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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... |
Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, Donmar Warehouse review - a blazingly original musical flashes into the West EndWednesday, 18 December 2024
Broadway shows sometimes hit the West End like, well, like a comet, burning brightly but briefly (Spring Awakening, for example), while others settle into orbit illuminating Shaftesbury Avenue with a neon blaze every night for years.So it might be a... 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... |
How To Survive Your Mother, King's Head Theatre review - mummy issues drive autobiographical dramedyThursday, 31 October 2024
It is unsurprising to learn in the post-show Q&A that each audience receives Jonathan Maitland’s new play based on his 2006 memoir differently. My house laughed a lot (me especially) but some see the tragic overwhelming the comic, and the laughs... Read more... |
Filumena, Theatre Royal Windsor review - Mozartian marriage comedy with pasta sauceFriday, 11 October 2024
Of all the ingenues in all the world of golden TV sitcom, Felicity Kendal was the most innocent, the most wicked, the most deceptive, with an amaretto voice that wheedled like a child and seduced like a witch. Half a century on, there must be a heck... Read more... |
Joker: Folie à Deux review - supervillainy laid lowFriday, 04 October 2024
“Psychopaths sell like hotcakes,” William Holden observed in Sunset Boulevard in 1950, and those individuals have been doing good business for Hollywood before and since.We root for them and we don’t root for them at the same time, which is perhaps... Read more... |
Album: Joan as Police Woman - Lemons, Limes and OrchidsMonday, 16 September 2024
You don’t need me to tell you that this particular law enforcer has served up yet another meaty helping of genius. It’s what we expect. So here she is, over-delivering again on her 12th album. A salve for the soul, Joan Wasser’s... Read more... |
Album: Snow Patrol - The Forest is the PathThursday, 12 September 2024
Contrary to popular belief, not all music journalists get off on being snide about the same old easy-to-slate bands. When something like this album arrives in my review schedule, my instinct is to seek the good, to stick two fingers up to my... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Floating CloudsTuesday, 10 September 2024
Once regarded as highly as Kurosawa and Ozu, Japanese director Mikio Naruse’s star has fallen in recent decades, with few of his films readily available in the West. I’d suggest reading Hayley Scanlon’s concise introduction to Naruse’s work on the... Read more... |
Shifters, Duke of York's Theatre review - star-crossed lovers shine in intelligent rom-comFriday, 23 August 2024
Pete Waterman, responsible (some might prefer the word guilty) for more than 100 Top 40 hits, said that a pop song is the hardest thing to write. Boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl back – all wrapped up in three minutes. Benedict Lombe’s... Read more... |
Fiddler on the Roof, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - dazzling gem of a production marks its diamond anniversaryThursday, 08 August 2024
If I were a rich man, I'd be inclined to put together a touring production of Fiddler on the Roof and send it around the world, a week here, a week there, to educate and entertain. But, like Tevye, I also have to sell a little milk to put... Read more... |
Tristan und Isolde, Glyndebourne review - infinite love at white heatSaturday, 03 August 2024
Richard Strauss described conducting Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde for the first time as "the most wonderful day of my life". It’s understandable that Glyndebourne’s music director Robin Ticciati should wish to improve upon “wonderful” in conducting a... Read more... |
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