class system
Pulp, O2 Arena review - common people like usMonday, 16 June 2025
Jarvis Cocker is proudly holding the No 1 trophy handed to him on the day Pulp topped the album chart for the first time in 27 years with More, their first album in almost as long. “It’s nice they’ve got something to do when they’re getting on a bit... Read more... |
This is My Family, Southwark Playhouse - London debut of 2013 Sheffield hit is feeling its ageFriday, 30 May 2025
MOR. Twee. Unashamedly crowdpleasing. Are such descriptors indicative of a tedious night in the stalls? For your reviewer, who has become jaded very quickly with a myriad of searing examinations of mental health crises and wake up calls about the... Read more... |
Much Ado About Nothing, RSC, Stratford - Messina FC scores on the bardic football fieldTuesday, 29 April 2025
Fragile egos abound. An older person (usually a man) has to bring the best out of the stars, but mustn’t neglect the team ethic. Picking the right players is critical. There’s never enough money, because everything that comes in this season is spent... Read more... |
Ghosts, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre - turns out, they do fuck you upFriday, 18 April 2025
A single sofa is all we have on stage to attract our eye - the signifier of intimate family evenings, chummy breakfast TV and, more recently, Graham Norton’s bonhomie. Until you catch proper sight of the room’s walls that is, which are not, as you... Read more... |
Stiletto, Charing Cross Theatre review - new musical excessWednesday, 02 April 2025
That friend you have who hates musicals – probably male, probably straight, probably not seen one since The Sound of Music on BBC 1 after the Queen’s Speech in 1978 – well, don’t send them to Charing Cross Theatre for this show. But that other... Read more... |
Brief History of a Family review - glossy Chinese psychological thriller feels shallowSaturday, 22 March 2025
Brief History of a Family is a psychological thriller with a story familiar to anyone who has seen Ripley, Saltburn or Six Degrees of Separation. A clever young man with low social status infiltrates a far more privileged family, with devastating... Read more... |
Jacqueline Feldman: Precarious Lease review - living on the edgeSaturday, 08 February 2025
Taking on some of the contingent, nebulous quality of its subject, Jacqueline Feldman’s Precarious Lease examines the beginning and the end – in 2013 – of the famous Parisian squat, Le Bloc, thinking through the triumphs and consequences of the... Read more... |
An Interrogation, Hampstead Theatre review - police procedural based on true crime tale fails to ring trueSaturday, 25 January 2025
In a dingy room with dilapidated furniture on a dismal Sunday evening, two detectives prepare for an interview. The old hand walks out, with just a little too much flattery hanging in the air, leaving the interrogation in the hands of the up-and-... Read more... |
The Maids, Jermyn Street Theatre review - new broom sweeps clean in fierce revivalMonday, 13 January 2025
There are two main reasons to revive classics. The first is that they are really good; the second is that they have something to say about how the world is changing, perhaps more accurately, how our perception of it is changing. Both are true of... Read more... |
Titanique, Criterion Theatre review - musical parody sinks despite super singingFriday, 10 January 2025
This Celine Dion jukebox musical has been a big hit in New York, but crossing The Atlantic can be perilous for any production, so, docked now at the Criterion Theatre, does it sink or float?We open on a framing device, with a group of tourists being... Read more... |
Twelfth Night, Royal Shakespeare Theatre review - comic energy dissipates in too large a spaceSunday, 22 December 2024
It is not just Twelfth Night, it’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will in The Folio, a signpost of the choices the inhabitants, old and new, of Illyria must make. Perhaps it’s also an allusion to Will’s own choices as an actor/playwright in the all... Read more... |
All's Well That Ends Well, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - Shakespeare at his least likeableMonday, 25 November 2024
"All’s well that ends well". Sounds like the kind of phrase a guilty parent says to a disappointed child after they’ve been caught in a white lie and bought them a bag of sweets to smooth things over. It’s a saying that betokens bad behaviour, a... Read more... |
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