New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Richard Eyre.
Cast: Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Bill Nighy, Andrew Simpson
Description: Aging lesbian schoolmistress Barbara Covett harbours a secret infatuation with married art teacher Sheba Hart. When Barbara discovers that the object of her affection is conducting an illicit affair with a 15-year-old pupil, behind the back of her husband, the older woman sets about sowing the seeds of Sheba's spectacular downfall.
Country: UK. 2006. 91mins
Dame Judi Dench stars as a lonely teacher
Whether Judi Dench, Helen Mirren or Kate Winslet, or none of them, wins this year's Oscar, Dench's performance in this exceptional film deserves to be accounted one of her best on screen.
Playing Barbara, a lonely and ageing spinster who teaches in a London school and suddenly finds she has the power to dominate Cate Blanchett's Sheba, a much younger member of staff, she is not just an ordinary villain. We see her vulnerability, her loneliness and her desperation to be loved.
"People," she says, "have always trusted me with their secrets. Who will I trust with mine?" It is this refusal to play some kind of latterday Lady Macbeth that makes this portrait so subtle and so powerful.
The married Sheba has trusted her with the secret of her affair with Andrew Simpson's attractive but emotionally needy pupil. And what Barbara wants, if she is not to inform the headmaster, is absolute power over her. This is the companion she has always sought, but in the end the liaison she seeks proves impossible.
Richard Eyre's film, skilfully adapted from Zoe Heller's novel by Patrick Marber, has a melodramatic ending which weakens it a little but remains, like Dench's performance, one of the best things he too has done for the screen. It is masterfully constructed, and contains several outstanding performances.
Blanchett as the wracked and guilt-stricken Sheba, Simpson as the lovelorn pupil and Bill Nighy as Sheba's patient, unknowing husband, whose sudden explosion when he finds out the truth is startlingly effective, add considerably to the strength of an adult movie with few Hollywood-like compromises.
If we can still make films like this and The Queen, the often beleaguered British film industry can clearly hold its head high in any company.
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