Daily Mail, Friday, September 6, 2019 Page 41Vulture
Mail critics’ pick of the
week’s must-see events
ON STAGE
ON SHOW
ON TOUR
ON TV
THE
TORCH SONG
Battersea
power station lights
up once more with
the opening of the
all-new turbine
theatre, under the
stewardship of Paul
taylor-Mills. With a
glitzy gala tonight,
the first show sees
Matthew Needham
(above) star as a
lovelorn drag queen in seventies
Manhattan. It’s a single show distilled
from Harvey Fierstein’s torch song
trilogy, directed by choreographer
Drew McOnie.
O Turbine Theatre, London SW11,
020 7851 0300, theturbinetheatre.com.
PATRICK MARMIONaction remakes of its animated
films the Little Mermaid (with
Halle Bailey as the first black
actress to play a Disney princess
who was originally white),
the sword In the stone and
Peter Pan.
Release: November on Disney+FAMILIAR FAIRY
DIsNey beginners may not
recall that Maleficent is the evil
fairy in the classic 1959 anima-
tion sleeping Beauty, and that
angelina Jolie played her in a
2014 live-action film Maleficent.
Just five years on, Jolie is
playing her again in Maleficent:
Mistress Of evil, still wearing
kinky black horns, fighting good
fairies and sorting out her
conflicted maternal feelings
towards sweet Princess aurora
(elle Fanning). this time she has
competition from a neighbouring
queen (Michelle Pfeiffer).
as with Cruella, Disney hired
British writer Jez Butterworth to
rework the script.
Release date: October 2019BIG CAT CASH-IN
tHe first film version of the
Marvel Comics story about the
super-powered king of a super-
powered african country called
Wakanda was perhaps the most
stunning Hollywood success of
last year — Black Panther earned
more than £800 million in box
office takings in just 26 days.
Naturally, Disney hasn’t wasted
time before announcing a sequel.
Details are scarce but Black
Panther 2 is said to involve an
amphibian half-human, half-
atlantean villain called Namor
the sub-Mariner.
Most of the original cast are
expected to return, including
British actor Martin Freeman as
CIa agent everett rossand Chadwick Boseman as
Black Panther.
superhero film producers tend
to keep making them as long as
fans will watch them, and Black
Panther producer Nate Moore
has talked of ‘many sequels’.
Release date: May 2022SUPER EARNERS
DIsNey has bad news for those
who think the cinema is clogged
with ludicrous superhero films.
they usually do very well at the
box office and, along with every
other studio, Disney-owned-
Marvel is churning them out as
fast as it can think of them.
It’s great news for British
actors. star of BBC tV’s Body-
guard richard Madden and his
Game Of thrones co-star Kit
Harington join angelina Jolie in
the eternals, about an immortal
alien race protecting earth (out
in late 2020). Fellow Game Of
thrones star Maisie Williams
plays a scottish mutant ‘strug-
gling to reconcile her religious
beliefs with her power to turn
into a wolf ’ in the New Mutants
(out in april 2020).
Benedict Cumberbatch returns
as Dr strange in the sequel
Doctor strange in the Multiverse
Of Madness (out in May 2021).
rachel Weisz and Florence Pugh
share the bill with scarlett
Johansson in Black Widow (out
in May 2020). there are also new
spiderman, thor and Guardians
of the Galaxy films coming.
Disney’s new internet stream-
ing service will be full of superhe-
roes, including tom Hiddleston
returning as Norse god Loki in a
six-part series, Ms Marvel — the
first superpowered asian — and
Moon Knight, the first superhero
with a mental health condition.CHINA CRISIS
MaKING films that appeal to
audiences in China is increas-
ingly crucial to Hollywood. Mulan
will be the live-action version of
Disney’s 1998 animated film of
the same name.
Based on an ancient Chinese
legend, it tells the stirring story
of a teenage girl who pretends to
be a man so she can take herailing father’s place in the army
and defend China from invaders.
the sets are so lavish that
Disney is said to have set aside a
budget of at least £227 million.
But instead of charming the
Chinese, the troubled project has
been plagued by setbacks.
Disney was initially accused of
‘whitewashing’ — casting white
actors in non-white roles — after
claims that an early script had a
‘european trader’ as Mulan’s love
interest. then, Crystal Liu yifei,
who plays Mulan, incensed Hong
Kong protesters by proclaiming:
‘I support the Hong Kong police.
you can all attack me now.’
Disney had hoped the original
cartoon version of Mulan 20 years
ago would smooth relations with
China after the studio incensed
the Beijing regime by releasing a
1997 film, Kundun, about the
Dalai Lama. Instead, Mulan was
a flop in China, where state
media said the heroine was ‘for-
eign-looking’ and the story was
too different from the myths.
Release date: March 2020BACK TO BART
at Least there is no live-action
version yet of america’s most
dysfunctional family, who haven’t
been seen on the big screen for
12 years. But the first simpsons
Movie was a huge success,
making £428 million on an
estimated budget of £61 million.
Matt Groening, creator of the
cartoon series, had been talking
about a sequel for years but
nothing happened. Now Disney
has taken the reins after buying
21st Century Fox this year and
Groening recently admitted the
new owner ‘wants its money’s
worth’. a simpsons executive
producer has confirmed they
have already ‘talked about’ a
second feature film with Disney.
It remains a moot point
whether the famously control-
ling Disney will tolerate any
insubordination from the
simpsons team, who have loved
lampooning the company on the
show over the years. their
efforts included a snow White
parody in which one of the seven
dwarves says: ‘Well at least we
don’t work for Disney!’KE
019101
DALMATIANS
MALEFICENT
Money-spinners: To bosses
at Disney, it seems no story
is so good it can’t be retoldLAST SUPPER
IN POMPEII
THIS original
exhibition explores
what everyone in
Pompeii would have
been eating and
drinking when the
ash cloud began to
form. Some 400
exhibits range from
a carbonised loaf of bread to
splendid mosaics.
O AT The Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford, until January 12, 2020.
ROBIN SIMONGUNNERSVILLE
FestIVItIes get underway tonight
at a series of tented concerts in
Gunnersbury Park, London, with
Manchester stalwarts Doves (above)
supported by echo & the Bunnymen
and Badly Drawn Boy. tomorrow’s
line-up sees Coventry legends the
specials celebrate their 40th
anniversary with fellow Midlanders
Ocean Colour scene. surrey rockers
you Me at six are joined by Jimmy
eat World on sunday
O gunnersville.com
ADRIAN THRILLSSTATE OF THE UNION
FOR THOSE who
like their TV
quick and to the
point comes a
wryly comic ten-
parter of ten-
minute episodes,
each set before
the marriage guidance session of a
troubled couple, played by
Rosamund Pike and Chris O’Dowd
(above). Writer Nick Hornby deftly
dissects the couple’s relationship
with humour and poignancy.
O bbC2, Sunday, 10pm.
ROBIN WIGGS