Reviews
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Friday, 14 November 2025
We are bowled over!
From Historical to Hip-Hop, Classically Black Music Festival, Kings Place review - a cluster of impressive stars for the future
Tuesday, 21 October 2025
To hear Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason speaking live is to hear a woman who very much recognises that her lifelong mission to challenge the perception of who should play classical music is ongoing. Though she has given birth to seven children who have gone on to be stand out classical musicians, she knows that there are still those who deny them the recognition they deserve because of the colour of their skin.
Bryony Kimmings, Soho Theatre Walthamstow review...
Tuesday, 21 October 2025
Bryony Kimmings’ new show – her first in five years – was created to celebrate the opening of Soho Walthamstow, the previously neglected Art...
La bohème, Opera North review - still young at 32
Monday, 20 October 2025
Phyllida Lloyd’s production of La Bohème for Opera North is over 32 years old but still feels young. And for its audiences it still has the ability...
Shibe, LSO, Adès, Barbican review - gaudy and...
Monday, 20 October 2025
Many orchestral concerts leaven two or three established classics with something new or unusual. The LSO reversed that formula at the Barbican...
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Frankenstein review - the Prometheus of the charnel house
Guillermo del Toro is fitfully inspired, but often lost in long-held ambitions |
Solar Eyes, Hare & Hounds, Birmingham review - local lads lay down some new tunes for a home crowd
Psychedelic indie dance music marinated in swirling dry ice |
The Free Association launch review - strong start for improv company
Troupe moves into permanent home |
Anja Mittermüller, Richard Fu, Wigmore Hall review - a glorious hall debut
The Austrian mezzo shines - at the age of 22 |
Music Reissues Weekly: Evie Sands - I Can’t Let Go
Diligent, treasure-packed tribute to one of Sixties’ America’s great vocal stylists |
London Film Festival 2025 - a Korean masterclass in black comedy and a Camus classic effectively realised
New films from Park Chan-wook, Gianfranco Rosi, François Ozon, Ildikó Enyedi and more |
Gesualdo Passione, Les Arts Florissants, Amala Dior Company, Barbican review - inspired collaboration excavates the music's humanity
At times it was like watching an anarchic religious procession |
After the Hunt review - muddled #MeToo provocation
Julia Roberts excels despite misfiring drama |
Cockerham, Manchester Camerata, Sheen, Martin Harris Centre, Manchester review - re-enacting the dawn of modernism
Two UK premieres added to three miniatures from a seminal event of January 1914 |
Ballad of a Small Player review - Colin Farrell's all in as a gambler down on his luck
Conclave director Edward Berger swaps the Vatican for Asia's sin city |
London Film Festival 2025 - Bradley Cooper channels John Bishop, the Boss goes to Nebraska, and a French pandemic
... not to mention Kristen Stewart's directing debut and a punchy prison drama |
Ragdoll, Jermyn Street Theatre review - compelling and emotionally truthful
Katherine Moar returns with a Patty Hearst-inspired follow up to her debut hit 'Farm Hall' |
London Film Festival 2025 - from paranoia in Brazil and Iran, to light relief in New York and Tuscany
'Jay Kelly' disappoints, 'It Was Just an Accident' doesn't |
Kempf, Brno Philharmonic, Davies, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - European tradition meets American jazz
Bouncing Czechs enjoy their Gershwin and Brubeck alongside Janáček and Dvořák |
Albert Herring, English National Opera review - a great comedy with depths fully realised
Britten’s delight was never made for the Coliseum, but it works on its first outing there |
Iron Ladies review - working-class heroines of the Miners' Strike
Documentary salutes the staunch women who fought Thatcher's pit closures |
Solomon, OAE, Butt, QEH review - daft Biblical whitewashing with great choruses
Even a top soprano and mezzo can’t make this Handel paean wholly convincing |
The Woman in Cabin 10 review - Scandi noir meets Agatha Christie on a superyacht
Reason goes overboard on a seagoing mystery thriller |
Two-Piano Gala, Kings Place review - shining constellations
London Piano Festival curators and illustrious friends entertain and enlighten |
Music Reissues Weekly: Marc and the Mambas - Three Black Nights Of Little Black Bites
When Marc Almond took time out from Soft Cell |
Troilus and Cressida, Globe Theatre review - a 'problem play' with added problems
Raucous and carnivalesque, but also ugly and incomprehensible |
London Film Festival 2025 - crime, punishment, pop stars and shrinks
Daniel Craig investigates, Jodie Foster speaks French and Colin Farrell has a gambling habit |
I Swear review - taking stock of Tourette's
A sharp and moving tale of cuss-words and tics |
Clarkston, Trafalgar Theatre review - two lads on a road to nowhere
Netflix star, Joe Locke, is the selling point of a production that needs one |
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