Night And Day… billed as “Virginia Woolf’s Night & Day” in this film (but apostrophes and ampersands are not SEO-friendly), centres around Haley Bennett (Hillbilly Elegy) as budding astronomer Katharine Hilbery, but in 1910 London, she’s not allowed to join the Royal Astronomical Society – and later trying to study at Cambridge, because no women are allowed!
Hence, she has to dresses like a man in order to get into their inner sanctum, so she can see what’s going on, although that did make me realise how Ms Bennett looks fetching in a suit 😀
Jack Whitehall (The Burbs 2026) is surprisingly NOT annoying in this, in the role of William Rodney, whose heart longs for Katharine, but her mind is on more important matters of study, and everyone’s excited to see Halley’s Comet, which I remember coming round in 1986!
On the plus side, I was curious to see where this was filmed, since there’s scenes with tram lines and cobbles, and with some backdrops, I wondered if part of it was shot at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. However, so far, IMAX just lists Beamish Museum in County Durham, Ryhope Engines Museum in Tyne and Wear, and Neville Hall in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. So, not London, then.
On the downside, while Haley Bennett is good, the story and film as a whole is very dull. And how does a 95-minute film need SIX producers?
Oh, and Lily Allen also pops up, but like her recent concert, she doesn’t talk to the audience in this, either. (see below for that tweet)
As an aside, this was the second consecutive film I saw in the same auditorium as Lesbian Space Princess, with its lack of air-conditioning and you can see the full description of the problems in that one.
There is a support act.
The show has always been advertised as “Lily Allen performs West End Girl.”
I was a few mins late as my tights were laddered and i had to change them.
The show is just over an hour as it’s just the album in its entirety.
It’s my artistic choice not… https://t.co/6qmrixFHXT
— Lily Allen (@lilyallen) June 29, 2026
To that end, I saw both films in screen 3, because they alternated them in there all day, and it was telling that these films were originally scheduled for screen 4 (which has a better projector, I find), and they swapped the schedule over with the screen 3 films.
I should’ve smelled a rat, as I remember when this happened to when 2024’s Longlegs was shown in screen 5, and was swapped over with one of those screens with the two rows of Premiere seats in the middle, which irritate me because if you sit in them, you usually get the cheapseats behind you being loud.
Turned out screen 5’s air-con had broken, so in that case, Longlegs was expected to be the bigger draw, and the other film’s viewers could just sweat into a puddle.
I did look up what was showing in screen 4, and at 7.30pm, they had an Indian film, Main Vaapas Aaunga, on seemingly it’s only screening that I could see. I did a screengrab of the seat map (2nd pic), as I get nerdy about that, and yep, a bit busy. And since the screens had just been swapped over without telling anyone, about 6 couples came into Night & Day when it was halfway done. For anyone who was starting to sit within earshot, I said, “Excuse me, you want next door“, so they didn’t spend however long wondering what was onscreen.
The door was open to screen 4 after I came out, and I popped my head round briefly, and yep, absolutely jammed.
And at the time, I did ask a member of staff about screen 3’s air con, but just got an “umm.. ah” response, and so I knew the answer anyway. The air con was bust and that wasn’t changing any time soon.
Night And Day is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
However, you can buy the book in paperback and hardback form.
NOTE: There are no mid- nor post-credits scenes.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 95 minutes
Release date: June 19th 2026
Studio: Vue Lumière
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Rating: 2/10
Director: Tina Gharavi
Producers: Christopher Figg, Stephen Julius, Julie Link, Philipp G Steffens, Meg Thomson, Justine Waddell
Screenplay: Justine Waddell
Novel: Virginia Woolf
Music: Simon Goff
Cast:
Katharine Hilbery: Haley Bennett
Ralph Denham: Elyas M’Barek
Mary Datchet: Lily Allen
William Rodney: Jack Whitehall
Mrs. Hilbery: Jennifer Saunders
Mr. Hilbery: Timothy Spall
Sir Francis Otway: Simon Phillips
Cousin Joan: Sally Phillips
Cassandra Otway: Camilla Borghesani
Cyril Otway: Misia Butler
Aunt Celia: Elizabeth Edmonds
Rev. Datchet: Ivan Andrienko
Mr. Herbert: Nick Blakeley
Laurie: Aaron Cobham
Sir Alexander Holmes-Edwards: Alex Macqueen
Virginia Woolf: Erika Linder
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.