Page 120 - Liverpool Philharmonic 22-23 Season Coverage Book

Glowing reference: Margot Robbie in Greta Gerwig’s forthcoming Barbie. Photograph:

Entertainment Pictures/Alamy

On the face of it, a Barbie movie sounds like Hollywood IP barrel-scraping at its most
cynical and capitalistic, so it speaks to the power of Greta Gerwig that it is one of 2023’s
most curiously awaited films. One can only assume the director of Lady Bird and the
cleverly retooled Little Women has playful plans for the doll’s first live-action feature.
Candy-coloured snaps from the set, showing a fabulously costumed Margot Robbie and
Ryan Gosling seemingly having a ball, suggest a witty, high-irony approach, but will
Gerwig also humanise the plastic princess? Let’s see. In cinemas 21 July. Guy Lodge

Dance
Wayne McGregor’s The Dark Crystal: Odyssey

Olivia Cowley McGregor’s Woolf Works, which is returning to the Royal Opera
House. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

Wayne McGregor’s myth-making show, inspired by Jim Henson’s fantasy film of 1982,
finally gets its pandemic-postponed premiere (Linbury theatre, Royal Opera House, 13
May to 4 June) in the midst of an extraordinarily busy year for the Royal Ballet’s
resident choreographer. This mythical coming-of-age story is for his own Company
Wayne McGregor and collaborators include Henson’s Creature Shop. It follows a revival
on the main stage of Woolf Works (1 March), his three-act ballet about the life and
writings of Virginia Woolf, and precedes the world premiere of Carmen Herrera (9
June), which features the work of the eponymous late Cuban-American artist. SCr

TV

Top British writer-directors