Reviews
David Nice
Vaudeville is alive and well in the silvered Lilliputian cave which might have been made for it (not that Victorian Savoyards could have had any inkling). If you find yourself, like last night’s showbiz audience, beguiled to cheering point by the shreds-and-patches routines put together by the ultimate theatrical whirlwind, Mamma Rose, that’s because everything in this London transfer from the Chichester Festival Theatre, parody included, is solid gold. Heck, I’d even have paid to hear the first trumpet in the fabulous wind-and-brass orchestra tune up.Then, of course, there’s Imelda Staunton Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Retrospectives are difficult in dance, and for Pina Bausch's brand of Tanztheater, even more difficult. A great deal of her oeuvre's impact derives from the special atmosphere of her Wuppertal company, whose dancers were devoted to her and to each other, in many cases staying for their whole careers. After Bausch died in 2009, the first thought was that the company would have to wind down too, but after the great, supposedly final, tour of 2012, minds changed and now Tanztheater Wuppertal is back at Sadler's for the third time in as many years, this time with two pieces never before performed Read more ...
fisun.guner
Put your hand up if you were in the audience last night, or indeed on any of the nights of this ambitious On Stage Together tour, and came only to see one man, and that man was Paul Simon. I’m sure you won’t need much nudging. After all, after almost six decades in the business, Simon’s star may have dipped – and endured the political controversy of the Graceland years – but has never faded. Sting’s meanwhile, certainly has. It seems that breaking a UN cultural boycott is less of a crime than being the butt of tantric sex jokes.But Simon doesn’t need to be cool to be loved. He’s got the songs Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Who says satire is dead? After this, I would imagine just about everybody. According to Jon Culshaw, one of the prime movers in ITV's new puppet-CGI farrago Newzoids [*], this isn't just Spitting Image revisited because "the puppets have got more of a spikiness, more of an edgy exaggeration to them." You think? One other difference he forgot to mention was that Spitting Image was often really rather good.Where did it all go wrong? Of course, Spitting Image profited hugely from being the product of the Thatcher era, when the political battle lines were starkly drawn and the Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
You might think you know what you’re in for with a play by Anders Lustgarten, winner of the inaugural Harold Pinter Playwright’s Award and current go-to political activist for the Royal Court and the National. Listed alongside the plays on his CV is the boast that he’s been “arrested in four continents”.But if Lampedusa was merely an angry rant, you’d switch off before it had run its course, short as it is at 65 minutes. It’s hard enough being eyeballed by the two actors, each of whom starts out sitting inconspicuously among the audience on benches in the round, and subsequently monologues us Read more ...
ellin.stein
We’ve waited 33 years since Peter Greenway’s The Draughtsman’s Contract for another film combining romance, intrigue and 17th century landscape gardening. Now we have one, and it couldn’t be more different.Where The Draughtsman’s Contract was an arch intellectual puzzle and social satire, A Little Chaos, Alan Rickman’s second directorial outing, is a more conventional costume drama, charting the slowly blossoming attraction between two emotionally bruised landscape gardeners.iLke many films with an actor in the director’s chair, it punches above its weight in terms of its cast and, with one Read more ...
mark.kidel
Andrew Hilton’s immensely enjoyable Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory production of the Sheridan classic opens with a display of hilarious brio from Byron Mondahl, who steps into the intimate arena of this South Bristol venue, only half in character as he has yet to don his powdered wig, to deliver a quick fire introduction on the joys of gossip. He is wearing salmon pink brocade and breeches and suddenly whips out a red mobile to catch up with the latest tweets, shooting a selfie of himself in front of the audience. This stunning and energising piece of anachronistic warm-up sets the Read more ...
Marianka Swain
Hollywood has never met a cliché it didn’t love; unfortunately, neither has Dylan Costello. His peek behind the curtain of Tinseltown’s Golden Age employs every stock type imaginable, from the boorish, chain-smoking manager to a pill-popping Marilyn-lite. It’s a play with admirable aims, but desperately in need of a good script doctor.Playing the part of fresh-off-the-bus ingénue is British thesp Patrick Glass (David R. Butler), getting his big break in 1949 when – you guessed it – the movie’s lead actor is forced to withdraw. Not the victim of All About Eve scheming or a good shove down the Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Diana Vishneva's last solo show was called Beauty in Motion, a pretty safe bet under the Trade Descriptions Act, since the Mariinsky prima ballerina and ABT guest star is unfailingly, remarkably beautiful. The new one, which came to the Coliseum last night 18 months after its première in California, rejoices in the much more ambiguous title of On the Edge. On the edge of what? Nervous breakdown? Retirement? Being less than beautiful? Having seen the show, I'm no more enlightened. Switch, by Jean-Christophe Maillot, Director of Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, is an odd beast, a psychological Read more ...
aleks.sierz
The Royal Court has had a makeover. Recently, the walls have had a fresh coat of paint and huge messages have appeared on them: the front doors now say, “Come In”. (Oh, thanks for telling me...) Inside, there are so many arrows pointing you to the stalls, circle and bar that sometimes it seems like these places are harder than ever to find. In the foyer, you can read a wall message about the need for fundraising, facts about how big audiences were last year, and how many watched a show in school (a measly 2500). The theatre fabric is now the marketing department’s dream, but what about the Read more ...
Sarah Kent
In 1967 when she produced Syncopated Rhythm (main picture), Sonia Delaunay was 82; far from any decline in energy or ambition, the abstract painting shows her in a relaxed and playful mood. Known as The Black Snake for the sinuous black and white curves dominating the left hand side, this huge, two and a half metre wide canvas is deliciously varied. The arcs of rich colour so familiar in Delaunay’s work are joined by triangles, squares and rectangles articulated with vigorous cross-hatching, see-through washes and solid blocks of pigment in a gorgeous array of vibrant hues. This Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Normally comedy critics tell people not to sit in the front row, lest they're picked on by a particularly boorish comic. No such problem for audiences at James Freedman's interesting and unusual show about the art of pickpocketing and more modern crimes; nobody is safe from being volunteered and, in the evening's memorable finale, the subject wasn't actually in the audience when one of Freedman's tricks made him the star of the show.Freedman, whose hands are insured for a million pounds, is as adept at relieving people of their valuables as he is at delivering corny but interesting patter Read more ...