What action there is in this downplayed drama stems from the homoerotic tensions generated by the enrolment of a beautiful young samurai into the Shinsengumi Militia, a school famous for its strict discipline code, and the period setting of late 19th Century Japan is effectively used to evoke the extreme secrecy that any kind of institutional homosexuality was forced to exist in. The swordplay provides a welcome interval between the desperate (and often sad) sex scenes, showing the samurai tende find out more...

The Importance of Being Earnest (1986); this is a good, clear production, in which the repartee flows right along, except for Rupert Frazer, far too stuffy and moral and not nearly hungry enough for Algernon. He becomes a straight man for Jack, in which role Paul McGann, usually a melancholy actor, turns his doleful air into one long, sublimely silly fret. Natalie Ogle is a sweetly fixated Cecily, Amanda Redman has an abundance of energy and in her performance one sees, as Jack correctly does, t find out more...

Stunning biopic of Oscar Wilde, with Stephen Fry giving an exceptional performance as the controversial playwright. Against the austere and seedy backdrop of Victorian London, the rise and fall of the legendary wit is told with sensitivity and gutsiness, with a storming performance from Jude Law as the pouting, petulant Lord Douglas. Fry is dazzling, portraying both vulnerability and flagrant impertinence with equal aplomb, as he marauds kamikaze-like through London's outraged literary society. find out more...