Reviews
Owen Richards
A Woman’s Life first premiered at the 2016 Venice International Film Festival, alongside the likes of La La Land, Arrival and Jackie. Though it’s taken longer to get to our shores than its contemporaries, the film feels fresh and relevant. This immensely personal character study is at times dense, but subtly effective.Jeanne is the pleasant and idealistic daughter of Baron Perthuis de Vauds. She lives with her father and mother at a serene chateau in 19th century Normandy, passing the days gardening, drawing and playing games. She is introduced to the newly arrived Viscount Julien, and love Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Accepted wisdom seemed to be that in the animal world rats and cockroaches were the most adaptable and the most widely geographically distributed, followed by those pesky humans. But think again: the premise in this new three-part series is that the big cats have also done a terrific job of spreading worldwide, each a different species within the genus.Cue a ravishing film, jammed with marvellous images and fascinating information. We were treated to a terrific variety of these extraordinary predators, the top of the food chain: from the fastest to the strongest, the smallest to the biggest. Read more ...
Katie Colombus
For their eighth debut at the Royal Albert Hall, mesmerising French-Canadian performance art company Cirque du Soleil takes the audience on a journey into the world underfoot.As if minfied to the size of Wayne Szalinski's children in the 1989 film Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, we see what goes on underneath the canopy of grass. The fantastical creatures here inhabiting the earth's plant life include cutesy, choreographed red ants, foot-juggling slices of kiwi fruit and corn cobs; electric-blue lizards contorting and flexing; butterflies emerging from a chrysalis and soaring on aerial bungees; Read more ...
Jasper Rees
“I’m black – I need to find out how black people live.” So reasoned Kiri, sitting in the back seat of the car driven by her social services case worker. She was on the way from her prospective adopters, a white middle-class couple who already had a teenage son, to pay a first unsupervised visit to her Nigerian-born grandparents. Kiri (Felicia Mukasa, pictured below) was mature beyond her years, open-minded and well-spoken, while her case worker Miriam (Sarah Lancashire) brimmed with mumsy good cheer and sensible advice. The mood was Pollyannishly optimistic – the only dark cloud was the Read more ...
David Nice
The power of music solves every problem, at least when as bewitchingly performed as it was here. With the great mezzo Christine Rice voiceless for at least a night, and rising star Caitlin Hulcup singing for her from the midst of the instruments in the pit right at the centre of the Roundhouse, how could faithful Penelope's final acceptance of her long-lost husband Ulysses (Roderick Williams) achieve transcendence? Yet it was moving to tears, thanks to the exquisite sensitivities of three very special performers and Christian Curnyn's Early Opera Company. Not even a scattergun production's Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
The unifying theme of this new Coliseum double bill is death, but don’t let that put you off. Kenneth MacMillan’s Song of the Earth and August Bournonville’s La Sylphide may seem like odd bedfellows, but both are a great deal more uplifting than their plot summaries might suggest, and in the hands of English National Ballet the evening is joyous, even life-affirming.MacMillan’s Song of the Earth was acquired by the company for its part in the national MacMillan anniversary celebrations last October, and they look at home in it already. Song’s combination of sincerity and levity is a natural Read more ...
Nick Hasted
The Great Man theory of history is applied by Darkest Hour director Joe Wright to his star Gary Oldman as much as their subject Winston Churchill. Oldman’s performance is the sole, sufficient reason to see a film in which little else finally lingers. Kajuhiro Tsuji’s prosthetics allow his physical transformation into a jowly 65-year-old. Oldman’s vocal rhythm and tone then let the icon breathe. He is hesitant, breathless, uncertain. More than mercurial, his volcanic passion boils over in panicked rushes.“Which self shall I be today?” Anthony McCarten’s script has Churchill say. “My emotions Read more ...
Matt Wolf
That ages-old dictum "write what you know" has given rise to the intriguingly titled My Mum's a Twat, in which the Royal Court's delightful head of press, Anoushka Warden, here turns first-time playwright, much as the Hampstead Theatre's then-press rep, Charlotte Eilenberg, did back in 2002. While some may cry nepotistic foul at a theatre insider grabbing such a coveted perch, Warden has as much a right as anyone to tell a story that in this instance finds an ideally sparky interpreter in the protean Patsy Ferran. Astonishingly, Ferran is delivering the 80-minute monologue twice nightly Read more ...
Helen Wallace
Joseph Houston’s recital gave us the piano exposed, sent up, psychoanalysed; in short, piano as theatre. And whether silently depressing keys or creating chords with an elbow, the young Berlin-based pianist brought formidable focus and unshowy mastery.He also revealed a rare talent for curation, creating a narrative that began with a walk around the piano and ended with Christian Mason’s numinous Remembered Resonance, grappling in between with that "curved, tensed, gridded institution of an instrument", in the words of composer Louis d’Heudieres. Houston gave tremendous direction and Read more ...
Jasper Rees
It probably won’t take long for the title to be sawn in half. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri will become casually known as Three Billboards and its specific location will drift into a vaguely remembered background. The place name is of a piece with Martin McDonagh’s previous visits to half-mythical places: Inishmore, Inishmaan, Leenane. Ebbing is everywhere and nowhere, a no-account small town in the faceless epicentre of the Midwest where a teenage girl can be raped and murdered and nothing much will be done about it.The eponymous billboards are stationed on the quiet country road Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
David McVicar may seem too gentle a soul for the lurid drama of Strauss's Salome, but his production, here returning to Covent Garden for a third revival, packs a punch. He gives us plenty of sex and violence – or at least nudity and blood – but finds the real drama in the personal interactions, the increasingly dysfunctional relationships that eventually doom all involved. That drama is well served by this revival cast, making for some engaging stagecraft. The musical standards are more mixed, however, with only one truly world-class performance, and from a character who loses his head far Read more ...
David Nice
Twelfth Night, Epiphany, call it what you will, is one reminder that there's continuity after the turn of the year. Another was Sakari Oramo's final Sibelius-plus concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra - a predictable triumph given that the previous four were all highlights of 2017, capping, at least for me, the "Rattle Returns" experience. Though an "in the beginning" myth was part of the programme, it seemed odd to start with the end, the miraculous one-movement Seventh Symphony. Still, C major marks a good way to kick off at the Barbican in January.That said, the symphony is rare, if not Read more ...