wed 25/12/2024

London

The Unthanks in Winter, Cadogan Hall review

A suitable place to find yourself out for the winter solstice, buttoning up for the longest night of the year, was at the Cadogan Hall off Sloane Square, a former place of worship marking its 20th year as a concert hall.The Unthanks, too, are...

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Strike: The Ink Black Heart, BBC One review - protracted, convoluted puzzler lifted by its leads

The man whose name sounds like a major aviation accident, private detective Cormoran Strike, is back, with his sidekick Robin, for more of the lobster quadrille that is their relationship.This sixth series still uses those classy credits – footage...

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The Legends of Them, Royal Court review - reaching out for serenity

I live in Brixton, south London. To get to the tube, I have to cross Windrush Square. Since 2021, I go past the Cherry Groce memorial, which honours the woman who was wrongfully shot by the Met in 1985, an event which sparked the riots I remember so...

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Ballet Shoes, Olivier Theatre review - reimagined classic with a lively contemporary feel

Those with treasured battered copies of Noel Streatfield’s 1936 story of three young adopted sisters in pre-war London may have thrilled to the idea of a version coming to the National Theatre. But be warned: jolly though it is, it’s not the story...

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Christmas with Connaught Brass, Milton Court review - delightful seasonal fare from Bach to Boulanger

Connaught Brass is a quintet of twenty-something players rapidly establishing an enviable reputation, and on the evidence of what I heard yesterday that reputation is fully deserved: they really are superbly good. A well-stuffed Milton Court spoke...

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Hansel and Gretel, Shakespeare's Globe review - too saccharine a retelling for our times

Growing up within a few hundred yards of a major dock, I hardly knew darkness or quiet – the first time I properly felt their terrible beauty was on the Isle of Man ferry in the middle of the Irish Sea, its voids still vivid half a century on....

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Blu-ray: Juggernaut

That Juggernaut is as good as it is seems in hindsight to have been a happy accident. Inspired by a bomb hoax on the QE2 in 1972, the producers fired two directors (Bryan Forbes and Don Taylor) in succession before hiring Richard Lester in...

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The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical, The Other Palace - all Greek to me

Percy Jackson is neither the missing one from Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael, nor an Australian Test cricketer of the 1920s, but a New York teenager with dyslexia and ADHD who keeps getting expelled from school. He’s a bit of a...

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EFG London Jazz Festival 2024 round-up review - from Korean noise to Carnatic soul

November can be a month to hunker down for the onset of winter and its weather, and where better to do that than in one of the myriad venues across the capital hosting the annual London Jazz Festival and its hundreds of concerts, from cosy clubs...

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All's Well That Ends Well, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - Shakespeare at his least likeable

"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...

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King James, Hampstead Theatre review - UK premiere drains a three-pointer

Cleveland is probably the American city most like the one in which I grew up. Early into the icy embrace of post-industrialisation, not really on the way to anywhere, but not a destination either and obsessed with popular music and sports, it's very...

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[title of show], Southwark Playhouse review - two guys and two girls write about writing, delightfully

Not just a backstage musical, a backroom musical!In the 70s, Follies and A Chorus Line took us into the rehearsal room giving us a chance to look under the bonnet to see the cogs of the Musical Theatre machine bump and grind as a show gets on its...

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