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Matt Wolf
Saturday, 23 March 2019
London's impromptu mini-season devoted to the work of Athol Fugard picks up real steam with Blood Knot, Matthew Xia's transfixing take on one of the benchmark titles of the...
Bernard Hughes
Saturday, 23 March 2019
London performances of Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto for Choir are like Meaningful Votes: you wait a long time for one, then they come in clusters. After last night’s Vasari Singers...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 23 March 2019
Martinů: The Complete Music for Violin and Orchestra Bohuslav Matoušek (violin), Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/Christopher Hogwood (Hyperion)You can't overdose on Martinů:...
Thomas H Green
Saturday, 23 March 2019
Edwyn Collins is in a good mood. Perhaps it’s his 2014 move back to his native Scotland where he now lives and records on the wild north-eastern coast. Perhaps it was finding a...
David Nice
Friday, 22 March 2019
When "Maestro" Riccardo Muti left the Royal Opera's previous production of Verdi's fate-laden epic, disgusted by minor changes to fit the scenery on the Covent Garden stage, no-...
Markie Robson-Scott
Friday, 22 March 2019
NYC, 1987. AIDS is ravaging the city, Reagan’s in power, Trump is in his tower. The American dream is available - to some. And for some of those to whom it’s not, there’s the...
Owen Richards
Friday, 22 March 2019
Where would you go for a devastating study on the human condition? The home movies of teenage skaters would be very low down...
Aleks Sierz
Friday, 22 March 2019
Emilia Bassano Lanier is not a household name. But maybe she should be. Born in 1569, she was one of the first women in...
Saskia Baron
Friday, 22 March 2019
For admirers of Henri-Georges Clouzot or Brigitte Bardot, this Criterion restoration of their rarely seen 1960 collaboration...
Matt Wolf
Thursday, 21 March 2019
"Some monsters are real," notes a retribution-minded wife (Matilda Ziegler) early in Downstate, Bruce Norris's beautiful and...
Jasper Rees
Thursday, 21 March 2019
Local Hero, released in 1983, has been adapted into a musical, with a book by playwright David Greig and more songs from the...
Adam Sweeting
Thursday, 21 March 2019
Genius is as genius does, and Rudolf Nureyev made sure nobody was left in any doubt about the scale of either his talents or...
Sarah Kent
Thursday, 21 March 2019
Mike Nelson has turned the Duveen Galleries into a museum commemorating Britain’s industrial past (pictured below right)....
Jasper Rees
Thursday, 21 March 2019
In the 1970s, the Mancunian stand-up Colin Crompton had a famous routine about Morecambe. He characterised Morecambe as “a...
Guy Oddy
Thursday, 21 March 2019
While Oasis have so far resisted the temptation of the big pay-off that a Gallagher family reunion would ensure, plenty of...
Matt Wolf
Wednesday, 20 March 2019
David Hare knows a thing or two about sustaining an onstage face-off. Skylight and The Breath of Life consist tantalisingly...
Gavin Dixon
Wednesday, 20 March 2019
William Christie kicked off Passion season in London this year with a particularly sombre reading of the St John. The...
Adam Sweeting
Wednesday, 20 March 2019
Thing is, a lot of this unpleasantness could have been avoided if DI Jimmy Perez had just watched the second series of The...
Laura De Lisle
Wednesday, 20 March 2019
It's an ideal time to revive James Phillips's debut The Rubenstein Kiss. Since it won the John Whiting Award for new writing...
disc of the day
CD: Edwyn Collins - Badbea
The Orange Juice frontman ebulliently and effectively mines the sounds of his past
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tv
Pose, BBC Two review - transgender goes mainstream
And the category is: master of gloss Ryan Murphy brings on the world of 1980s drag balls
The Bay, ITV, review - Broadchurch goes north
Morven Christie plays a detective with a naughty secret in a Morecambe murder case
Shetland, Series 5 Finale, BBC One review - Sicario-on-Sea?
Unflappable Jimmy Perez solves murderous North Sea crime wave
film
Minding the Gap review – profound musings on life
Don’t be deceived, this skateboarding documentary is a heartbreaking classic
DVD/Blu-Ray: La Vérité
Henri-Georges Clouzot's powerful 1960 courtroom drama attacks French bourgeois morality
new music
CD: Edwyn Collins - Badbea
The Orange Juice frontman ebulliently and effectively mines the sounds of his past
CD: Shy FX - Raggamuffin SoundTape
Staggeringly assured survey of decades of soundsystem culture in a tidy package
classical
Vasari Singers, Backhouse, St Bride’s Fleet Street review - rarely heard choral classic soars
Schnittke’s challenging Concerto for Choir given a committed reading
Classical CDs Weekly: Martinů, Prokofiev, Sullivan
20th century violin music, a Russian fairytale in a Scots makeover and an exhumed Victorian oratorio
Bach St John Passion, Les Arts Florissants, Christie, Barbican review – sombre but engaging
An atmospheric but unfocused reading, elevated by a fine Evangelist
opera
La forza del destino, Royal Opera review - generous voices, dramatic voids
Generalised star turns from Kaufmann and Netrebko defuse Pappano's musical drama
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Birmingham Opera Company review - searing music-theatre for all
Bloodied brides and rat-heads run amok in visceral ballroom Shostakovich
Idomeneo, English Touring Opera review – honest excellence
Strong singing and fuss-free direction do justice to Mozart's dark masterpiece
theatre
Blood Knot, Orange Tree Theatre review - defining apartheid-era drama delivers afresh
Athol Fugard's seminal 1961 play hasn't lost its potency
Emilia, Vaudeville Theatre review - shouting for change
Triumphant, if crude, West End transfer of a heartfelt account of a Renaissance woman
Downstate, National Theatre review - controversial but also clear-eyed and compassionate
Bruce Norris's ever-provocative play puts people first, labels second
dance
The Thread, Russell Maliphant & Vangelis, Sadler’s Wells review – an inspiring marriage of old and new
Divergent worlds made to co-exist with apparent ease
Bon Voyage, Bob, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Sadler's Wells review - interminable ennui
At three and a half wearisome hours, this feels like a marathon
The Rite of Spring/Gianni Schicchi, Opera North review - unlikely but musically satisfying pairing
Odd-couple double bill of Stravinsky and Puccini with plenty to delight ear and eye
comedy
Ed Gamble, The Stand review - amiable hour touching on personal issues
Opening show of 2019 Glasgow Comedy Festival
Sheeps, Soho Theatre review - sketch comedy with a touch of the surreal
Friendship, fake gurus and fun
gaming
The Lego Movie 2 Videogame review - everything is not awesome
Few fresh ideas means this movie adaptation treads the same old ground
Anthem review - singing praises? More like a cautious nod
A rocky start for a new franchise that offers potential and problems in equal measure
Crackdown 3 review - spectacular super-powered action that was great fun many years ago
Nearly a decade has passed since the last incarnation but little has changed in this stagnant shooter
visual arts
Mike Nelson, The Asset Strippers, Tate Britain review – exhilarating reminder of industrial might
A stirring elegy to Britain's industrial past
The Best Exhibitions in London
From the Turner Prize shortlist to the future of gaming: our guide to what to see in the city
An encounter with John Richardson, Picasso's biographer who has died at 95
Picasso's definitive biographer recalls the artist he knew
latest comments
The picture you have, showing the contents of the...
I think you missed an extra two stars there.
I want to go away thinking not JUST 'that was...
I think you are being far too "anti-star" in your...
Amazing headline and nicely summarized review!
Hello, very good review. Only one thing, the...
Just stumbled across the three Zen episodes and...
Many thanks; I have gone in and made those...