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: Larry Charles.
Cast: Bill Maher
Description: Renowned comedian and satirist Bill Maher takes an irreverent look at organised religion in this tongue-in-cheek documentary, which sees the funny man journey around the world, asking probing questions about faith and absolution. He meets an actor who portrays Jesus at the Holy Land Experience theme park in Orlando, a man who claims to have cured his homosexuality through a love of the Lord, and a Miami televangelist who boldly claims to be Christ reborn. As part of his quest for answers, Maher also crosses the Atlantic to behold the gargantuan, naked chalk figure at Cerne Abbas in Dorset.
Country: US. 2008. 101mins
Easy target: Bill Maher with one of his eccentric interviewees
Larry Charles made Borat and directed Seinfeld for television. This time comedian and agnostic Bill Maher is his star and the subject is organised religion — which neither particularly likes. Standing in Israel amid the ruins of Megiddo (from which the word Armageddon is derived) Maher says doubt rather than faith is his watchword.
After all, who seriously believes in the Garden of Eden’s talking snake and other such myths? Not the decidedly unorthodox Catholic priest whom Maher interviews outside the Vatican, from which he has just been expelled. That’s all old-fashioned stuff, says the priest. But Maher then fails to question him about what he does believe.
That’s the trouble with Religulous —it is funny but never very acute. Maher homes in on people who seriously think they are God’s representatives on earth. “You need a Holy Ghost enema,” says one television evangelist from her platform. Maher’s targets are understandable, since such people exercise a huge influence on America. But it’s too easy.
There are some more sensible people interviewed, including a distinguished scientist who does not believe in the evolution of mankind. But even then the questions Maher asks just aren’t sharp enough — and he has the bad habit of commenting on the interviews spitefully afterwards.
Christians, Jews and Muslims get it in the neck, often deservedly so, but no religious representative is allowed to bandy words with him and come out even.
There are two smiling Muslims in an Amsterdam gay bar who say nothing very much, and the American Truckers for Jesus, who at least have a decent try at justifying their faith. It’s all pretty harmless fun — the old joke about a Catholic Jew taking his lawyer into confession (“Bless me father for I have sinned — and I think you know Mr Cohen”) still makes us laugh, and the excerpts from awful Biblical epics amuse us still further. But none of it stays in the mind very long.
The title, by the way, is a combination of religious and ridiculous.
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