Reviews

46,000 surf fans gather in the grounds of a stately pile and have fun, fun, fun

Boxed three-disc set exploring the historical context surrounding the '30s country-blues guitarist

Adaptation of Spike Milligan's cult 1963 novel

This 1938 Frank Capra outing may have won an Oscar but its tale of the son of a wealthy family (Jimmy Stewart) looking to buy up the property of Lionel Barrymore's cheerful brood of eccentrics (who include an improbably youthful Jean Arthur), is over-treacled with Capra-esque sentimentalism. Stewart's role is underplayed, the plot is slow-moving and the comedic pickings lean.

Sharon Osbourne, reviewing Series One, sighs wistfully to her son: "I wish it was back then, Jack... we were innocent then." Jack replies: "I think we've been robbed of our innocence."And it was precisely those naïve and spontaneous moments in the Osbourne family mansion that made the first series such a richly human, entertaining and unrepeatable TV experience.

Tom Stoppard directs this 1990 screen version of his ingenious 1967 play about two supporting characters from Hamlet. Stoppard opens up the play's theatrical setting well, and his brilliant dialogue remains intact. Sadly, the two leads—Oldman and Roth—are uninspiring.

Three years slaving away in a hot studio for UK garage man

Lo-fi avant-pop from Canadian duo

Philip Glass at his most minimal, repetitive, and inexplicably, magically, affecting. Apparently, Michael Nyman wrote a score for this, too, and was sore when Glass won that particular clash of the titans. Which, you have to concede, has a touch more aesthetic loftiness about it than "Ugly Noel tells someone to fuck off". It's lovely, though if we're candid, not as lovely as we were hoping. Many reviews of the film decried the music as over-insistent, which is akin to describing George Bush as a genius.

Uncompromising Londoners bring the noise to ragga