great to have the opportunity to watch it again, as it was always intended to be seen.

Set in 1969, at the fag end of the hippie movement, it concerns two ‘resting’ actors residing in a dilapidated London flat, both of them dreaming of theatrical success and in the meanwhile going about the nearly full time task of getting themselves thoroughly wasted. After which, needing a break, they go on holiday in the country ‘by mistake.’

The role of Withnail provided Richard E. Grant with a stunning cinematic swansong and launched him on a long and varied career which continues to this day (though it’s sobering to reflect that in everything he’s done since, he never again had a role as downright memorable as this one). As his friend and flatmate, Paul McGann is so much more than just a foil. His bleak voiceovers are the glue that holds this shambolic series of misadventures together and his total incomprehension of his friend’s selfish, venal and manipulative habits is always a source of considerable merriment. Whilst we’re handing out the plaudits, let’s not forget Ralph Brown’s inspired turn as drug dealer and philosophiser Danny, which also provided him with a career high. Most telling of all, can there be any other film that features so many downright quotable one-liners? I seriously doubt it.

If there’s a problem with viewing a film that is so  ‘of its time’, it inevitably comes with the late Richard Griffiths’ portrayal of the predatory Uncle Monty, a rich homosexual who has set his sites on ‘I’ and means to have him by any means at his disposal. There’s nothing wrong with Griffiths’ performance, of course. Like most of his screen work,  it’s exemplary and he somehow manages to evoke genuine sympathy for a tragic character who is, more than anything else, lonely – but all that talk about buggery by force does make you feel rather uncomfortable. Is the film homophobic? Yes, undoubtedly – and I’m quite sure that, were it being shot in this day and age, writer/director Bruce Robinson would be obliged to rein in certain aspects of his script. Sadly, Robinson too never fulfilled the potential he demonstrated here – How To Get Ahead in Advertising, also starring Grant, was a much-anticipated misfire and the two films he’s made since then have failed to demonstrate his flair for whip-smart dialogue.

Ultimately, Withnail and I still works, even if – these days – I’m laughing more from familiarity than anything else. How great it would be to go back and view it, once again, for the very first time. It may, with the gift of hindsight, be a flawed classic – but a classic it undoubtedly remains.

4.5 stars

Philip Caveney

 

How to Talk to Girls at Parties

14/05/18

How To Talk to Girls at Parties has been openly derided by many reviewers, the main criticism being that it tries to cover too many genres. On the other hand, its rare – in these movie-saturated times – to find a slice of cinema that’s trying for something truly original and, for this at least, the film deserves some respect. Partially based on a Neil Gaiman short story and directed by John Cameron Mitchell (of Hedwig and the Angry Inch fame), it feels  – more than anything else – like a gutsy little independent production, but one that’s somehow managed to persuade an A-list cast to climb aboard for the voyage.

It’s 1977, the year of the Queen’s Jubilee, and Enn (Alex Sharp) is a teenage punk, disgusted with what’s happening around him and currently running a fanzine which he does with the help of his mates, John (Ethan Lawrence) and Vic (Abraham Lewis). In their down time, they eagerly discuss the great issues of the day, such as the Clash signing to CBS and, of course, most baffling of all, the age-old problem identified in the film’s title. Meanwhile, they attend punk rock concerts helmed by local icon, Queen Boudicea (Nicole Kidman sporting a blonde wig and a faintly dodgy cockney accent). But when the three friends go in search of an ‘after-show’ party, they chance upon a gathering of what they first take to be American art students, but what actually turns out to be a crowd of visiting cannibalistic aliens.

Amidst the confusion, Enn bumps into disaffected young extra-terrestrial, Zan (Elle Fanning doing that sleepy–eyed wild-child thing she does so brilliantly), and she asks Enn to teach her more about ‘the punk.’ Which he gleefully agrees to do. It’s not long before the two of them start to fall for each other. But it appears that their time together is to be short, because the leader of the alien visitors is planning something very drastic indeed…

HTTTGAT is undeniably ramshackle and the plot machinations are, frankly, of the fruit-loop variety – but, having said that, the film has a gutsy charm that makes you forgive its excesses and it somehow manages to capture the exuberance of the Punk Rock movement in a way few other films have. Sharp and Fanning make an agreeable twosome and the off-the-wall alien costumes, created by veteran designer Sandy Powell, are delightfully eye-popping. This certainly won’t be for everyone – it’s very quirky – but I thought it was great fun, no matter how many genres it gleefully straddled.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney