London
Something in the Air, Jermyn Street Theatre review - evocative London mood musicTuesday, 25 October 2022
As its title suggests, Peter Gill’s Something in the Air is an elusive piece – it’s about catching at instinct, responding to intuition, bringing together overlapping hints of present and past lives. From these different stories, spun out of lived... Read more... |
Path of Miracles, Tenebrae, Short, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - a modern choral classicFriday, 21 October 2022
This is the third time I’ve heard Path of Miracles live this year and I’d happily hear it another three times before Christmas. I reviewed the amateur Elysian Singers sing it in February, and the BBC Singers took it on for the first time in May –... Read more... |
Angeline Morrison, Cecil Sharp House - a ballad-maker for our timeFriday, 21 October 2022
Among those making her Cambridge Folk Festival on the diminutive Club Stage back in the summer was Angeline Morrison, a Birmingham-born singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who these days makes her home in Cornwall, drawn at least in part... Read more... |
London Film Festival 2022 - the winners and the losersFriday, 21 October 2022
The London Film Festival ended with the announcement of assorted prizes, all well-deserved. My colleague Demetrios Matheou has already written here about the Chilean political thriller, 1976, which won Best First Feature, and we’ll be writing... Read more... |
The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Rose Theatre review - new production of classic proves a gruelling experienceFriday, 07 October 2022
Brecht – as I suppose he intended – is always a shock to the system. With not a word on what to expect from his commitment to the strictures of epic theatre in the programme, a star of West End musical theatre cast in the lead and a venue... Read more... |
The Crucible, National Theatre review - visually stunning revival of Miller's classic dramaSaturday, 01 October 2022
How can this beauty arise from such ugliness? The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s 1953 drama about the Salem witch trials of 1692, is rife with unwavering prejudices, selfish slander, and sickening motives. But under Lyndsey Turner’s aesthetically... Read more... |
Clutch, Bush Theatre review - new comedy-drama passes its testThursday, 22 September 2022
Max is big and black and Tyler is slight and (very) white, an odd couple trapped in a dual-control car as Max barks out his instructions and Tyler prepares for his driving test. If their relationship is to get started, like the clutch of the... Read more... |
The P Word, Bush Theatre review - persecution and prideSaturday, 17 September 2022
Britain is a divided nation, but one of the divisions that we don’t hear that much about is that between Pakistani gay men. Written by Waleed Akhtar (who also stars in this impressively heartfelt two-hander), The P Word is about the differences in... Read more... |
The Clinic, Almeida Theatre review - race and the status quoWednesday, 14 September 2022
As Dipa Baruwa-Etti’s latest play, The Clinic, reminds us, the Tory party has a strong showing of Black MPs – Badenoch, Cleverly, Kwarteng. It was finished long before the latest Cabinet appointments, but presciently picked those three names, all... Read more... |
See How They Run review - a whodunit pastiche set in Fifties LondonFriday, 09 September 2022
A starry cast headed by Saoirse Ronan and Sam Rockwell doesn’t quite manage to bring this lavish, light-hearted period pastiche to life, though it looks good – nice cars, lovely costumes, a quasi-Wes Anderson vibe – and there are mild chuckles... Read more... |
Ride, Charing Cross Theatre review - A true story of female empowermentThursday, 01 September 2022
Who tells your story? Something of a theme in new musicals since Hamilton posed the question in those long ago pre-Covid, pre-inflation days. In Ride, the once famous cyclist who had hardly ever ridden a bike, Annie Londonderry, circumvents the... Read more... |
Prom 52, Kuusisto, Finnish RSO, Collon review - fairytales, folksongs and a soaring larkSaturday, 27 August 2022
Schoolteachers know – even if only the very best can put it into practice – that faced with a noisy classroom you shouldn’t raise your voice, but rather speak quietly. Over recent Proms seasons audience coughing has reached extreme levels, so the... Read more... |
