Reviews by Michael Dornan
Mario's
Michael Dornan
Though to all appearances it's a restaurant like many others, passing judgement on Mario's is akin to 'reviewing' Tom Tower or the view from the top of South Parks. This is because it's an embedded ...
6 years ago
Mario's
Blade Runner 2049 [15]
Michael Dornan
TV has become a bit of a Dick-fest: Philip K having proven an irresistible authorial source for adaptations, Channel 4 has been trumpeting its transatlantic series Electric Dreams, while Amazon's ...
7 years ago
Blade Runner 2049 [15]
DJ Shadow
Michael Dornan
Among the artists who boast an epoch-defining sound stands DJ Shadow. There's something symphonic about the hip hop magpie's best work - he commands elements of the old and new as if baton-wielding ...
7 years ago
DJ Shadow
Ada & the Engine
Michael Dornan
What a gift to the biographers, what an inspiration to the innovators, is the life of mathematician and writer Ada Lovelace. A challenge to the playwrights, maybe, as programming and platonic love ...
7 years ago
Ada & the Engine
Cult Screens Outdoor Cinema 2017
Michael Dornan
Only in Oxford? This time, Cult Screens got it right, presenting a lumbering, snarling film about biological anachronisms in the grounds of the Pitt Rivers, hosts of the UK's largest archaeological ...
7 years ago
Cult Screens Outdoor Cinema 2017
Song to Song [15]
Michael Dornan
Living life "from song to song" or "kiss to kiss" is an idea very much of the last sixty years, its unscripted urgency an enticing and truly romantic mode of being. But often in literature or film ...
7 years ago
Song to Song [15]
Franco Manca
Michael Dornan
Ahead of an explosion of new restaurants when the Westgate opens its doors, two cracking new ones have appeared at opposite ends of George Street. One of these, Franco Manca, is the new pizza kid ...
7 years ago
Franco Manca
Barefoot Oxford
Michael Dornan
Barefoot's reputation very much precedes it. Without even venturing into Jericho to pay a visit, you may have memories of its cakes from those it has provided to cafés all over town, such as Turl ...
7 years ago
Barefoot Oxford
Irregular Folks' Summer Sessions
Michael Dornan
Fancy a bucolic frolic? Could you be enchanted by cushion-festooned tents, recorder-playing comedians, beautiful music and off-kilter lectures? Then perhaps you're one of the Irregular Folks. I can't ...
7 years ago
Irregular Folks' Summer Sessions
Out of the Ruins: OXUS String Quartet
Michael Dornan
Firstly, on a balmy midsummer's night after Uni students have mostly flown home, how great to see a chamber quartet pack out the venue - Magdalen College Chapel is well met by twilight, as part of ...
7 years ago
Out of the Ruins: OXUS String Quartet
My Life As A Courgette [PG]
Michael Dornan
Full disclosure: what I actually watched was Ma Vie de Courgette, the European Film Awards' Best Animated Feature of 2016, winner of Swiss Film Awards and a couple of Césars. The English-language ...
7 years ago
My Life As A Courgette [PG]
The Wheelhouse
Michael Dornan
Co-working spaces can work. The Globe is an inviting space: a fresh, wood-panelled community pub which by day becomes The Wheelhouse, one of the locations run by shared workspace providers of the ...
7 years ago
The Wheelhouse
The Other Side Of Hope [12A]
Michael Dornan
Aki Kaurismäki may be hard to describe, but has pretty much earned the title of auteur - his films feel like windows into one world, a world which he builds with compassion, poker-faced humour and ...
7 years ago
The Other Side Of Hope [12A]
Lost in London [12A]
Michael Dornan
Perhaps the quality of a first-of-its-kind filmic undertaking can be measured by how quickly one forgets the novelty. The headline of writer/director/producer/star Woody Harrelson's piece is surely ...
7 years ago
Lost in London [12A]
Merton College Choir with Instruments of Time and Truth
Michael Dornan
Tonight Bach and Handel unite as two writers of timeless work, being rendered by a choir whose home turf is a 13th century building of awesome beauty, and an Oxford ensemble dedicated to the accurate ...
7 years ago
Merton College Choir with Instruments of Time and Truth
The Japanese House
Michael Dornan
It's one of those nights of seeing an act in the ascendant - an act whose song 'Still', now 18 months old, was the final 'Hottest Record' on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show. Meaning that it still hasn't ...
7 years ago
The Japanese House
One Note at a Time [PG]
Michael Dornan
This screening on the final day of 2017's Oxford International Film Festival starts with a selection of shorts, before the main feature One Note at a Time.
First, Pickup immerses us in the life ...
7 years ago
One Note at a Time [PG]
The Globe
Michael Dornan
A perfectly positioned pub-spot at the London-end of St Clement's, 76 St Clem's used to house The Duke of Edinburgh pub (which was previously known as 'The Duke'), charming in its traditional way but ...
7 years ago
The Globe
Antony & Cleopatra
Michael Dornan
It is a mid-spring day, making a wander through the middle of Stratford-on-Avon unexpectedly sunlit. We trace the river to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, whose interior and staging dazzle even before ...
7 years ago
Antony & Cleopatra
Simon Armitage - The Unaccompanied
Michael Dornan
I enjoy the aloofness with which my ticket reads "The Unaccompanied - Simon Armitage talks to Richard Ovenden". The poet, playwright and Professor of Poetry to both Sheffield and Oxford Universities ...
7 years ago
Simon Armitage - The Unaccompanied
Joanna Moorhead: The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington
Michael Dornan
It's one thing to uncover the life of an artist whose work has been long-neglected due to issues of commerce and gender; another to undergo this venture while new to the world of art history; and ...
7 years ago
Joanna Moorhead: The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington
Certain Women [12A]
Michael Dornan
As many of my neural pathways have been forged by the subtle sledgehammer of advertising, I left a screening of Certain Women in search of junk food. Led by the imagined surtitle "You too can enjoy ...
7 years ago
Certain Women [12A]
The Sixteen: The Choral Pilgrimage 2017
Michael Dornan
The name of this visiting ensemble evokes, from some, hushed tones of appreciation; from less familiar others, evocations of a shadowy political cabal or many-headed Whovian enemy. Were we ...
7 years ago
The Sixteen: The Choral Pilgrimage 2017
Laura Marling
Michael Dornan
A sudden uptick in the South East's temperature and the coincidental close of Oxford International Women's Festival make tonight a great opportunity to experience Laura Marling's work. New record ...
7 years ago
Laura Marling
St. Patrick's Day
Michael Dornan
On this coming weekend of Irish culture, we could quote Brendan Behan, discuss the plays of Samuel Beckett or swear like Shane MacGowan. But somehow it seems appropriate to direct you instead to a ...
7 years ago
St. Patrick's Day
Contained // 'Pecking Order' & Post-Show Discussion
Michael Dornan
Justice in Motion's work is always topical - perhaps in the case of Contained, more acutely so than originally intended. Conceived and initially performed before the 'crisis' was omnipresent in ...
7 years ago
Contained // 'Pecking Order' & Post-Show Discussion
Moonlight [15]
Michael Dornan
After La La Land nearly snatched victory from the jaws of hideous Oscars embarrassment, the ceremony's true victor Moonlight will be gaining a huge upsurge in attention while still in its UK opening ...
7 years ago
Moonlight [15]
Toni Erdmann [15]
Michael Dornan
A studied, variably paced drama that delivers occasional gales of laughter; a comedy that sets estrangement and disconnection alongside the meaning of life. Toni Erdmann is a wonderful contradiction, ...
7 years ago
Toni Erdmann [15]
C Duncan, Stevie Parker, Be Good
Michael Dornan
That someone writes songs like this... that's the surprising, heartening thing about C Duncan, Caledonian composer who makes the ridiculously intricate seem straightforward. This evening at the ...
7 years ago
C Duncan, Stevie Parker, Be Good
Jackie [15]
Michael Dornan
"I will not sneak out the back door." Noah Oppenheim's script has Jackie Kennedy grieving not just her husband's murder, but the abrupt end of their work in the White House. Opening on the day of ...
7 years ago
Jackie [15]
La La Land [12A]
Michael Dornan
Seven out of seven ain't bad - La La Land bossed all the categories in which it was nominated at the Golden Globes, is up for eleven BAFTAs and surely won't be forgotten by the time Oscar makes his ...
7 years ago
La La Land [12A]
Bach's Christmas Oratorio
Michael Dornan
This is a rather perfect seasonal treat: a work that does the sacred/secular dance, like the festival of Christmas itself is made to do; one that (lowbrow metaphor ahoy) is a proper selection box of ...
7 years ago
Bach's Christmas Oratorio
Seth Lakeman, Wildwood Kin
Michael Dornan
We traipse into the huge bauble-lit Main Hall to find Wildwood Kin already playing – and immediately feel we've missed something special. The Devonian family trio effectively deliver a study in ...
7 years ago
Seth Lakeman, Wildwood Kin
Paterson [15]
Michael Dornan
Maybe it's the perfect films that are hardest to review. I'd looked forward to Paterson since realising Adam Driver is a radiant screen presence, that Cannes had raved about it and that Jim Jarmusch ...
7 years ago
Paterson [15]
Anaïs Mitchell
Michael Dornan
The evening after a "sociopath" is declared a leader of the free world (her own measured words), Anaïs Mitchell opens her set with a twelve-year-old song. 'One Good Thing' dates back to George ...
7 years ago
Anaïs Mitchell
Arrival [12A]
Michael Dornan
Jaws isn't about a shark: Arrival isn't about aliens. In each case, the unknown threat is necessary if you want to explain the plot, but the story is tooled to linger with you longer than the special ...
7 years ago
Arrival [12A]
Acanthus at the Randolph Hotel
Michael Dornan
A full-English-based twitterstorm (a Category Two, at most) has gathered force in recent days, since Giles Coren
experienced despair at the hands of an Oxford landmark. The paltry portion ...
7 years ago
Acanthus at the Randolph Hotel
Beth Orton - Kidsticks Tour
Michael Dornan
It must be infuriating to have a pithy title bestowed on you by an unbroken succession of music writers – and I will now continue that infuriating succession. Indie artist Beth Orton, due to her ...
8 years ago
Beth Orton - Kidsticks Tour
Hell or High Water [15]
Michael Dornan
Two films I experienced recently stand outside of their genre: if you'll allow me the coinages, there was an Ur-Western in Slow West, and a post-Western in Hell Or High Water. The first with its ...
8 years ago
Hell or High Water [15]
Café Society [12A]
Michael Dornan
Welcoming moviegoers into an impeccably designed world encompassing pre-war Hollywood and the late Depression-era Bronx, Woody Allen's latest seeks to entertain. Does it do its job? and where will ...
8 years ago
Café Society [12A]
Joe Perks & Co.
Michael Dornan
With a new menu, new management and an Insta-feed of mouth-watering dishes tagged #JoePerksGrowsUp, how is this St. Clements gem managing the transition from calorific Americana to tasty cocktails ...
8 years ago
Joe Perks & Co.
Whitney plus Cameron AG and Jonny Payne & The Thunder
Michael Dornan
Heatwave alerts from the MET Office, health warnings from the government - disregarded by a huge chunk of Oxford's music-lovers as they swill sugary alcoholic drinks in the hottest place in town, and ...
8 years ago
Whitney plus Cameron AG and Jonny Payne & The Thunder
Wiener-Dog [15]
Michael Dornan
In a body of work featuring cannily observed jet-black comedy, formal feats of daring and inquiries into the darkest recesses of human behaviour, Todd Solondz's latest appears whimsical in the ...
8 years ago
Wiener-Dog [15]
Maggie's Plan [15]
Michael Dornan
Director Rebecca Miller's latest takes on subjects no less than destiny and the future of the American family, recognising that in dark times, the comedy genre can give a new angle on such serious ...
8 years ago
Maggie's Plan [15]
Oxford Festival of the Arts 2016
Michael Dornan
Ben Okri, novelist, poet and now interviewer of Jeremy Corbyn certainly divides opinion with his work, but tonight young and old unite in front of him as part of Oxford Festival of the Arts. This Man ...
8 years ago
Oxford Festival of the Arts 2016
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Michael Dornan
'I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.' So testifies Nick Bottom, spectacularly re-emerging from a fairy realm in incomprehension. The ...
8 years ago
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Sir András Schiff & Christ Church Cathedral Choir
Michael Dornan
Renowned as both a sympathetic interpreter of late classical piano music and as a politically outspoken artist, Sir András Schiff took centre-stage to tumultuous applause amid weather and a national ...
8 years ago
Sir András Schiff & Christ Church Cathedral Choir
Sona Jobarteh
Michael Dornan
Q. What does it take to get North Oxford to dance?A. Genre-eliminating groove from a kora virtuoso and storyteller with significant standing in a seven-century-long tradition, and with a band that ...
8 years ago
Sona Jobarteh
L'Italiana in Algeri
Michael Dornan
It's difficult to describe my experience of Wormsley Estate without using the word 'sumptuous'. My night at the opera was preceded by an evening exploring these glorious grounds. You can arrive ...
8 years ago
L'Italiana in Algeri
When Marnie Was There [U]
Michael Dornan
Maybe you know Japanese animation production house Studio Ghibli from its spellbinding 2001 crossover hit Spirited Away, from the oddly familiar Totoro character on its insignia, or for inspiring ...
8 years ago
When Marnie Was There [U]
Lera Lynn, George Cosby
Michael Dornan
'Anyone heard of True Detective?' asks guitarist Joshua Grange, as if it might seem ungrateful to leave the HBO series unthanked. Lera Lynn's audience has been massively widened since she featured as ...
8 years ago
Lera Lynn, George Cosby
Emma Pollock, Water Pageant
Michael Dornan
Water Pageant have the ability to carve atmosphere out of none, and tonight they do so with very limited forces. In the few years since seeing them last, they've grown confident in the sound they ...
8 years ago
Emma Pollock, Water Pageant
Florence Foster Jenkins [PG]
Michael Dornan
It's Meryl Streep, right? So you can expect at least one faultless performance. Expect laughs well-sprinkled through the fairly disciplined run-time… but also something to please me, a cinema in ...
8 years ago
Florence Foster Jenkins [PG]
Andrei Rublev [15]
Michael Dornan
If only arthouse cinema were always this enjoyable. Having only seen Rublev's director's final film, via boxy little YouTube, I was expecting this earlier work to loom like a Rothko, inscrutable and ...
8 years ago
Andrei Rublev [15]
Luke Daniels + The Lost Art + Finlay Leslie
Michael Dornan
First up in Tigmus' acoustic-guitar-based program was Finlay Leslie, possessed of a fantastic voice which with its Folkestoneian vowels inhabits folk as easily as indie and straight-ahead pop. The ...
8 years ago
Luke Daniels + The Lost Art + Finlay Leslie
Oxford Literary Festival 2016
Michael Dornan
James Mayhew and Alexander Ardakov
Tchaikovsky's Piano Suite The Seasons: Live Storytelling, Art and Music
Sunday 3rd April
This family-friendly event of the Oxford Literary Festival ...
8 years ago
Oxford Literary Festival 2016
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Michael Dornan
I'd been looking forward to sitting down to enjoy this very definition of 'meta-', and the Oxford Playhouse 17|25 Young Company were wonderfully able to bring it to life. On this 50th anniversary ...
8 years ago
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Rob Delaney
Michael Dornan
While his panel-show appearances may give a suggestion of mere geniality, Catastrophe, his co-creation with Sharon Horgan, provides more indicators of Delaney's live persona – a ...
8 years ago
Rob Delaney
Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox
Michael Dornan
If you frequent the gig review pages on this fair site, you might see a host of complaints directed at the flock of bright phone-screens that customarily hover above the heads of a crowd. On a night ...
8 years ago
Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox
Hail, Caesar! [12A]
Michael Dornan
As an early-release treat, I hurried to the first showing of the Coen brothers' newest meisterwerk at the Phoenix Picturehouse. What an absolute joy it was. The third in their 'numbskull trilogy' ...
8 years ago
Hail, Caesar! [12A]
Jeremy Loops
Michael Dornan
Well, that was fun. Having just been exposed to the artist via new recordings and Youtube, I was expecting something Mumfordian, with their tweedy Transatlanticism replaced by some fresher African ...
8 years ago
Jeremy Loops
Room [15]
Michael Dornan
I've found it hard to talk to friends about this movie, for a few reasons. I want them to watch it, but I want them to have the opportunity to do so without knowing what happens. I want to issue ...
8 years ago
Room [15]
The Villiers Quartet: Delius, Fauré, Elgar (L'entente cordiale)
Michael Dornan
As the first public act of their residency at Oxford University, the Villiers Quartet gave some quite fascinating works a consummate showing. Early 20th-Century European composers who finally got ...
8 years ago
The Villiers Quartet: Delius, Fauré, Elgar (L'entente cordiale)
Truck Store
Michael Dornan
Here is the epicentre of Oxford's hipper musical happenings, certainly those of OX4 – if you want to be part of Record Store Day or Oxjam, you'll likely set foot in the city's only independent ...
8 years ago
Truck Store
Mostro Coffee
Michael Dornan
Any new coffee-purveyor on Cowley Road isn't short of competition, but Mostro Coffee has certain factors in its favour. Being situated in Oxford's only independent record store helps – their ...
8 years ago
Mostro Coffee
Kwabs, Zak Abel, Mahalia
Michael Dornan
Tonight made me realise by example what I want in a gig - musical excellence, heartfelt songwriting, vibe in the crowd and bass that makes matter vibrate. A burgeoning star in the ascendant, Kwabs ...
9 years ago
Kwabs, Zak Abel, Mahalia
Ben Ottewell
Michael Dornan
A voice that grabbed the interest of loads of friends, when I showed them a teaser video, belongs to a talented songwriter with a name that mightn't ring many bells. Ben Ottewell was upstairs at the ...
9 years ago
Ben Ottewell
Aziz @ The Tree
Michael Dornan
Aziz is among the best curry houses in Oxford. I may not qualify for connoisseur status, but quality here has always been high and the prices are competitive for a sit-down meal. Tonight's menu ...
9 years ago
Aziz @ The Tree
The Polyphonic Spree play "The Beginning Stages of..."
Michael Dornan
Until tonight, I hadn't mentally logged the O2 as a place of worship. This was a band I was pretty excited to see. In case you don't remember the Spree, they were the ones with up to thirty members, ...
9 years ago
The Polyphonic Spree play "The Beginning Stages of..."
King Of Cats, Be Good, Kitsch
Michael Dornan
I'm not sure how my ears survived the bracing onslaught of Cassels, who mainlined the fulsome dexterity of Royal Blood, the Manics' serrated asymmetry and some Oxonian wit. Replacing Kitsch, the ...
9 years ago
King Of Cats, Be Good, Kitsch
The Jungle Brothers
Michael Dornan
All three original members of the Daisy Age pioneers graced the Bullingdon's stage - they're now halfway through their Living Legends tour since reforming in 2012, a quarter-century after first ...
9 years ago
The Jungle Brothers
Modern Art Oxford
Michael Dornan
Over a half-century, Modern Art Oxford has become a significant yet strangely undervalued part of the cultural landscape. An unassuming location hides the necessarily adaptable interior of white ...
9 years ago
Modern Art Oxford
Pierre Victoire
Michael Dornan
My high expectations were not unwarranted – I and some Francophile friends have been well pleased with Pierre Victoire’s lunch menu in the past, but my first dining experience was a joy. Other ...
9 years ago
Pierre Victoire
