RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation
Around the World in 80 Days, Leeds Playhouse/Touring
Inventive adaptation of Jules Verne’s globetrotting classic sets a relentless pace
Nimble: Darren Kuppan (left) as Fix of the Yard
[David Lindsay]
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era
The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words
SOME books take on a life of their own that’s bigger than the author ever imagined and that’s true of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days, a fast-moving adventure now synonymous with the image of a hot-air balloon.
Yet such a mode of transport is never employed in the original 1873 novel and that misconception is a running gag in Toby Hulse’s irreverent adaptation in its frequent referencing to travelling by balloon as we follow the exploits of Phileas Fogg and his manservant Passepartout.
Similar stories
PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying
DAVID NICHOLSON recommends a dazzling production of Bernstein’s opera set in a world where chaos and violence are greeted by equanimity
WILL STONE applauds a fine production that endures because its ever-relevant portrait of persecution
SUSAN DARLINGTON is bowled over by an outstanding play about the past, present and future of race and identity in the US