Entertainment
Review: Fringe Festival critic gets his comeuppance in entertaining ‘Bring the House Down’
Book Review
Bring the House Down
By Charlotte Runcie
Doubleday: 304 pages, $28
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Any profession can corrupt its practitioners — and arts critics are no exception. Are they enlightened standard-setters dragging us back from a cultural abyss — or deformed exiles from the arts who, with sharpened pens and bent backs, are ready to pounce on plot-holes and devour careers at a moment’s notice?
If Charlotte Runcie’s debut novel, “Bring the House Down,” is anything to go by, it’s a bit of both. The book centers around four heady weeks at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which begins the unraveling of two newspaper critics who have traveled up from London to cover the sprawling performance art event. Runcie, a former arts columnist for the Daily Telegraph, has created something so delightfully snackable that you may, as I did, gulp it down in two or three sittings.
Runcie’s anti-hero is theater critic Alex Lyons. Alex gives everything he reviews either one star or five, and the latter are vanishingly rare. He bemoans a world of “online shopping reviews,” where “five stars has come to mean the baseline, rather than outstanding,” and so insists on panning almost everything he sees. What’s bad for artists is good for him: His reviews become desperately sought-after career makers or breakers. “The paper didn’t allow Alex to award zero stars. Otherwise, he’d do it all the time.”
“Bring the House Down”
(Doubleday)
We learn about Alex’s story through our narrator Sophie Ridgen, his colleague who, despite being in her mid-30s like Alex, is on a very different track. Alex rose quickly through the newspaper’s ranks, and his reviews are featured on the front page almost daily. Sophie continues to toil as a junior culture writer, picking up whatever scraps nobody else wants. Sophie is also a new mom, overworking to compensate for time lost to maternity leave. She feels uncomfortable in her post-pregnancy body, exhausted and frustrated with her husband. Alex, on the other hand, finds it “embarrassingly easy” to get laid.
But Alex’s glory days are numbered. Early on at the Fringe, he sees a one-woman show that, unsurprisingly, he hates. He writes a review as devastating as it is personal (calling the star a “dull, hectoring frump,” her voice a “high-pitched whine”). All of this would be business as usual for Alex except for one problem: After quickly filing his review of the show, he bumps into Hayley Sinclair, its creator and star, in a bar. He takes her home and sleeps with her. He knew the one star was waiting for her; she did not.
When she finds out, there is hell to pay. Hayley transforms her nightly show into the “Alex Lyons Experience,” collecting testimony from his ex-girlfriends and lovers, or even those who have simply received bad reviews from him. Over the following weeks her show swells into a Greek chorus of one man’s wrongs. The whole nation, including members of Parliament, have hot takes (the performance is livestreamed). It doesn’t help his case that Alex is a bit of a nepo baby, as his mother Judith is an actor whose name would be recognized in most British households.
Sophie, living with Alex in the company-rented flat, has a front row seat to his public unraveling. She watches the livestreams with guilty awe, stalks Alex and Hayley compulsively online, and feverishly scans social media for the latest gossip (Runcie is great at writing a fake mean Tweet/X dispatch). She starts missing calls with her husband and their toddler son, as she becomes fully obsessed with the drama unfolding in Edinburgh.
As she continues to inhabit the same flat as her colleague, Sophie is increasingly questioned by others as to whose side she’s on, Alex or Hayley’s. For much of the book, she seems unable to make up her mind. She refuses to give up on Alex, and increasingly becomes his only source of companionship, which she can’t help but find flattering. But she also finds herself sympathetic to and magnetized by Hayley, whose popularity is blossoming on the Fringe circuit and beyond.
While Alex and Hayley both appear to possess other-worldly levels of charisma, one flaw with Runcie’s novel is that this is something we are repeatedly told, rather than shown. Alex spends most of the book being condescending to Sophie, and yet she is transfixed by him. “He had the strange ability to make you feel as if you were the only person who was in on a joke, the only person who understood some fundamental truth about the world that escaped other people.” This feels unsatisfyingly generic, like something you might find in an online wedding vows template.
We are at least given more backstory and a more plausible explanation for Sophie’s fascination with Alex: the ego trip. Having been dragged down by motherhood, a rocky marriage, and grief over the death of her own mother, Sophie enjoys Alex’s increasing dependence on her, a lone rock of support amid an ocean of alienation. There is something undeniably delicious in watching someone you revere fall to their knees, and Sophie begins to see in Alex “a tiny flickering of fear, at first only visible as a barely perceptible interruption to his arrogance, like a power cut that dims the lights for just a hundredth of a second.”
Hayley, unfortunately, never quite comes to life in the same way. And it remains unclear why her show, which is essentially a litany of (legitimate) complaints about a real-life terrible man with some added pyrotechnics, takes Edinburgh and the entire country by such storm. “I find I can’t explain why it had the effect that it did,” Sophie tells us. “This wasn’t theater, not really; it was a happening. The audience weren’t spectators anymore, but a silent, connected web of righteous energy.” Without more to go on, we have no choice but to take her word for it.
The result feels like a missed opportunity to interrogate some important questions. How much does the identity (gender, race, or class) of the critic matter when it comes to their ability to judge art? What about the identity of the artist themselves? In other words, who shall criticize the critics? Readers may leave Runcie’s novel feeling that some of these questions go unanswered, but this deeply entertaining novel is nonetheless well worth the price of admission.
Mills is a writer and human rights researcher who has worked for Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Wall Street Journal and Associated Press. She lives in New York.
The Fetus, 2025.
Directed by Joe Lam.
Starring Bill Moseley, Lauren LaVera, Julian Curtis, Evan Towell, and Ariel Yasmine.
SYNOPSIS:
A couple become pregnant with a half-human, half-demonic fetus with a thirst for blood-and must uncover its terrifying origins before it’s too late.
In The Fetus, Alessa (Lauren LaVera) discovers she has accidentally gotten pregnant by her boyfriend Chris (Julian Curtis), but instead of this being a cause for celebration Alessa tells Chris that they must visit her father Maddox (Bill Moseley) instead of going to a hospital as Maddox insisted she do that if she ever got pregnant. Chris has his own reasons for not wanting a baby and goes along with her, but Maddox is not an easy man to get to know as he is blind and suffering from PTSD as a result of being in Vietnam.
However, there are bigger stakes here than just trying to impress your girlfriend’s father as it is revealed that Alessa’s baby is the result of a pact Maddox made with a demon decades before, and that his blindness was due to him not sacrificing Alessa to that demon. Now he has a second chance to appease the demon with the vampiric tentacle monster that keeps appearing to suck the blood of anyone who isn’t kin, and Chris has to step up and decide whether he wants to be a father or not.
Or something like that, as The Fetus is a little confused by its own mythology. Taking its cue from Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive!, The Fetus is a low-budget indie affair that has its star names to thank for lifting it up and out of the bin marked ‘utter nonsense’ and into the realms of watchable nonsense. What’s the difference? Well, there is no way to try and sell it as a serious horror movie as the premise is totally daft, the visuals give it the look of a Megadeth music video from the 1990s and it ties itself up in knots trying to tell us who needs to be sacrificed and why (although neither become very clear by the end of it), but Bill Moseley has made enough of these types of schlocky horror movies to know exactly what he’s doing and how to pitch it, plus Lauren LaVera has enough clout with modern horror audiences to give it some appeal and she proves once again why she is one of the best scream queens of recent times (although she is better than this movie), and so the combination of these two actors gives The Fetus more weight than it would have had if two lesser-known actors were in the roles.
Julian Curtis as Chris also lends an air of comic relief, although when the plot is as silly as it is you cannot help but deliver your lines with that sort of sarcastic smirk on your face (”You can’t get pregnant overnight” – well, she did and no one questions it). He plays off against Bill Moseley very well and, if nothing else, his character is the one that has the biggest arc, and if you wanted to dig deeper and salvage some sort of message about nature versus nurture, what it means to be a father, telling your girlfriend when the condom splits and that type of thing then it is there, but don’t stress too much if you just want to watch vampiric tentacles coming out from between Lauren LaVera’s legs because that is really what everyone is here for rather than social commentary.
The Fetus works because everyone involved knows exactly what kind of movie they are making, and that movie is a low-budget black comedy about a demonic baby with naff-but-passable effects and three lead performers who bounce off each other very well. Going into it expecting The Exorcist or The Omen levels of filmmaking quality is only going to lead to anger and disappointment, and you can’t really be angry at a movie that has a man sticking his you-know-what into a fiery hole in the floor to conceive a baby. Temper your expectations and go into The Fetus prepared to enjoy 84 minutes of diabolical baby B-movie hilarity and you’ll have a good time… maybe.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist
In New York, the Brooklyn Bridge went up in flames briefly during a fireworks display. In Washington D.C., stormy weather delayed a grievance-filled speech by President Trump.
And here in Los Angeles? On Saturday night, tens of thousands of Angelenos joined voices peacefully at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum to sing along with Chris Stapleton as the country star compared a lover to Tennessee whiskey.
A unifying cultural figure beloved by both liberals and conservatives, Stapleton was the headlining act at a Fourth of July benefit concert that also featured Smashing Pumpkins, Chaka Khan, Maren Morris and Queen Latifah. (I’d be surprised if those five names had previously appeared together in the same sentence.) The show, with tickets priced at $17.76, was presented by America250, a bipartisan commission that Congress created in 2016 to plan celebrations for the country’s 250th birthday; proceeds went to Feeding America, which calls itself the largest domestic hunger-relief organization in the United States.
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“No politics — just purpose” is how America250 Chair Rosie Rios described the night in remarks from the stage, and it wasn’t hard to interpret the distinction she was seeking to draw between her group and Freedom 250, Trump’s rival semiquincentennial initiative that organized Saturday’s windblown event on the National Mall (not to mention an earlier concert by Vanilla Ice that was called off due to the threat of rain).
But here’s the thing: Compared with the president’s celebration, where he complained about his treatment by the justice system and suggested we should refer to his current term as his third, the show at the Coliseum really did feel like a politics-free zone — the somewhat rare occasion these days when folks from different walks of life come together just to listen to music and drink overpriced micheladas.
Said Stapleton not long into his set: “I won’t waste time talking.”
America250’s success was hardly a sure thing. Despite the relatively low price, tickets moved slowly in the weeks before the concert; one guy I talked to Saturday told me he’d paid six bucks for a discounted pass. Yet to my eyes the Coliseum was close to full by the time Stapleton came on.
The country singer was as solid and soulful as always, snarling gently through “Bad as I Used to Be,” then trading loving harmonies with his wife, Morgane, in “Millionaire.” He closed with “Tennessee Whiskey,” of course — a trusty yet somehow un-shopworn piece of Americana that’s earned a place on the shelf next to Ray Charles’ “Georgia on My Mind” and Willie Nelson’s “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.”
Smashing Pumpkins was perhaps a stranger fit for an explicitly patriotic event — “The world is a vampire,” frontman Billy Corgan sneered in “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” — yet the band sounded sharp and punchy in the ’90s alt-rock hits that have brought zoomers and even Gen Alpha kids into its audience.
Billed not inaccurately on the concert’s poster as “the legendary Chaka Khan,” the 73-year-old funk doyenne flexed her vocal chops in jammy renditions of “Ain’t Nobody” and “Tell Me Something Good” and got people hoisting their drinks for “I’m Every Woman.” Morris, who’d flown in from New York after attending her pal Taylor Swift’s wedding on Friday night, made an improbably smooth segue between her and Zedd’s synthed-up “The Middle” and the rustic “My Church.”
As the show’s host, Queen Latifah dispensed uplifting thoughts about American idealism throughout the evening but also got a slot of her own to do her classic “U.N.I.T.Y.” with help from a rambunctious drum line. It’s an unapologetic message song about demanding respect, and what was moving about hearing it here is that nobody seemed put off by that idea.
I’ll wave a flag for that.
Here are more photos from Saturday’s concert:
Chaka Khan performs.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Queen Latifah hosted the show.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
A couple in patriotic garb share a kiss.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Smashing Pumpkins performs.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
A concertgoer enjoys confetti.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Maren Morris performs.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
It’s a good year when we get movies like Remarkably Bright Creatures and The Sheep Detectives at the same time. If there’s one type of emotional draw we’ll never say no to when it comes to the fiction we consume, it’s wholesome. The kind of movies and TV shows that leave you with a bit more hope than you expected. The kind of stories that make you believe that humanity isn’t as broken as it really is.
The Sheep Detectives is essentially tailor-made for anyone who loves a good whodunnit that’s rich with nuance and humor. The clever decision to shift the genre into something both kids and adults could appreciate together is no small feat, and that’s largely where its mass appeal lies. Murder is a heavy subject to deal with—as is grief—yet this story makes sitting with the weight of both a little easier. It could kickstart a number of thoughtful conversations while it simultaneously delivers plenty of laughs along the way.
For adults, there’s also a huge appeal in the casting—the voice actors especially. Anyone who knows me knows that Ted Lasso is the kind of show I’ll always put first, so hearing Brett Goldstein voice a sheep is the kind of A+ decision that’s effortless to appreciate. Hugh Jackman, Nicholas Galitzine, Molly Gordon, Nicholas Braun, Emma Thompson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Bella Ramsey, Regina Hall, Rhys Darby, Patrick Stewart, Hong Chau, and the whole cast do an exceptional job as well, making every moment of The Sheep Detectives thoroughly entertaining.
It’s hard to imagine anyone coming out of the movie not thinking it’s one of the best things we’ll watch all year, and that’s a high compliment considering 2026 is full of gems like Project Hail Mary and the upcoming The Odyssey. It’s the exact kind of movie we could all use, but more than anything, the kind of story we could use more of. If there’s any sort of sequel, sign me up. Let’s make it a trilogy. Give us more of the sheep.
The cinematography is gorgeous, the writing is sharp, the performances are thrilling, and the message is a gem worth holding onto. The Sheep Detectives is the kind of feel-good treasure that does an excellent job of reminding us why movies like this will always matter. There’s a thoughtful message about how grief is meant to be shared and why it’s so important to carry those who’ve passed with us. Yes, it’d be convenient to forget our pain by sheer mental willpower, but we aren’t meant to do that. As humans and as animals, I imagine that the good, bad, and ugly are all part of what makes life beautiful, and that’s a comforting message to sit with.
The concept of a whodunnit featuring sheep solving a murder sounds so wild on paper, yet everything about it results in the kind of movie that should signal to Hollywood we want more creative approaches to what’s familiar. There’s a reason The Muppets are so popular, and we shouldn’t be afraid of making things that sound a bit too whimsical on paper. In other words, The Sheep Detectives embraces the whimsy, and it’s exactly what makes it so delightful.
The Sheep Detectives is now streaming on Prime Video.
First Featured Image Credit: ©Amazon MGM Studios
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