Sunday Shortlist, from The Week
A 'thrillingly sick and twisted' satire, and a revival that 'gleams brighter than ever'

 
FILM REVIEW

The Substance   

Demi Moore is 'superb' as a middle-aged TV host who takes a drug to become a younger version of herself 

For much of the 1990s, Demi Moore was one of "the biggest female box-office draws in Hollywood", said Alistair Harkness in The Scotsman. But then, in 1996, her career was unfairly derailed by "Striptease": though the film did well at the box office, the critics hated it. 

Add in the relentless "physical scrutiny" she'd been subjected to since her breakthrough in "St. Elmo's Fire", and you can see why the writer-director Coralie Fargeat thought her "perfect casting" for "The Substance", a satire that "takes a flame-thrower to the misogynistic beauty standards of the entertainment industry – and has plenty of fun doing it". 

Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, "a once in-demand Hollywood actress whose latter-day career as a Jane Fonda-esque exercise guru" comes to an end when she is fired by her repugnant boss (Dennis Quaid). At a low ebb, she takes a drug that promises to generate a younger, more beautiful version of herself (played by Margaret Qualley).

The "conceptual twist to this Dorian Gray-like premise" is that both versions of her share a consciousness, and must alternate weeks in the world – which leads to "all hell breaking loose". "Thrillingly sick and twisted", this isn't a subtle film, but it has an unexpectedly poignant ending, and Moore is superb. 

Be warned, said Wendy Ide in The Observer: the film is "gut-churningly visceral". But it "plunges us into the deranged, disorienting emotional carnage of menopause in a way that few other films have". 

I found it "puerile" and "intellectually specious", said Kevin Maher in The Times. With her endless close-ups of Qualley's bum, Fargeat wants us to think that she is "bravely satirising the 'male gaze'". But she is still fetishising the female body; I don't buy the idea it's different because she is a woman.

 
 
THEATRE REVIEW

Waiting for Godot  

New staging of Samuel Beckett's tragicomedy is 'profoundly funny and infinitely sad'

Having premiered in Paris in 1953, Samuel Beckett's masterpiece was first performed in English in London in 1955 – and was promptly named "Most Controversial Play" at the inaugural Evening Standard Theatre Awards.
This famously "challenging" piece has been variously delighting and bewildering audiences ever since, said Nick Curtis in the London Evening Standard.

It's an undramatic drama in which two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, "battle against the meaningless of life, waiting in a blasted landscape for a man they don't know, who never comes": "nothing happens, twice", wrote the critic Vivian Mercier in 1956. But in this first-rate production – featuring superb performances from Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati – the play nevertheless emerges as a gripping drama of great wit, absurdity and tragicomedy. "Godot isn't for everyone. But this is the best production I've ever seen."

"The key to Godot lies in finding and holding a balance between its bright comedy and its dark, philosophical hues," said Sarah Crompton on What's On Stage. James Macdonald's version achieves this brilliantly: the director has allowed the "seriousness" to be revealed, but the evening is also imbued with "a surprising amount of love". In this production, the play "gleams brighter than ever": it's both "profoundly funny and infinitely sad".

It seemed to me that the production tilts a bit too far towards the comedic, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. In the more overtly clownish second act, Vladimir and Estragon begin to "look like hobos impersonating a music-hall duo. But the comedy brings flabbiness, too, the pace slackening, with not enough prickling tension between them."

Well I found it "beautifully paced" and "astutely balanced", said Clive Davis in The Times: yes, there is music-hall humour, but also "dizzying glimpses into the existential abyss". I've always been sceptical of the "grandiose claims made for this play". But this funny and "utterly compelling" revival "forces you to listen and learn".

Theatre Royal Haymarket, London SW1. Until 14 December

 
 
PODCAST REVIEW

Blood on the Dance Floor  

Darren Bradshaw, an off-duty police officer, was just 24 and "waiting nervously for someone to join him at the bar of Belfast's first gay club, The Parliament", when republican gunmen stormed into the venue and shot him dead. His murder, in 1997, devastated a family already reeling from the recent death of Darren's soldier brother, said Patricia Nicol in The Sunday Times. It also traumatised a "tightly drawn gay community" whose non- sectarian safe space had been violated by both the killing "and the betrayal that allowed it". "Blood on the Dance Floor" is a "brilliantly produced" six-part BBC podcast about the case. It's a sad but "gripping" story, presented with empathy by Jordan Dunbar, a former drag performer. He deftly explains the social and political context, without losing the story's "beating heart".

 
 
BOOK OF THE WEEK

What a Way to Go 

by Bella Mackie  

When the "impossibly rich" financier Anthony Wistern is found "skewered on a huge metal spike" in the grounds of his Cotswolds manor, suspicion falls on his close relations, said Alison Flood in The Observer. Was the murderer one of his four "grasping children"? Or his icy wife, Olivia?

Bella Mackie's second novel (following her bestselling debut "How to Kill Your Family") is another "dark, funny story about a very dysfunctional family". Every character is "dreadful" – apart from the "rather sweet" true-crime podcaster who becomes involved in the investigation – but in a "pleasurably awful way".

The influence of "Succession" is perhaps a little too obvious, said Jenny Colgan in The Guardian: there's even a sycophantic "would-be Wambsgans". And Mackie could have gone to town a little more on her descriptions of "fancy parties, funerals and events". That said, "What a Way to Go" is "undeniably funny, with many class-bound barbs that reminded me of Jilly Cooper", and its twisty plot "dances along". Mackie has produced another "excellently tart addition to your reading buffet". 

 
 
OBITUARY

Tito Jackson

Jackson brother who mentored his own sons’ band

Tito Jackson, who has died aged 70, was a founding member of the Jackson 5. Along with his brothers Marlon, Jackie, Jermaine and Michael, he became a teen idol in 1969-1970 when the youthful singing group dominated the charts; but Michael had early on emerged as the real star of the band, said The Guardian – and would soon pursue a solo career that eclipsed it. Being so overshadowed was hard, Tito confessed. "One of my favourite basketball players, Charles Barkley, said, 'If Tito wasn't in the Jackson 5, would we miss him?' That hit me in the heart. It crushed me."

Toriano Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana, in 1953, one of 10 children. His mother Katherine played the piano and the clarinet; his father, Joe, performed in a blues band in his spare time from his job in a steel mill. Tito learnt the guitar by watching his father and secretly practised on one of his instruments. One day, Joe came home and found that Tito, then around 10, had broken a string. He exploded with rage, but once he'd calmed down, Joe replaced the string and demanded that Tito play for him. He was so impressed that he gave Tito a guitar and told him to learn every song on the radio. Soon after, said The Times, Joe created a band made up of his three oldest sons – Marlon, Tito and Jackie – and appointed himself its manager. As The Jackson Brothers, the trio performed locally. Then, younger brothers Jermaine, aged nine, and Michael, five, joined the line-up – and made them the Jackson 5.

Joe was a notoriously hard taskmaster, given to whipping his sons, and they rehearsed relentlessly. By the late 1960s, he'd secured them a deal with Motown. Over the next few years, they had a succession of hits ("ABC", "I Want You Back", "I'll Be There") and become a pop phenomenon – one of the first boy bands. Tito recalled flying to the UK and being greeted by 10,000 screaming fans. "I got lost in the airport and had 1,000 fans chasing me, pulling everywhere. It was crazy."

In 1975 they left Motown and – owing to copyright issues – renamed themselves The Jacksons. By then, however, Michael had had numerous solo hits (including 1972's "Ben"), and in the mid-1980s, after his 1982 album "Thriller" had become the biggest-selling album ever, he left The Jacksons. Tito stayed on, playing the guitar and writing songs until the band broke up in 1989. By then, eight Jackson siblings, including La Toya and Janet, had entered the charts as solo artists; Tito – often described as the most unassuming of the siblings – eventually released his own first solo record in 2016. He remained loyal to Michael until the end, and refused to believe any of the child abuse allegations levelled against him. He is survived by his three sons, who make up the R&B trio 3T. Tito managed 3T, which, in the mid-1990s, became one of the biggest-selling groups in Europe.