reviews

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La Traviata / The Merry Widow, Buxton International Festival review - on the popular road

Robert Beale |

Buxton International Festival, long known for its explorations of some of the less well-known parts of the opera repertoire, this year features two of the best-loved, alongside its other fare.

Music Reissues Weekly: Armagideon Time - When Punk Met Dub (1978-1984)

Kieron Tyler
Reviewing The Clash’s 27 October 1976 appearance at Birmingham’s Barbarella’s, UK music weekly Sounds detected a particular, unique, characteristic…

Lear, Pitlochry Festival Theatre review - mad queen reminds us of the 'No Kings' man

Gary Naylor
“Trump Arrangement Syndrome”, my propensity to see the world refracted through the lens of the omnipresent ogre’s cult, raised its head again. In…

Rosebush Pruning review - lurid journey into the dark heart of family dysfunction

Helen Hawkins
The regular scriptwriter for Yorgos Lanthimos’s films, Efthimis Filippou, has worked with another director, Karim Aïnouz, on Rosebush Pruning. It’s a…

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Bonfire Radicals, Hare & Hounds, Birmingham review - a new chapter for the untraditional folkies

Guy Oddy
A new album is unveiled and old tunes are played for the last time

Songs of the Bulbul, Sadler's Wells East review - beautiful melding of kathak moves and Sufism

Helen Hawkins
Aakash Odedra is superb as a tortured creature seeking freedom and transcendence

Jesus Christ Superstar, London Palladium review - febrile classic captures the burning energy of the original

Rachel Halliburton
Eurovision star Sam Ryder is made for the title role, while Drew McOnie’s choreography makes us feel the delirium

Though beautifully crafted, US-based Australian duo Luluc's 'Sweet Thief' is intrinsically aloof

Kieron Tyler
The sound of detachment

Ai Weiwei: Button Up, Aviva Studios, Manchester review - apocalypse now and also then

Sarah Kent
Darkness reigns in powerful but competing installations

Ania Magliano, Touring review - SNL UK star back on the road

Veronica Lee
Dolls, heroes and changing therapists

The Invite review - who’s afraid of the couple having noisy sex upstairs?

Helen Hawkins
Olivia Wilde's snappy comedy on the perennial subject of reviving a failing marriage

Music Reissues Weekly: Shop Around - The Smokey Robinson Songbook

Kieron Tyler
First-rate salute to a creative colossus

O'Sullivan, Fantasia Orchestra, Fetherstonhaugh, Smith Square Hall review - the sassy airs of summer

David Nice
Latest in a line of great Irish mezzos shows her versatility, and the strings swoon

The Guilty, Donmar Warehouse review - spine-tingling and gut-tightening thriller

Aleks Sierz
Chloë Moss’s new drama is a nerve-fraying example of telephonic tension

Rolf Harris: Primetime Predator, Prime Video review - rise and fall of the 'beloved entertainer'

Adam Sweeting
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time...

Birds of War review - we found love in a hopeless, hopeful place

James Saynor
Kiss kiss, bang bang in a moving Middle East documentary

Sunn O))), O2 Institute, Birmingham review - the Gods of Thunder return

Guy Oddy
An eardrum damaging evening spent with Birmingham’s Sunn O))) worshippers

Zoe Rahman's 'Hull Suite Live' lands themes of migration in a good place

Sebastian Scotney
Trio with Gene Calderazzo and Alec Dankworth is a jewel of British jazz

Arcadia, Duke of York’s Theatre review - reaching for the stars

Demetrios Matheou
Carrie Cracknell’s splendid revival of Stoppard’s masterwork transfers with its magic intact

My Father's Island review - ambitious literary adaptation

Saskia Baron
David Vann's acclaimed novella transposed to the screen with mixed results

Springwood, Hampstead Theatre review - international politics revealed as a gentle comedy of manners

Rachel Halliburton
Transatlantic tensions are diffused through alcohol, sex, and the etiquette of hot dogs

How to Live on Earth review - a hopeful look at our collective future

Sarah Kent
The most important 'how-to video' you are ever likely to see

Tristan und Isolde, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - more impressive than profoundly moving

David Nice
Turbocharged orchestra, sometimes too much so, various approaches from the singers

Sinatra the Musical, Aldwych Theatre review - not exactly frank about Frank

Gary Naylor
Bad husband, bad dad, great singer

The Rolling Stones speak in 'Foreign Tongues'

Tim Cumming
The follow-up to comeback album 'Hackney Diamonds' is a raucous, joyful late-period classic

I puritani, Royal Opera - fine moments, tedious quarters of an hour

David Nice
Richard Jones tries hard with Bellini's vehicle for lyric madness; Lisette Oropesa dazzles

Lenny Henry, Touring review - family memories and familiar tales

Veronica Lee
Comic looks back on his life and career

Sting, Young Vic review - emotionally gruelling, but a bit bizarre

Aleks Sierz
New play about domestic abuse adopts a radical form that works - up to a point

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