Skip to main content

Christmas Carole review – Suranne Jones is pitch perfect in this instant festive classic

From a ghostly Morecambe and Wise to high-kicking dance numbers, this modern retelling of the Dickens classic is absolutely glorious

I think we are all of the same opinion that Christmas Eve cannot be said to have reached its full splendour until the first proper – charming, joyful, fun, family-friendly, tear-inducing – Christmas drama has been consumed. So thank the seasonal gods and commissioners for Christmas Carole (Sky Max), a glorious, modern retelling of Charles Dickens’s tale by Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto that will set you up brilliantly for the whole yuletide shebang.

Carole Mackay (played by a pitch-perfect Suranne Jones in her most severe bob and red lipstick yet) is 2022’s Scrooge – a successful, wealthy entrepreneur who is about to become even more wealthy (“I’m giving myself £100m for Christmas!”) through the imminent sale of her Christmas decorations and merchandise business (“Cheap tat!” says the awful Carole, who cares not a jot that she is filling the planet with waste as long as it makes her a profit) to Limpopo. “The massive American online retailer?” asks her put-upon assistant. “No, the river in Africa,” replies Carole, rolling her eyes. I cannot imagine who this is meant to be.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/TbmBhxL

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How Rico Lewis helped harden up Manchester City’s treble challenge | Jamie Jackson

Guardiola believes advent of the teenage talent sowed seeds of change that turned his side into champions again Mid-January, the Etihad Campus. Before Tottenham’s visit a discontented Pep Guardiola is addressing a Manchester City team meeting that includes Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, John Stones and Ederson. The champions are in second place, eight points behind Arsenal, each having played 18 games. Performances have dipped and so has the attitude of his players. The final match before the World Cup was a 2-1 home defeat by Brentford . Since the tournament, City have beaten Leeds and Chelsea, drawn with Everton and lost their previous outing , 2-1 at Manchester United. Seven points from 15 is not championship-defending form and, when being knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Southampton is factored in, Guardiola can see City’s campaign derailing. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/h8WjbMX

Wandsworth escape accused says it was ‘foolish’ to jail him with his ‘skill set’

Daniel Khalife, 23, says he absconded because he was ‘terrified’ of being locked up with dangerous offenders A former British soldier has told a jury he did not hand himself in after he escaped from prison because he was “finally demonstrating what a foolish idea it was” to imprison someone with his “skill set”. Daniel Khalife, 23, told the court he absconded from Wandsworth prison while on remand because he was “terrified” of being locked up with “serious sex offenders” and “terrorists” who wanted to kill him, and that he did not think his imprisonment would be in the public interest. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/vRZHkaw

Bodies of Men: the love story taking on toxic masculinity in a time of war

Nigel Featherstone’s new novel tackles traditional conservatism and patriarchy through an unconventional romance How can you be a man and be anti-war? This is the question that Sydney-born novelist Nigel Featherstone, who is a pacifist, considered while he took up a three-month writing residency in a military library. He set out to discover what happens to very different expressions of masculinity placed under military pressure. “Australia does have a very defined, toxic brand of masculinity,” says the bespectacled Featherstone, seated by the window at his local pub facing the railway station at Goulburn, north of Canberra, while men on stools at the nearby bar sink beers and televisions on the walls screen horse racing results. Continue reading... from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2N8piOc