Author: Colin Cushion
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The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and the Discipline of Restraint
in ReviewsThe Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry resists easy sentimentality, holding its audience at arm’s length and trusting them to do the emotional work. What emerges is not a story of transformation, but of movement, and the quiet danger of confusing survival with living.
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Phones, Safety and the Illusion of Control
in ColumnBeing on the phone in public is often framed as a matter of safety. But when connection becomes constant, it raises a different question. What is this behaviour really protecting us from?
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Rewind Review: The Greatest Showman Is Loud, Empty and Built on Illusion
in ReviewsA film so terrified of scrutiny it turns the dialogue down and the spectacle up. The Greatest Showman is not revisionism for drama’s sake, but a moral abdication that ignores the truth because the real story is too complex and too human to sing along to.
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Rewind Review: The Parent Trap: Trust, Craft And A Confident Disney
in ReviewsA rewind of The Parent Trap that celebrates its confidence in craft, performance and restraint. Wholesome, genuinely funny and quietly clever, this is Disney trusting its audience and being rewarded for it.
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Winter Lights, Umbrella Blindness, and the Art of Getting in the Way
in ReviewsWinter Lights returned to Canary Wharf under torrential rain, dense crowds, and a creeping sense that the event no longer knows who it’s for. Moments of real beauty and interactivity remained, but the evening became a test of patience, spatial awareness, and whether public art can survive an audience determined to put themselves at the…
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The Slow Collapse of Public Behaviour
in ColumnPublic space is not a stage, a living room, or an extension of your personality. Somewhere along the way, restraint was mistaken for weakness and consideration for inconvenience. This is not nostalgia. It is a refusal to indulge behaviour that makes shared life unbearable.
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The Producers and the Danger of Laughing Too Quickly
in ReviewsWhat happens when a musical moves so fast that laughter arrives before meaning? The Producers at the Garrick Theatre is explosive and deeply unsettling, inviting its audience into complicity before leaving them to question what they were so ready to enjoy.
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V&A Storehouse: A Museum That Trusts You
in ReviewsA visit to the V&A Storehouse shows a museum built for wandering, curiosity and independence. This is not a gallery that tells you what to think, but one that trusts visitors to look, linger and decide for themselves.
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Connection and Identity at the Painted Hall
in ReviewsInstalled inside the Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College, Connection and Identity promises a transformative encounter between heritage and contemporary art. In practice, Peter Walker’s exhibition struggles against the scale and intensity of its setting.
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How East London Built British Theatre
in FeaturesA walk through Shoreditch, Hackney and Stratford shows how East London laid the foundations of British theatre long before the West End became its glittering centre.
Colin Cushion 