Latest news with #YoungFathers
The Herald Scotland
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Theatre targets reopening date as £10m vision takes shape
The 1500-capacity venue, which will be 100 years old in 2032, is expected to play host to festivals, live theatre, concerts and comedy, conferences, food and drink events, and film and TV productions when it reopens permanently. Read more: The venue, off Ferry Road, has played host to acts like Young Fathers, Jarvis Cocker, Alan Cumming, The Jesus and Mary Chain, King Creosote, Gerry Cinnamon, Neneh Cherry and Mogwai in recent years. However its main auditorium is described as being in "a state of semi-dereliction" and Leith Theatre has only been able to open on a "pop-up" basis for festivals and other one-off events. Leith Theatre has been closed to the public for most of its life since it opened in 1932. (Image: Ryan Buchanan) The restoration and refurbishment project is expected to improve facilities throughout the building which are said to be 'largely end of life or non-existent.' Key elements of the revamp include carrying out roof repairs, installing new heating and ventilation systems, soundproofing the venue, improving the water supply, creating new public toilets and celebrating the heritage of the venue and making it more visible from Ferry Road. Leith Theatre has been reopened on a pop-up basis for festivals and one-off events since 2017. (Image: Chris Scott) The Scottish and UK government are expected to be asked to support the first major overhaul in the history of the venue, which has been closed to the public for most of its life since it opened in 1932. Edinburgh City Council, which owns the building, has suggested that money raised from its new visitor levy, which will be introduced from this October, could help pay for the venue's full-time revival. Leith Theatre's revamp is expected to cost at least £10m. The trust says it is seeking to 'sensitively refurbish' and 'futureproof' the B-listed building by bringing it back into full-time use. It is looking for 'imaginative design concepts that combine new ideas and originality with a sensitive approach to the building, its original purpose and its future life.' A search for architects to transform Leith Theatre has been launched months after two significant breakthroughs boosted hopes that the venue - which has been on the UK's official 'theatres at risk' register since 2016 - could reopen throughout the year. A full-scale revamp of Leith Theatre is hoped to be completed by 2029. More than 20 years after plans to sell off the building were thwarted by a grassroots community campaign, it was announced in January that the city council had agreed to grant a long lease to a charity which has led efforts to bring the building back to life. Within weeks, it was announced that the Leith Theatre Trust, which was formed nearly a decade ago to draw up plans to secure the building's future and bring it back into public use, had secured a £4.5 million pledge from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Leith Theatre has been reopened on a pop-up basis to host music, theatre and comedy events in recent years. Image: Ryan Buchanan A newly-published vision for Leith Theatre's future of Leith Theatre - which recalls how the building was 'forgotten' and allowed to 'fall into disrepair' after it was closed down by the council - said the estimated cost of £10m was 'based on an ambition to raise further funds.' The Leith Theatre blueprint has been published weeks after it reopened to the public for the first time in nearly three years to play host to a new musical adaptation of the classic 1980s Scottish film comedy Restless Natives. The blueprint, which envisages the building as 'the theatre that isn't just a theatre', is aimed at transforming it into a 'significant cultural designation' and Leith Theatre becoming 'an exemplar for the reuse of heritage buildings.' The building was originally gifted to Leith from the city of Edinburgh after their controversial amalgamation in 1920, but was almost destroyed and forced to close for 20 years after a Second World War bob blast badly damaged its main auditorium. The venue was revived in 1961 and played host to the Edinburgh International Festival each summer, as well as acts like AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, Frankie Miller, Kraftwerk, Dr Feelgood and Moot the Hoople. However it had fallen into decline by the early 1980s, when the city council decided to close the building outwith the EIF, which continued to use it until 1988. The building remained closed until 2017 when it was brought back into use by the city's Hidden Door festival and the EIF finally returned again the following year. Although almost £1m has been spent in recent years on urgent repairs, safety measures and making sure the building is wind and watertight, Leith Theatre has only occasionally been used since then because of its poor condition and lack of facilities. Under a new timeline for the project, the trust hopes to appoint a design team October of this year, agree final designs by May 2027 and start construction work by the end of 2028, with the aim of completing the project during 2029. The design brief states: 'Our vision is to become a significant cultural destination on Edinburgh's coastal corridor of regeneration integrating into, and delivering on, the city's various policies around culture, wellbeing, active travel and heritage. 'We have an extraordinary opportunity to align with Edinburgh's cultural offer, including libraries, festivals and heritage spaces. 'Leith Theatre is situated in an out-of-city centre yet accessible location, serviced by the tram route, numerous bus services and cycle paths and adjacent to the Water of Leith. 'Ultimately, our design work should ensure that the historical significance of this site is respected and celebrated while simultaneously delivering on our need to develop commercial income streams and creative partnerships, growing our local to national audiences, and becoming the key cultural destination in Leith. 'We aim to allow heritage and innovation to coexist as we build a venue for the future, while taking everyone along on the journey. 'Building on our long-standing incremental approach to development, our plan is to sensitively refurbish the building currently known as Leith Theatre, futureproofing this 1930s civic complex with historic ties to its community to bring it back into full-time use. 'We will make it more accessible to a wider range of audiences to enjoy this valuable cultural asset and mid-sized music and performance venue at the heart of Leith life. 'We are looking for imaginative design concepts that combine new ideas and originality with a sensitive approach to the building, its original purpose and its future life.' The trust has stressed that any proposed plans for the building's refurbishment must be 'mindful of how the main Leith Theatre building interacts with its surrounding communities.' But they say that designs must also involve 'imaginative ideas' that will 'futureproof' the building and ensure the new-look venue is financially viable. The new vision states: 'Leith Theatre sits in a diverse area in its cultural make-up and in terms of poverty and wealth disparity, with a walkable audience of circa 58,000 people, reflecting the high population density. 'Old Leithers have pride in a strong local identity and built heritage. New Leithers include families and young creatives looking for a cultural offer, with programme needing to reflect this situation. 'The venue's accessible location and ambition of an exciting programme aligning with Scotland's cultural offer and should attract an audience from the wider city and further afield. 'In creating a sustainable operating business with intelligent solutions and flexible use of spaces, heritage and innovation must sit in balance throughout any design and future vision. 'The building's inherent heritage value must be protected as something important to local people, but imaginative ideas will be required to create a financially viable business, to bring the experience up to modern standards and to futureproof the venue for generations to come.' Lynn Morrison, who has been chief executive of the trust since 2018, added: 'Following our recent National Lottery Heritage Fund award, 2025 marks a pivotal year for Leith Theatre as we move closer to delivering a fully refurbished, much-needed mid-sized music, performance and community space for Leith and Edinburgh. 'This capital project will make it possible for our 1930s treasure to function effectively today, addressing essential building repairs and reimagining services and facilities to meet the needs of a modern cultural venue. 'As well as being a vital community support, we've proudly hosted a dynamic programme in recent years. We have welcomed major names across music, film and television, alongside showcasing exceptional home-grown talent, but this has only been possible on a temporary, pop-up basis. 'The refurbishment will finally allow us to open our doors permanently, unlocking the theatre's full potential not just as Edinburgh's missing mid-sized music venue, but as the cultural heart of Leith.'
Indian Express
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
28 Years Later: Danny Boyle has probably made Shashi Tharoor's favourite film; a thriller that punishes the British for all their plundering and pillaging
While promoting his new film, 28 Years Later, director Danny Boyle expressed retrospective reservations about Slumdog Millionaire. By far his most successful movie, it delivered the box office performance of a Marvel blockbuster and won him the prestigious Best Director Oscar. Boyle was already famous thanks to his boundary-pushing past work, but he wasn't Bollywood famous. And yet, while reflecting on Slumdog a decade-and-a-half later, he declared that he would never make something like it again; instead, he said, he would appoint a young Indian director at the helm. It seems like Boyle, who also spearheaded the opening ceremony for the London Olympics, has developed an acute case of 'white guilt'. This guilt can be felt in every frame of 28 Years Later. In addition to being a thrilling achievement in genre filmmaking, and a surprisingly emotional coming-of-age tale, 28 Years Later is stark indictment of the British Empire — a stronger one, mind you, than both RRR and Kesari Chapter 2 combined. Set in a world that has outcast the British entirely, 28 Years Later punishes them for all their plundering and pillaging. The only foreign character to set eyes on the British in over two decades views them with a mixture of curiosity and pity. They don't even know what the internet is; they've never laid hands on a mobile phone. The majority of them are brain-eating zombies; some even crawl around in the muck, slurping on worms. Forget handing out reparations, they've forgotten the very concept of money. It's as if Shashi Tharoor himself wrote the screenplay. Also read – Sinners: Ryan Coogler drives a stake through Marvel's heart in one of the year's best movies The story unfolds nearly three decades after a virus broke out and turned the majority of Britain's population into the undead. The island was quarantined, with nations of the world deploying soldiers across its perimeter to keep people from sneaking out. Anybody from the outside who dared set foot on 'Great' Britain would have to bid their old life goodbye. Nobody gets to leave. But those who survived the outbreak, and, presumably, the events of 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, created tiny communities scattered across the country, protecting themselves from the zombies with rudimentary weapons. It is in one of these isolated communities that our hero, a young boy named Spike, lives with his brawny father and bed-ridden mother. For no fault of his own, Spike inherited an irreparable world, infected by the trauma caused by generations past. All he wants is to live up to the expectations of his peers, and to not disappoint his dad. As a rite of passage, kids of Spike's age are taken out of the village, across the causeway that connects it to the country, and made to experience the zombie-infested wilderness for themselves. Over the sounds of a rallying cry expertly weaved into the background score by the Scottish trio Young Fathers, Spike and his dad make the trek into the mainland, or, what remains of it. 'There's no discharge in the war,' the voice in the background says, reciting the imperialist poet Rudyard Kipling's 'Boots'. A tattered flag of England waves atop a rusty pole. Boyle's camera cuts occasionally to propaganda posters, perhaps designed to motivate the populace during a past war — a war that the 'living' likely lost. The village that Spike lives in is a symbol of resilience, yes, but it is also a reminder of battered pride. We're told that Spike's village has no communication with others scattered across Britain; it's isolationism within isolationism. The colonisers have cornered themselves. Electrifying, unwavering, and yet, deeply sentimental, Boyle's new film is a near-perfect example of what can be done with the zombie genre. 28 Days Later was a mediation on post-9/11 paranoia. In Sean of the Dead, Boyle's fellow British filmmaker Edgar Wright used the undead to comment on the mundanity of middle-class existence; the Cuban film Juan of the Dead used zombies as a metaphor for mass-migration. Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead offered a critique of American consumerism, containing the entire plot inside a shopping mall. In 28 Years Later, Boyle and his writer, the great Alex Garland, are drawn to the idea of a nation reduced to a shadow of its former self. It is almost as if the British deserved it. Read more – Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning: Tom Cruise deserved better than a goofy Abbas-Mustan movie that chooses spoon-feeding over spectacle The indications were there from the very first scene; the movie opens with a flashback to zero day. A young child named Jimmy watches his mother being eaten to death by a horde of zombies. He makes a dash to the church, where his father, the vicar, is in some sort of trance. Spreading his arms out wide, Jimmy's father spouts some nonsense about the Day of Judgement. We're being punished for our sins, he screams with a mad glee on his face, as he's overwhelmed by zombies. A song called 'Promised Land' plays in the background; the angelic voices underscoring the apocalypse. The tone is set immediately. This is a movie about karma. It makes sense, because the last thing that Garland did was Warfare, another film that dared to point fingers at Western imperialism, but via the Iraq War. 28 Days Later ends on a rather wild note, with the sudden introduction of a cult who've modelled themselves on the (possibly un-outed) convicted sex offender Jimmy Savile — a perverse symbol of national pride if there ever was one. Britain's sins are haunting its youth. That's why Spike was forsaken; to suffer and survive with a stiff upper lip. Post Credits Scene is a column in which we dissect new releases every week, with particular focus on context, craft, and characters. Because there's always something to fixate about once the dust has settled.
The National
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
Scottish band Young Fathers behind 28 Years Later soundtrack
28 Years Later stars Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the husband-and-wife duo, Isla and Jamie, and their 12-year-old son Spike, played by Alfie Williams, as they prepare to head out to the infected mainland for the first time. The hip hop group featuring Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and Graham Hastings, who are from Edinburgh, were hand-picked by director Boyle despite having no experience working on film before. 'I don't know whether they'd like this description, but they're sort of like the Beach Boys, but so hardcore,' Boyle (below) told Rolling Stone UK when speaking about the group. 'I guess that's kind of their use of harmonies and melodies in their music.' Explaining how he got Young Fathers onboard with the project, Boyle said: 'It was a huge risk because they'd never done a movie before and it's that thing with any pop group, are you gonna trust the whole movie to them? 'But you go yeah! Yeah! Sony didn't know the first thing about them, but they were wonderful. We had a wonderful back and forth and I went up to Edinburgh to their studio, which is a shed. 'It literally isn't even a garage – it's a shed, and they produce extraordinary stuff there. It was very beautiful. There's some of the stuff you'd expect from them in there, which gives a very different flavour to the film.' Young Fathers won the prestigious Mercury Prize in 2014 for their debut album Dead and were nominated for a second time in 2023 for their fourth studio album, Heavy, Heavy. Known for their layered, genre-resistant and politically influenced sound, the soundtrack for 28 Years Later weaves lo-fi textures, chants, off-kilter synths and heavy percussion.
Mint
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Mint
‘28 Years Later' review: Danny Boyle's triumphant return to zombie film
Danny Boyle's 2002 film 28 Days Later is widely considered one of the most influential entries in the zombie genre. By stripping out the supernatural and replacing it with a scientifically plausible viral outbreak, Boyle gave the genre a visceral realism. Now, in 28 Years Later (2025), Boyle reengages the genre with his trademark jittery digital aesthetic, matched by Alex Garland's bleak yet poetic screenplay. (28 Weeks Later, the 2007 sequel was directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, but this new instalment brings the original team back into play.) 28 Years Later isn't just a sequel; it's a resurrection—a smart, stylish, and often brutal return to a world that reshaped zombie cinema back in 2002. The post-apocalyptic UK remains in indefinite quarantine, its landscape overrun by the infected. Small uninfected communities survive in isolation. One such pocket is a tiny island off the coast of Scotland, cut off from the mainland and clinging to normalcy. Garland's script focuses on one family: Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), his ailing wife Isla (Jodie Comer), and their 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams). The story balances the lives of these isolated survivors and the shifting nature of the virus itself, while also functioning as a coming-of-age tale for a boy forced to grow up too soon. His drive to save his mother becomes the emotional core of the film. Visually, Boyle embraces a lusher, more cinematic palette. Frequent collaborator Anthony Dod Mantle paints the screen with steely blues, greys, mossy greens, and sudden shocks of red. It's a haunted landscape—vast fields where clusters of daisies offer fleeting distraction from the horrors lurking in ruins and undergrowth. The score, composed by Scottish hip-hop trio Young Fathers, mixes established tracks with original compositions. But the standout is Boyle's integration of Rudyard Kipling's Boots, narrated by Taylor Holmes. Its militaristic cadence becomes a chilling refrain, layered over disjointed visuals of past and present—suggestive of the violence ahead. Boyle's kinetic energy remains—dynamic camera work, sudden edits, sharp violence. A standout scene set in an abandoned train carriage, abandoned homes with horrors within are very effective but the tonal shifts—from tender family moments to brutal carnage—can be jarring. Much of the horror lies not in gore (though there's plenty), but in implication: the off-screen scream, the aftermath silence, the look of a survivor who's run out of hope. Alfie Williams is remarkable as Spike: cautious, haunted, never overplaying the role. Comer brings raw depth to Isla, a mother trapped by illness and love. Taylor-Johnson lends Jamie a quiet intensity—caring but ethically conflicted. Ralph Fiennes makes a memorably unsettling appearance as Dr. Kelson. There's a cheeky cameo and teaser at the end of the film that perhaps links to 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, a follow-up film due out in early 2026. 28 Years Later is more than a return to form. It's a filmmaker using genre not just to thrill but to reflect.
Hindustan Times
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
28 Years Later movie review: Danny Boyle's zombie film will make you cry with Alfie Williams' performance for the ages
Three films released in theatres this week - Pixar's story on loneliness (Elio), Aamir Khan sharing the screen with special needs actors (Sitaare Zameen Par), and Danny Boyle's return to zombie apocalypse (28 Years Later). And I can bet my soul nobody could have guessed the last one would be the most emotionally-charged tearjerker of the three. (Also read: Sitaare Zameen Par movie review: Aamir Khan's heartwarming film stumbles, then soars to score a basket in the 2nd half) Right from its promotions to its trailer, and even the way 28 Years Later opens, the Danny Boyle film is full of misdirections. We have been led to believe that it is an action-packed zombie horror led by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, he of Avengers and Kraven fame (that last one may not be the perfect thing on the resume). But the film is far from that. Yes, there is a post-apocalyptic society. Yes, there are zombies. And yes, there is tons of fighting and running around. But 28 Years Later is an emotional coming-of-age drama, disguised as horror. At its heart is 14-year-old Alfie Williams, who delivers a performance they will talk about for years, perhaps decades. As the title suggests, 28 Years Later is set 28 years after the events of the first two films of the franchise. Britain is a quarantine zone, overrun by the undead. The US and Europe seem to be thriving. But just off the coast of the Scottish Highlands, a band of survivors has built their safe haven on an island. It is connected to the mainland by a causeway only accessible during low tide. Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) takes his 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams) to the mainland to show him the ropes. But Alfie discovers that his father has lied about many things, including the presence of a doctor. The 12-year-old decides to return with his sick mother, Isla (Jodie Comer), and ask the mysterious Dr Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) for a cure. All this while, he must navigate his own inexperience, his mother's hallucinations, and waves of the undead. 28 Years Later begins on a disjointed note, and the initial setup does test your patience. But technically, the film hooks you in really quickly. The cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle and that haunting score from Young Fathers is brilliant. Mantle, in particular, brings the soul of the franchise back, merging it with a very Alex Garland-like visual style (the filmmaker is the writer here). The end result is an almost graphic novel-like work of art that may be abstract at times, but visually engaging at all times. The score is a delicious cherry on top. It may have been billed as a zombie horror, but 28 Years Later has less than 20 on-screen deaths during its near-2-hour runtime. The focus is more on survival, and Spike's crusade to find a cure for his dying mother. He is not afraid to fight back against his flawed father and even engage in some light arson to get his way. Alfie Williams is a star, one I hope gives us these performances for years to come. If Bella Ramsey was already setting the bar high for child actors in horror and fantasy shows, Alfie is taking it through the stratosphere here. Even in scenes with the legendary Ralph Fiennes, the 14-year-old steals the show, a marvellous achievement for someone that young and inexperienced. There is a scene right before the climax of the film where the young Spike must come to terms with mortality for the first time. It is a touching sequence, filmed with minimal background score and punctuated by Alfie Williams' breaths. Just how beautifully Danny Boyle has managed it was evident by the pin-drop silence in the packed Mumbai theatre where I watched the film. The only blemish on the film is the bizarre final sequence, where Boyle brings his Trainspotting goofiness in a Tarantino-esque fight sequence that honestly feels a bit out of place in this film. But that can be overlooked for 110 minutes of classic cinema. If Nosfearatu brought back good old noir back to horror, Sinners married the genre with musical in a stunning experiment. And now, 28 Years Later brings a coming-of-age tale in the genre. That is three films pushing the envelope in the genre in the space of six months. The golden age of noveau horror is certainly on in Hollywood!
