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Sebastian Scotney |
One completely joyous moment has eclipsed all my other impressions of this Glyndebourne Entführung revival. By the end of Act 1 of the opera, the character of Blonde has been…
Helen Hawkins |
At every turn in Matthew Bourne’s The Car Man, references to other stories pop up. There are the murderous sexual shenanigans of The Postman Always Rings Twice, a squad of Italian…
Nick Hasted |
Tom Holland is 30 now, and after a decade in the role his boyish Spider-Man muscularly comes of age in this fourth solo outing. A montage of street-level NYC crime-fighting sums…
Ellie Roberts |
The staggering musical talent of Citizen has become more and more apparent with each album they have released, and Halcyon Blues continues the trend.This album would in fact…
Kieron Tyler |
“She said her life was like a motorway… dull, grey, and long.” The lyrics of “Like a Motorway,” from Saint Etienne’s February 1994 album Tiger Bay see the titular highway…
Helen Hawkins |
What can you do with lots of big sheets of white paper, three rolls of Sellotape and a couple of torches? These are items from the “props incident room”, as he would call it, of…
Gary Naylor
Attending the tale of Sweeney Todd was my introduction to musical theatre. I was in my early 20s and a friend of mine had invited me to the summer show at Guildford School of…
Adam Sweeting
Is this the near-future? The premise of Ann Droid is that in place of our over-stretched social services, before long we may find ourselves being helped out around the home by…
Graham Rickson
Saxophobia: Celebrating the Sax Craze of the 1920s Chad Smith (alto and C-melody saxophones), Sinfonia of London/John Wilson (Chandos)
Image…
Kieron Tyler
The only break in the flow comes just before the last song, “Toppling.” There’s a need to tune the guitar, so what – until this point – is an uninterrupted, pell-mell rush through…
Guy Oddy
These days, Alfie Agnew is a Maths professor at California State University Fullerton. Back in the 1980s, however, he was singer and guitarist with US punks the Adolescents, as…
Helen Hawkins
It’s a sobering thought that had Marianela Nuñez joined the Paris Opéra Ballet at 16 instead of the Royal Ballet, she would have been compulsorily retired by now, thanks to the…
Aleks Sierz
Sarah Kane’s Cleansed is a love story whose heart has been torn open on barbed wire. Yes, that’s what it feels like. Sounds intense? Okay, welcome, you’re already in the zone. It’…
Florence Hallett
For the current edition of the Venice Biennale, the Bulgarian Pavilion serves as the headquarters of The Federation of Minor Practices, a shady, imaginary research organisation…
James Saynor
“Ish” is the name of the lead character in this movie, but it also might be a suffix attached to adjectives describing it. Here we have a sparkish piece full of smallish moments…
Thomas H. Green
Since the release of her last album, Eternal Sunshine, in 2024, Ariana Grande, already a multi-platform superstar, has exploded to even greater fame, via the Wicked film franchise…
Sarah Kent
Richard Dadd is best known as the mad Victorian painter incarcerated in mental hospitals for 42 years for killing his father; but this Royal Academy show reveals him to be a far…
johncarvill
The pre-publication scuttlebutt on this book suggested that not only would it be David Thomson’s last, but also that it marked a dramatic reversal in his attitude to the medium he…
Joe Muggs
You can’t really understand house music without grasping the influence of the Black American church. As it coalesced from the remnants of disco in Eighties Chicago, New York and…
disc of the day
A soaring fusion of atmospheric melancholy and energetic punk
tv
Diane Morgan and Sarah Kendall's comedy is full of heart and soul
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time...
film
Spider-Man matures in a sporadically moving return
Life is sweet and sour in a closely observed film about Luton youth
new music
A soaring fusion of atmospheric melancholy and energetic punk
A hymn to when driving was an end in itself
A breathless half-hour takes in screaming, stop-start song structures and the odd hint of reflectiveness
classical
Czech piano trios, English choral music and an influential wind soloist celebrated
Natural scenes with birdsong fill a varied programme
The bigger the chorus, the harder to catch the words of great poetry
opera
Architecture, balance and charm in the David McVicar production
Laurent Pelly's production proves you can have a great cast yet fail them as characters
A magnificent cast manages to master Gerald Barry's Wilde and act their crazy socks off
theatre
Phelim McDermott, with his magic piano, pays tribute to his friend Philip Glass
Magnificent cast bring fresh energy to show approaching 50 years of age
Disappointingly literal version of Sarah Kane’s classic account of love tested to extremes
dance
Matthew Bourne’s 2000 hit revs up again with impressive dancers and a witty score
Marianela Nuñez celebrates 28 years at the company
A test of stamina for the audience as well as the dancers
comedy
Comic looks back on his life and career
Comic revisits her alma mater to talk politics
books
David Thomson explores the dark side of cinema, but still offers a flicker of hope
Joyce lurks in the margins of his own biography in a detailed history of Irish politics
An enjoyable look at 'missingness' and how it affects the way we experience the world
visual arts
Four artist's films and a computer game speculate on societal collapse
A wild imagination outlined in miniature
Ritualistic performances and evocations of fertility goddesses
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