19th century
Charley's Aunt, Menier Chocolate FactoryWednesday, 03 October 2012
A revival of an old play with a broad sense of fun and a turbo-charged role for a co-star of hit sitcom Gavin & Stacey? No, not One Man, Two Guvnors, but this well-dressed production of the classy 1892 farce by Brandon Thomas starring Mathew... Read more... |
Mademoiselle Julie, Barbican TheatreFriday, 21 September 2012
Let one visual artist and one fashion designer loose on a theatre production and you may find both set and costumes upstaging the actors. Laurent P. Berger has designed a Miers Van der Rohe-type modernist glass box, with luxurious white surfaces and... Read more... |
HysteriaMonday, 17 September 2012
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” It is a truth less universally acknowledged that a married woman in possession of a rich Victorian husband must be in want of a... Read more... |
Anna Karenina: The RaveThursday, 06 September 2012
A curtain rises at the start of Joe Wright’s thrilling film version of Anna Karenina only for the finish several hours later to be accompanied in time-honoured fashion by the words “the end”. But for all the deliberate theatrical artifice of a movie... Read more... |
Anna Karenina: The PanThursday, 06 September 2012
“You can’t ask why about love,” Aaron Johnson’s Count Vronsky croons tenderly to his beloved, pink lips peeking indecently out through his flasher’s mac of a moustache. Maybe you can’t, but you certainly can ask why you’d take a thousand-page... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Cameron Carpenter/ Znaider, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, ChaillySunday, 02 September 2012
I'd love to see the stats on the last time a Prom was this packed for an afternoon organ recital. Were it not for the fact that organist Cameron Carpenter was sporting spandex trousers encrusted in silver glitter, a wife beater and Mohawk, you... Read more... |
St John's Night, Jermyn Street TheatreMonday, 16 July 2012
Before Ibsen was, well, Ibsen, he had a successful career as a failed playwright. Producing works on a spectrum between unremarkable and outright bad, he muddled his way through to his late thirties when the publication of Brand derailed what might... Read more... |
Dandy Dick, Theatre Royal BrightonWednesday, 04 July 2012
"I can’t live without horse flesh, if it’s only a piece of cat’s meat on a skewer.” So declares Patricia Hodge’s gung-ho racing fanatic Georgina in this straight-down-the-line revival of Pinero’s 125-year-old caper, which requires cast and audience... Read more... |
Lady Windermere’s Fan, Royal Exchange, ManchesterTuesday, 22 May 2012
It’s ironic that Oscar Wilde should escape to the Lake District in 1891 to write a play satirising London society, his first success in the theatre. He took such a shine to the region’s place names that he used them for some of the characters –... Read more... |
Cotton: Global Threads, Whitworth Art GalleryMonday, 23 April 2012
Manchester was once known as Cottonopolis, since the city was once at the centre of the vast global industry reponsible for its growth and prosperity.The Whitworth Art Gallery, which is part of Manchester University, has in its collection a... Read more... |
DVD: Wuthering HeightsSunday, 08 April 2012
Andrea Arnold’s starkly naturalistic reboot of Emily Brontë’s masterpiece of 1847 isn’t the first costume drama of the last 20 years to scorn the heritage-culture approach. In 1995, Roger Michell’s Persuasion, one of the best but least fêted of the... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Dvořák, Ravel, Garth KnoxSaturday, 07 April 2012
Dvořák: Symphony No 7, In Nature’s Realm, Scherzo capriccioso Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/José Serebrier (Warner Classics) Each of Dvořák’s last three symphonies is a wonder, and the Seventh is possibly the best of the lot. It’s a work... Read more... |
