Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel ‘joust’ in Steven Soderbergh’s new film

In Steven Soderbergh’s dark comedy, Ian McKellen turns in one of his finest performances, said David Sexton in The New Statesman. He plays Julian Sklar, a once-brilliant painter who hasn’t produced anything for years. A “vain, irascible wreck of a man”, he lives in adjacent townhouses in Bloomsbury, and fills his time by appearing as a “sarcastic” judge on a brutal TV talent show and selling appearances on Cameo.

His artistic reputation relies on a series of portraits of his former male lover, “The Christophers”, that he produced 30 years ago, and which are now highly sought after. At home, he has some unfinished Christopher canvases: he hasn’t looked at them for years, yet they’re on the minds of his “grasping, despised children” (James Corden and Jessica Gunning). They bribe former art forger Lori (the “formidable” Michaela Coel) to become his assistant. The plan is that Lori – who turns out to have a painful backstory of her own with Julian – will finish the paintings, so that the children can sell them for millions after his death.

Soderbergh is “a big name”, said Deborah Ross in The Spectator, but with this “deliciously sly” take on the art world, he has “gone small”. In what is effectively a two-hander, we follow Lori and Julian around his cluttered house as they “joust and the power shifts. Who was Christopher? Why does Lori hate Julian? Can fake art be true? It all comes out.” It’s an intimate, talky film and, if the plot doesn’t quite stack up, it hardly matters when the acting is this good. The script isn’t as sharp as it should be, said Tara Brady in The Irish Times, and the film is surprisingly muted, visually. Still, the performances are good enough to keep you watching.

by Jem Calder 

Jem Calder – who grew up in Essex before moving to London 10 years ago – is a writer much concerned with the “specific indignities of living in the capital”, said Laura Hackett in The Sunday Times. Both his 2022 story collection, “Reward System”, and now this debut novel are full of observations about “extortionate rent, overpriced coffees and fickle trends”. Chuck, 35, is a copywriter who has just broken up with his long-term girlfriend. At a party, he meets 23-year-old barista Joey, and they begin a “halting relationship” – one driven by their shared ambition to be writers. “Calder is brilliant at parsing the nuanced power dynamics of this situationship”; he’s a writer of “genuine talent”.

“Frustrated romantic entanglements” are hardly rare in novels, but “I Want You to Be Happy” also presents a “hyper-specific chronicle of the current moment”, said Natalie Perman in Literary Review. “A significant plotline involves the opening of a branch of Gail’s”; characters spend “a lot of time” on WhatsApp. Impressively, Calder makes us care about what happens; and his “humour lands”.

British actor and great Shakespearean

In 1980, Michael Pennington was offered a starring role in the screen adaptation of “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”, opposite Meryl Streep, said The Times. The film could have made him a household name, but he turned it down in favour of playing Hamlet at the RSC. It was, he said, a “prize” that he could not forgo. First and foremost a stage actor, he would become one of the most acclaimed Shakespeareans of his generation. Judi Dench nicknamed him Mr Plum, owing to the number of juicy parts he secured in the classical repertoire. He called her Mrs Plum. In 1978, she had played his soon-to-be wife in Congreve’s “The Way of the World” at the RSC, and they appeared opposite each other often after that. On his birthday each year, she sent him a jar of plum jam.

Michael Pennington was born in 1943 and brought up in London. His father, a barrister, had hoped he would follow him into the law, but then he made the mistake of dragging his sulky, football-loving 11-year-old son to see “Macbeth” at The Old Vic. “It was real blood and thunder Shakespeare, and it absolutely did it for me,” Pennington recalled. “That was the night my life was pretty much settled.” While at Marlborough College he joined the National Youth Theatre, and after graduating from Cambridge – where he appeared in dozens of student productions – he joined Peter Hall’s RSC as a spear carrier. He also worked extensively with Hall at his company based at The Old Vic.

With a “resonant voice” and a “handsome countenance”, Pennington was an actor who was truly at ease on the stage, said Michael Billington in The Guardian, but what is striking is the variety of his career. He co-founded the English Shakespeare Company; he toured with his own one-man shows on Chekhov and Shakespeare; he directed several plays; and though associated with the classical theatre, he had an “instinctive understanding” of Pinter. In 1996, said The Telegraph, he learnt to tap dance to play Archie Rice in “The Entertainer”. Aged 70, he played Lear in New York – a performance The New York Times hailed as “devastating”. He finally worked with Streep in 2011, in the film “The Iron Lady”. He had numerous screen roles, including as Moff Jerjerrod in 1983’s “Return of the Jedi”. Twenty years later, he said that “Star Wars” fans were still writing to him, asking him for autographs – and saying, “If you ever do any more acting, please let us know.” In the 1960s he was married for three years to the actress Katharine Barker, with whom he had a son. His long-term partner, Prue Skene, died last year.