Freakier Friday review - body-swapping gone ballistic

★★★ FREAKIER FRIDAY Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis's comedy sequel

Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis's comedy sequel jumbles up more than their daughter-mother duo

Before Freakier Friday there were the two film versions of Freaky Friday based on Mary Rodgers’s lively, perceptive 1972 Young Adult novel, the foremother of all body-swap movie comedies (including Big).

Poor Clare, Orange Tree Theatre review - saints cajole us sinners

★ POOR CLARE, ORANGE TREE THEATRE Chira Atik's award-winning comedy packs a punch

Funny and clever show illuminated by a dazzling debut from Arsema Thomas

What am I, a philosophical if not political Marxist whose hero is Antonio Gramsci, doing in Harvey Nichols buying Comme des Garçons linen jackets, Church brogues and Mulberry shades? It’s 1987 and I do wear it well though…

This is My Family, Southwark Playhouse - London debut of 2013 Sheffield hit is feeling its age

★ THIS IS MY FAMILY, SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE Play with music engenders a familiar warmth

Relatable or stereotyped - that's for you to decide

MOR. Twee. Unashamedly crowdpleasing. Are such descriptors indicative of a tedious night in the stalls? For your reviewer, who has become jaded very quickly with a myriad of searing examinations of mental health crises and wake up calls about the forthcoming environmental collapse, I often find comfort in material more suited to the large print section of the library. But the show still has to be good and that’s a big challenge when dealing with "smaller" subject matter.

Hansel and Gretel, Shakespeare's Globe review - too saccharine a retelling for our times

 HANSEL AND GRETEL, SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE Songs and sweeties, but insufficient sourness and sadism for fans of fairytales

Songs and sweeties, but insufficient sourness and sadism for fans of fairytales

Growing up within a few hundred yards of a major dock, I hardly knew darkness or quiet – the first time I properly felt their terrible beauty was on the Isle of Man ferry in the middle of the Irish Sea, its voids still vivid half a century on. 

How To Survive Your Mother, King's Head Theatre review - mummy issues drive autobiographical dramedy

★★★ HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR MOTHER, KING'S HEAD THEATRE Jonathan Maitland writes of his mother, but should we laugh or cry?

Lots of heartache, but a strange void where the heart of the play should be

It is unsurprising to learn in the post-show Q&A that each audience receives Jonathan Maitland’s new play based on his 2006 memoir differently. My house laughed a lot (me especially) but some see the tragic overwhelming the comic, and the laughs dry up. When it comes to humour, as is the case with mothers, it’s each to their own.

The Wild Robot - beasts and bot bond, gradually

DreamWorks' latest kids' adventure suggests that cosying up to AI is a fait accompli

Is it mere coincidence or already a new trend? Animated films about the unlikely friendships between robots and animals are thriving. Earlier this year, Pablo Berger's heart-warming retro tale Robot Dreams proved that fur and metal can go a long way when it comes to creating a kids' film that is in touch with the times. In The Wild Robot, things are a little more complicated: machines and feral creatures get to learn from each other the hard way.

The Silver Cord, Finborough Theatre review - Sophie Ward is compellingly repellent

 THE SILVER CORD, FINBOROUGH Narcissism up-close and disturbingly relevant 

Beautifully staged and acted revival of Sidney Howard’s century-old black comedy

One of the Finborough Theatre’s Artistic Director, Neil McPherson’s, gifts is an uncanny ability to find long-forgotten plays that work, right here, right now. He’s struck gold again with The Silver Cord, presenting its first London production for over 95 years. 

The Echo review - a beautiful but confusing look at life in a Mexican village

★★★★ THE ECHO A beautiful but confusing look at life in a Mexican village

A docufiction captures the prescribed lives of rural Mexican girls and women

El Eco (The Echo) is a small village in Mexico’s central highlands, about two hours drive from Mexico City. But it might as well be thousands of miles away since it feels cut off from the outside world, especially for the women and children eking out a living there.

Blu-ray: Chocolat

★★★★ CHOCOLAT Claire Denis' African debut is a nostalgic yet unsparing look at colonial life

Claire Denis' African debut is a nostalgic yet unsparing look at colonial life

Claire Denis’ 1988 debut is a sensual madeleine to her Cameroonian childhood, with its taste of termites on butter, sound of birdsong and insect chitter, and the camera’s slow turn and rise into vast vistas. It’s also a colonial reckoning, setting out themes of violent incomprehension and fractured souls. Like the gaze of France (Cécile Ducasse), her child surrogate in this 1957 tale, Denis’ initial African vision is enigmatic and unblinking.

theartsdesk Q&A: Marco Bellocchio - the last maestro

Q&A: MARCO BELLOCCHIO Italian cinema's vigorous grand old man discusses 'Kidnapped'

Italian cinema's vigorous grand old man discusses Kidnapped, conversion, anarchy and faith in cinema

The last of the old maestros is standing tall. Marco Bellocchio was a Marxist firebrand when he made his iconoclastic debut with Fists in the Pocket (1965). Now aged 84, he makes intellectually and emotionally muscular, hit epics about abused Italian power.