politics
Just For One Day, The Old Vic review - clunky scenes and self-conscious exposition between great songsThursday, 15 February 2024
So, a jukebox musical celebrating the apotheosis of the White Saviour, the ultimate carnival of rock stars’ self-aggrandisement and the Boomers’ biggest bonanza of feelgood posturing? One is tempted to stand opposite The Old Vic, point at the... Read more... |
Barbara Kruger, Serpentine Gallery review - clever, funny and chilling installationsMonday, 05 February 2024
American artist Barbara Kruger started out as a graphic designer working in advertising, and it shows. Her sharp design skills and acute visual intelligence now produce funny, clever and thought provoking installations in which words and pictures... Read more... |
The Most Precious of Goods, Marylebone Theatre review - old-fashioned storytelling of an all-too relevant taleTuesday, 30 January 2024
As last week’s news evidenced, genocide never really goes out of fashion. So it’s only right and proper that art continues to address the hideous concept and, while nothing, not even Primo Levi’s shattering If This Is a Man, can capture the scale of... Read more... |
Album: Gruff Rhys - Sadness Sets Me FreeWednesday, 24 January 2024
Halfway through this album, “They Sold My Home to Build a Skyscraper” unlocks it. On first listen I’d been nodding along with the first few songs, enjoying how they find glimmers of more or less forlorn hope in amongst sadness and middle-aged... Read more... |
Kin, National Theatre review - heartfelt show makes its demands, but yields its rewardsWednesday, 17 January 2024
Waiting in the National Theatre’s foyer on press night, a space teeming with people speaking different languages, boasting different heritages – London in other words – news came through that leading members of the government had resigned because... Read more... |
The Good John Proctor, Jermyn Street Theatre review - Salem-set drama loses some of its power in LondonSaturday, 13 January 2024
It is no surprise that the phrase “Witch Hunt” is Donald Trump’s favoured term to describe his legal travails. Leaving aside its connotations of a malevolent state going after an innocent victim whilst in the throes of a self-serving moral panic, it... Read more... |
1979, Finborough Theatre review - niche subject matter finds a strong resonanceSaturday, 06 January 2024
If a week is a long time in politics, what price 44 years? And 3500 miles? Turns out, not much, as Michael Healey’s sparkling play, 1979, proves that events all that time ago and all that way across the Atlantic maintain a remarkable relevance today... Read more... |
A Woman Walks into a Bank, Theatre 503 review - prize-winning play delivers on its promiseThursday, 14 December 2023
We’re in Moscow (we hear that quite a lot) where an ageing woman on a rare trip out of her apartment block catches sight of an advert in a bank’s window. She is soon inside and subjected to a sales pitch by a keen young bank "manager", torn between... Read more... |
Pandemonium, Soho Theatre review - satire needs a shot of Pfizer's finest to revive tired storylinesWednesday, 13 December 2023
In 2020, throughout the country, many people’s lives were affected adversely by an ever-present threat to our already fragile society. Though most got over it, many people still bear the cost every day, sapping them of energy, making them cough and... Read more... |
Vigil, Series 2, BBC One review - DCI Silva swaps a submarine for deadly dronesTuesday, 12 December 2023
In its first series in 2021, Vigil delivered a claustrophobic though frequently absurd tale of murder and Russian spies aboard a British nuclear submarine. This time around it’s the RAF under the spotlight, though its name has mysteriously been... Read more... |
Talking About the Fire, Royal Court review - urgent and informativeSunday, 10 December 2023
Let’s start with what we know: the climate emergency is the single most burning question facing the planet. Our life on earth depends on tackling it. Right? Well, maybe not, argues theatre-maker Chris Thorpe in his new one-man show, Talking About... Read more... |
£1 Thursdays, Finborough Theatre review - dazzling new play is as funny and smart as its two heroinesMonday, 04 December 2023
It’s 2012 and the London Olympics might as well be happening on the Moon for Jen and Stacey. In fact, you could say the same for everyone else scrabbling a living in Bradford – or anywhere north of Watford – and we know what those left-behind places... Read more... |
