melodrama
ll Segreto di Susanna/Pagliacci, Opera Holland Park review - on with the motley, out with the fagsThursday, 18 July 2024
Could “Cav and Pag” give way to “Sue and Pag”? As a double-bill partner for Leoncavallo’s backstage shocker Pagliacci, Opera Holland Park have scheduled not the standard Cavalleria Rusticana but an entirely different one-act work. Premiered in... Read more... |
Rebecca, Charing Cross Theatre review - troubled show about a troubled house nonetheless divertsSaturday, 23 September 2023
There are times when it’s best to know as little as possible before taking one’s seat for a show – this new production of Rebecca would be a perfect such example.It was once talked up as the new Phantom, the next smash hit musical that would do on... Read more... |
A Streetcar Named Desire, Almeida Theatre review - Patsy Ferran rises above fussy stagingFriday, 13 January 2023
It’s a long way from the dank chill of an English winter to the stultifying heat of a New Orleans summer, but we’ve been here before at this venue. Five years on from their award-winning Summer And Smoke, Rebecca Frecknall is back in the director’s... Read more... |
A Christmas Carol, RSC, Stratford review - family show eases back the terror and winds up the politicsSaturday, 19 November 2022
Life is full of coincidences and contradictions. As I was walking to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was on his feet in the House of Commons delivering yet another rebalancing of individual and collective resources. On... Read more... |
Blu-ray/DVD: The Invisible Life of Eurídice GusmãoSunday, 27 March 2022
Karim Aïnouz’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner and Brazilian Oscar entry is advertised as “a tropical melodrama”, and its Rio seems barely to have left the jungle. We first meet sisters Eurídice (Carol Duarte) and Guida (Julia Stockler, pictured below)... Read more... |
A Christmas Carol, The Old Vic review - not quite a festive-season crackerFriday, 26 November 2021
Four years and a Broadway run on from its Old Vic debut, director Matthew Warchus and writer,Jack Thorne are still throwing everything they can at one of the most familiar stories, and characters, in English literature. That may be to address the... Read more... |
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Charing Cross Theatre review - Tony-winning play checks out ChekhovWednesday, 17 November 2021
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike has taken eight years to reach the London stage, which is surprisingly long for the Tony Award winner for Best Play of 2013: the pandemic, unsurprisingly, didn't help. But in a burst of somewhat un-Chekhovian... Read more... |
The Best Films Out NowMonday, 05 October 2020
There are films to meet every taste in theartsdesk's guide to the best movies currently on release. In our considered opinion, any of the titles below is well worth your attention.Enola Holmes ★★★★ Millie Bobby Brown gives the patriarchy what-for in... Read more... |
Nocturnal review - an impossible loveFriday, 18 September 2020
The most painterly and ominous sequence in Nocturnal naturally occurs at night. Until recently strangers, 33-year-old Pete (Cosmo Jarvis) and 17-year-old Laurie (Lauren Coe) gaze across a body of seawater to a miniature chemistry set – a tract of... Read more... |
The Old Guard review - serious sillinessThursday, 09 July 2020
It’s hard to take The Old Guard seriously — it’s an action film about thousand-year-old immortal warriors. Pulpy flashbacks and fake blood abounds. But The Old Guard doesn’t need to be serious or even memorable: it’s a fun, feel-good film, a rare... Read more... |
Guest of Honour review – the grip of guiltFriday, 05 June 2020
A master at bringing neurotics to bilious life on screen, David Thewlis shines as a peevish, corrupt health inspector in Guest of Honour. There’s a perverse pleasure to be had in watching his character, health inspector Jim, a British expat in... Read more... |
After the Wedding review - a high-tension gut punchFriday, 01 November 2019
How long can one decision follow you? How long can you hide from it? This is what underpins After the Wedding, a remake of Susanne Bier’s Efter brylluppet. It’s a drama shaped like a thriller, driven by emotion rather than intrigue. We’re introduced... Read more... |
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