Reviews
Adam Sweeting
Ever since the first Planet of the Apes film in 1968, in which astronaut Charlton Heston landed on a futuristic Earth being run by super-evolved apes, the idea has become a sci-fi staple, breeding a string of sequels, spin-offs and TV series. Tim Burton remade the original flick in 2001, but despite enjoying commercial success, it was viewed with contempt by Apes cognoscenti.Better luck this time? Director Rupert Wyatt's new foray into simian mythology takes its cue from 1972's Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, in which monkey mastermind Caesar led an ape rebellion against humankind, but Read more ...
David Nice
From 69 hours of King James Bible reading over Easter Week to this racy evening of adapted medieval pith as we head towards Assumption Day, the word they tell us is God moves in fluid if not necessarily mysterious ways around the Globe. “Mysteries” refers to the guilds that put on these popular street shows in the Middle Ages, real enough for the company of York Pinners, say, to supervise the nailing to the cross. It needs the forthright actors and everyday props of Deborah Bruce's alternately funny and quietly moving production, as well as the blood and sawdust you can taste in Tony Harrison Read more ...
Veronica Lee
After 12 years in the business, Dana Alexander, an ebullient and instantly likeable presence on stage, is still the only black woman on the Canadian comedy circuit. Not that her ethnicity is Alexander's pre-occupation – it most definitely isn't – but it does play a part in her act.New Arrival deals with being an outsider, primarily as a Canadian now living in London, but clearly also as someone who has had similar experiences in North America. As she says, she started out in Alberta – "the Texas of Canada" - and gets great mileage out of her extended Jamaican/American/British family. The Read more ...
stephen.walsh
“The text of Britain’s teaching, the message of the free…”. No, not the Last Night of the Proms or the Olympic Games ahead of time. This is the final chorus of Elgar’s concert-length cantata Caractacus, which was given a vigorous work-out in this star concert of the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester Cathedral under Sir Andrew Davis. And before you start jeering and bringing up the problems on Britain’s streets, let me tell you that the choruses in this work are as brilliant as any in the language, and quite thrilling enough to persuade you that the message, however facile and inopportune, Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
One thing became clearer to me last night – just how much Steve Reich has borrowed from world music in his compositions – we had the flamenco-tinged Clapping, Electric Counterpoint, using Central African guitar lines, and Music for 18 Musicians, a mix of West African rhythms, Indonesian gamelan and other elements. It was also clear how much a sold-out late-night Prom audience had taken this music to their hearts, nearly 40 years after some of it was written. It still sounds fresh and, rather than being mindlessly repetitive, most of it shimmers away. Like an endless. Like an endless Read more ...
josh.spero
Your typical consumer of Who Do You Think You Are? on BBC One would almost certainly have been disappointed by last night's first instalment of the eighth series. There were no tears from June Brown, EastEnders' Dot Cotton, for a start. That is as it should be: what we got was a model of keen yet detached historical research, nothing from which Brown was going to take life-changing lessons, which is how facile this series can be.This programme was intriguing first off because it was not looking at even vaguely recent history; Brown started with her (forgive me if I get this wrong) great-great Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Imagine that Tim Burton, or some other great modern-day storyteller of your choice, knocks at your door and asks if he can come into your living room for an hour to tell some fantastical stories. You would get some beers in and friends around pronto, right? Well, the Lounge Room Confabulators, a duo from Australia who tell stories in the Burton style of weird and dark, do just that – turn up on your doorstep and then perform in your front room, your garden or your office, wherever you have space for 10 or more people.It starts with a rug called Keith, who is due respect, for he provides the Read more ...
aleks.sierz
The talented Mr Jude Law is back on stage in what must be the hottest ticket in the West End. Although not everyone warmed to his 2009 Hamlet, the mere presence in central London of one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars is enough to bring a touch of sunshine to a wintry summer. My main anxiety was that, as a reaction to the riots sweeping the capital, the Government would call a curfew and close the show, which was due to open last night. I needn’t have worried. It opened on schedule.And Law doesn’t disappoint. He has a real talent to surprise: here, he inhabits the bearded, brawny body of Read more ...
judith.flanders
It is claimed that the philosopher GE Moore had a fantasy. After many years’ work, Tolstoy had finally finished War and Peace. Sonya had copied it out for the umpteenth time. The thing goes off to the printer. Peace reigns. And then, in the middle of the night, Tolstoy leaps out of bed, shrieking, “I forgot to put in a yacht race!”Well, that was War and Peace. Alexei Ratmansky hasn’t tried to distil that monster into ballet, but has instead gone for the (relatively) brief Anna Karenina. But by God, he’s got the yacht race in all the same – or, at least, a horse race.Indeed, the Read more ...
Matt Wolf
"Drop that long face," we're urged during the end of the giddy Regent's Park revival of Crazy For You, and if ever there were a time for such sentiments, it came during the lockdown that London remained under during the all too aptly cloud-filled evening that saw the Open Air Theatre not quite full. Nor was it lost on many spectators that the glorious George and Ira Gershwin score was giddily filling a night air punctuated at regular intervals by the distant (or maybe not) sound of sirens.But Timothy Sheader's production exerts its own siren song that functions as an escapist tonic Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Obviously, minds are on more important, more urgent matters and this is a tiny facet of the effect of what is going on. Was looking forward to this tonight, and was going to review it. But it - like no doubt other shows and events of all types around the country – has been cancelled. The label’s statement: “We are really sorry to say that due to the insane and unique events this evening we’re pulling the Neon Indian show. Really sorry. Stay in and stay safe.” See here for Joe’s eloquence. Check before you go anywhere tonight. And stay safe.
Veronica Lee
Margaret Cho, Assembly **** Margaret Cho is back, and how. Ten years away from the Fringe, the American-Korean bisexual - “I'm just greedy, I guess” - is a little softer around the edges maybe, but still as funny. With her lefty humour, punctuated by lots of adult content, she is waspish, but definitely not Waspish.Margaret Cho is back, and how. Ten years away from the Fringe, the American-Korean bisexual - “I'm just greedy, I guess” - is a little softer around the edges maybe, but still as funny. With her lefty humour, punctuated by lots of adult content, she is waspish, but definitely Read more ...