‘The dream is to be a standup, but everyone who knows me says: Please don’t’ – Riz Ahmed on chaos, comedy, and defying categorisation

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His multi-hyphenate career has made him one of Britain’s most versatile recognisable stars – but hasn’t stopped him facing some seriously awkward moments… Riz Ahmed was multitasking. It was February in London, and the actor was doing an interview with a men’s magazine en route to collect his kid from school. So far, so starry. “Here’s the reality,” says Ahmed today, palms slamming down hard on the table. “I’m late for the school run. I’m stuck in traffic. I’m meant to be at my laptop, but I’m having to do it on my phone, in my car. I’m double parked on a double yellow line, doing the interview, looking over my shoulder. The traffic warden’s coming, it’s rush hour. He tries to move me along. I try to get out of there while I’m talking on the phone to this guy.” Distracted, Ahmed hit another car. The driver jumped out of his vehicle, incensed. “He’s like, ‘What the fuck are you doing?!’” says Ahmed, who had been attempting to continue the interview. “I’m now going off video, like, ‘Oh,...
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Charm Circle review – Grey Gardens-ish portrait of director’s dysfunctional family

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Nira Burstein’s documentary focuses on the acutely troubled lives of her closest relations – and it’s not a happy picture

Like so many young artists, film-maker Nira Burstein has taken the advice to write – or in this case, film – what she knows, so for her first feature she’s turned the camera on her own family, a troubled brood from the outer suburbs of New York City. Although Nira holds the camera herself for much of the time, she edits in home movie footage from many years ago which shows how dramatically time and stress have worn the family down.

The Burstein patriarch Uri is definitely a character, either the film’s villain, comic relief or hero depending on where you stand. A former realtor and part-time guitarist, he wears a yarmulke most of the time and invokes his Jewish religious beliefs as an excuse when he doesn’t want to attend the wedding of his daughter Adina, Nira’s sister, to two non-binary people with whom she’s decided to form a lasting throuple. Uri’s wife Raya, a former musician herself, earned a master’s from Columbia and once practised as an occupational therapist. But around the time that eldest daughter Judy, variously diagnosed with Tourette syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder, became “sick” with unspecified problems, Raya also had a breakdown and checked into a psychiatric facility. Professionals, according to Raya and Uri, have labelled her bipolar or schizophrenic, but Uri at least is less interested in clinical diagnoses than with how to cope with Raya and Judy’s behaviours and complains about them constantly. (He notes that even celebrity physician/neurologist Oliver Sacks examined Judy and couldn’t tell what exactly was wrong with her.)

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