London
Passing, Park Theatre review - where do we go from here?Monday, 20 November 2023
“It’s nothing like Christmas,” Rachel (Amy-Leigh Hickman) hisses at her brother David (Kishore Walker). She’s trying to wrangle her family into their first ever Diwali celebration, but everything’s going wrong. Her dad Yash (Bhasker Patel) is... Read more... |
Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen, Bush Theatre review - charismatic stand-up routineFriday, 17 November 2023
The Comedian runs, bounces even, onto the stage. The audience immediately applauds. He seizes the mic and makes self-deprecatory gestures. Then he rubs the mic stand suggestively. We laugh. When he turns around we can see a laughing mouth printed on... Read more... |
Les Égarés, London Jazz Festival, Cadogan Hall review - a wondrous musical conversationFriday, 17 November 2023
Combine four super-talents, masters of their instrument, and you might well expect a battle of egos or a clash of modi operandi. Not least, as in the case of Les Égarés, a quartet made up from two seasoned duos – the virtuoso jazzers Vincent... Read more... |
Album: Madness - Theatre of the Absurd presents C'Est la VieWednesday, 15 November 2023
Madness are an English institution due to deathless, jolly hits such as “House of Fun”, “Baggy Trousers” and “One Step Beyond”, but there’s always been another side to them.The London band are often at their best when bittersweet. Lesser-known songs... Read more... |
The Time Traveller's Wife, Apollo Theatre review - blockbuster 2003 novel does not quite land as blockbuster 2023 musicalMonday, 13 November 2023
You really don’t want to pick up The Time Traveller’s Wife in a game of charades. Half the clock would be run down just showing that it’s a novel, a film, a TV series and a musical. That spawning of spin-offs over the last two decades is a testament... Read more... |
Nineteen Gardens, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs review - intriguing, beautifully observed two-hander tilts power this way and thatSaturday, 11 November 2023
A middle-aged man, expensively dressed and possessed of that very specific confidence that only comes from a certain kind of education, a certain kind of professional success, a certain kind of entitlement, talks to a younger woman. Despite the fact... Read more... |
Women in Revolt!, Tate Britain review - a super important if overwhelming showFriday, 10 November 2023
The soundtrack to Tate Britain’s seminal exhibition Women in Revolt! is a prolonged scream. On film, Gina Birch of the punk band The Raincoats gives vent to her pent-up anger and frustration by yelling at the top of her lungs for 3 minutes (... Read more... |
Backstairs Billy, Duke of York's Theatre review - starry and gently subversive, tooWednesday, 08 November 2023
Rarely has a play's opening been so opportune. Just when it looked as if the West End was slipping into decline, along comes the smart, shrewd Backstairs Billy to allay mounting fears of late that the commercial theatre had lost all sense of quality... Read more... |
The Interview, Park Theatre review - Martin Bashir's comeuppanceSaturday, 04 November 2023
Journalism is a despised profession. And when you consider the story behind the interview that Diana, Princess of Wales, gave to BBC journo Martin Bashir in 1995 you can see why. As anyone who follows current affairs knows, it has been revealed that... Read more... |
FLIP!, Summerhall Edinburgh review - sassy, satirical parableFriday, 03 November 2023
You can almost feel the energy blazing off the stage in this fast, furious and fiercely funny two-hander from writer Racheal Ofori and Newcastle-based Alphabetti Theatre. Don’t blink or you’ll miss a crucial plot twist, or a nifty swerve into new... Read more... |
1984, Hackney Town Hall review - Room 101 shapeshifts into 2023, but remains as terrifyingly plausible as everTuesday, 31 October 2023
The day after I saw the show, as went about the mundanities of domestic life, I wondered how long it would take to come across a reference to 1984. My best bet was listening to an LBC phone-in concerning next week’s conference at Bletchley Park on... Read more... |
Manic Street Creature, Southwark Playhouse review - songs in the key of a traumatised lifeFriday, 27 October 2023
There’s an old-fashioned feel to the story at its outset: Young woman, guitar in hand, Northern accent announcing as much as it always did, who makes a new life in London, all the money going on a room in Camden. One recalls Georgy Girl or Darling,... Read more... |
