An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Anthony Fabian.
Cast: Sam Neill, Ella Ramangwane, Sophie Okonedo, Hannes Brummer, Alice Krige
Description: Shopkeepers Abraham and Sannie Laing raise their daughter Sandra and son Leon in virtual isolation in South Africa, hoping to protect the girl from the realisation that she is different from her older brother. When the girl enrols at boarding school, teachers and other pupils make clear their prejudices about her colour and Sandra retaliates. As she grows up, Sandra continues to rail against an unjust system.
Country: UK/S AFRICA. 2008. 106mins
Tragic true story: Sophie Okonedo plays a black girl born to white parents
It has arrived a little late in the day, but Anthony Fabian’s tragic factual tale of a black South African girl born, apparently due to a genetic quirk, to white Afrikaner parents during the apartheid era is all the more extraordinary for being true.
Sandra Laing (Sophie Okonedo), the girl in question, was cherished by her parents (Sam Neill and Alice Krige), sent to a whites-only school, banished from it by the authorities, classified coloured and then reclassified as white after her father mounted a campaign.
After that, she “betrayed” her father by falling in love with a black vegetable seller and going to live with him in Swaziland. Her husband accused her of being a white in disguise and beat her. Her brothers took her father’s side but her mother hoped for a reconciliation.
The story illustrates the way Apartheid tore families as well as races apart and tells of Sandra’s 30-year-struggle with unflamboyant skill. Fabian, it is true, might have made it a bit more cinematic but, in opting for a straight narrative within a flashback structure, at least he avoids melodrama and his cast serve him well.
You could hardly call this a timely film but it does remind us of the evils of racism and the misery it causes.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Mr. Malcolm's otherwise sensible review is let down by a peculiar lack of insight: why is he saying this film 'arrived late in the day' and is 'hardly timely'? With the very recent enquiry proving racism is still endemic within the British police (and frankly throughout our society) - and the election of America's first bi-racial president - there has never been a more timely moment to release a film that deals with questions of racial identity - and the politics therein. Surely it is possible to extrapolate a bit from the details of the film's setting to see its wider relevance, and its ultimate message of tolerance and forgiveness - a message that South Africans have been trying to teach the world since the end of apartheid? I think Skin should be seen by everyone on the planet - given all wars are based on tribalism, it's just about the most timely film out there.
- Liam In London, London, UK
Morning:
11°c
