London
EFG London Jazz Festival 2024 round-up review - from Korean noise to Carnatic soulMonday, 25 November 2024
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... 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... |
King James, Hampstead Theatre review - UK premiere drains a three-pointerSaturday, 23 November 2024
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... Read more... |
[title of show], Southwark Playhouse review - two guys and two girls write about writing, delightfullyWednesday, 20 November 2024
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... Read more... |
Kenny Barron Trio, Ronnie Scott's review - a master of the coolMonday, 18 November 2024
Kenny Barron, revered as the best jazz pianist around, is a perfect gentleman and a master of “cool” – a quality once described in great depth by the American Africanist Robert Farris Thompson, in an article originally published in African Arts in... Read more... |
Bob Dylan, Royal Albert Hall review - cracked ritual from rock elderSaturday, 16 November 2024
Will Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour ever come to an end? Two years on from the last UK tour, he’s returned, with substantially the same band, once again mostly featuring material from his brilliant album Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020). He’s a little... Read more... |
Wolves on Road, Bush Theatre review - exciting dialogue, but flawed plottingSaturday, 16 November 2024
Cryptocurrency is like the myth of El Dorado – a promised land made of fool’s gold. Despite its liberatory potential, it frequently attracts sharks or, as the title of Beru Tessema’s new play indicates, hungry wolves that gobble up defenceless sheep... Read more... |
Burnt Up Love, Finborough Theatre review - scorching new playMonday, 11 November 2024
Mac is in prison for a long stretch. He is calm, contemplative almost, understands how to do his time and has only one rule – nobody, cellmate or guard, can touch the photo of his daughter, then three years old, attached to his wall. Though he... Read more... |
Mailley-Smith, Piccadilly Sinfonietta, St Mary-le-Strand review - music in a resurgent venueSaturday, 09 November 2024
Until 2022, the lovely 18th century church of St Mary-le-Strand was a traffic island, ignored and unloved and rarely visited. Then came the pedestrianisation of the section of the Strand outside Somerset House, transforming the area from somewhere... Read more... |
Le Vent du Nord, Cecil Sharp House review - five extraordinary musiciansSaturday, 09 November 2024
Among the many things that make the folk community such a warm and welcoming “family” is that you know which side you’re all on, to paraphrase the title of the song written by Florence Reece, wife of a United Mineworkers official during the bitter... Read more... |
Until I Kill You, ITV1 review - superb performances in a frustrating true-crime storyWednesday, 06 November 2024
The latest true-crime adaptation about a murderous man and his female victims turns its star into a bloody mess on a hospital table, her vital signs flatlining. And that’s just halfway through, with two episodes to go. At least the second half... Read more... |
Alan Hollinghurst: Our Evenings review - a gift that keeps on givingMonday, 04 November 2024
In Alan Hollinghurst’s first novel, The Swimming Pool Library (1988), set during the summer of 1983, the young gay narrator, William Beckwith, lives in Holland Park. That same year and location furnish the setting of the first part of Hollinghurst’s... Read more... |
