Reviews
Four Mothers review - one gay man deals with three extra mothersFriday, 04 April 2025
An Irish adaptation of Garcia Di Gregorio’s acclaimed 2008 film Mid-August Lunch, director Darren Thornton’s Four Mothers is the story of Edward (James McArdle) and his 81-year-old mother Alma (the excellent Fionnula Flanagan), who has had a stroke... Read more... |
The Importance of Being Oscar, Jermyn Street Theatre review - Wilde, still burning brightThursday, 03 April 2025
It’s a greater accolade than a Nobel Prize for Literature – one’s very own adjective. There’s a select few: Shakespearean; Dickensian and Pinteresque. Add to that list, Wildean. That’s all the more remarkable in the light of Oscar Wilde’s... Read more... |
Stiletto, Charing Cross Theatre review - new musical excessWednesday, 02 April 2025
That friend you have who hates musicals – probably male, probably straight, probably not seen one since The Sound of Music on BBC 1 after the Queen’s Speech in 1978 – well, don’t send them to Charing Cross Theatre for this show. But that other... Read more... |
Misericordia review - mushroom-gathering and murder in rural FranceWednesday, 02 April 2025
“Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.” The Aesop-ian maxim roughly applies to Jérémie Pastor (Félix Kysyl) in Alain Guiraudie's Misericordia. Though unemployed Toulouse baker Jérémie doesn’t acquire the business that was run by his... Read more... |
Owen Wingrave, RNCM, Manchester review - battle of a pacifistWednesday, 02 April 2025
It’s quite ironic that the Royal Northern College of Music should have invited, as director of this, Britten’s avowedly pacifist opera, Orpha Phelan – whose version of his Billy Budd for Opera North nearly 10 years ago contained one of the most... Read more... |
Apex Predator, Hampstead Theatre review - poor writing turns horror into sillinessWednesday, 02 April 2025
Motherhood is a high stress job. Ask any woman and they will tell you the same: sleepless nights, feeding problems and worry. Lots of worry. Lots and lots. Writer John Donnelly, who has also experienced the stresses of parenthood, devotes his new... Read more... |
Balanchine: Three Signature Works, Royal Ballet review - exuberant, joyful, exhilaratingTuesday, 01 April 2025
Is the Royal Ballet a “Balanchine company”? The question was posed at a recent Insight evening to Patricia Neary, the tireless dancer who has helped keep the choreographer’s legacy intact since his death in 1983 and a living link with his teaching.... Read more... |
Howard Amos: Russia Starts Here review - East meets West, via the Pskov regionTuesday, 01 April 2025
Russia Starts Here: Real Lives in the Ruin of Empire, the journalist Howard Amos’ first book, is a prescient and fascinating examination of the borderlands of a bellicose nation. Focusing on the Pskov region, which juts out into eastern Europe, his... Read more... |
A Working Man - Jason Statham deconstructs villains againMonday, 31 March 2025
The typical Jason Statham movie character – muscular, resourceful, drily humorous – could probably carve an army into mincemeat using a few odds and ends nicked from the local Hobbycraft. In A Working Man, Statham’s second collaboration with writer-... Read more... |
Connolly, BBC Philharmonic, Paterson, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - a journey through French splendoursMonday, 31 March 2025
The BBC Philharmonic took its Saturday night audience on a journey into French sonic luxuriance – in reverse order of historical formation, beginning with Duruflé, continuing with Chausson and ending with Saint-Saëns. It was conducted by Geoffrey... Read more... |
This City is Ours, BBC One review - civil war rocks family cocaine racketMonday, 31 March 2025
The dramatic allure of families neck-deep in organised crime never seems to falter, and Stephen Butchard’s new series continues that great tradition in rambunctious style. Sean Bean (pictured below) plays Ronnie Phelan, paterfamilias of a Liverpool... Read more... |
Album: Erlend Apneseth - Song Over StøvMonday, 31 March 2025
A pizzicato violin opens Song Over Støv. Gradually, other instruments arrive: bowed violin, a fluttering flute, pattering percussion, an ominous double bass. They merge. The climax is furious, intensely rhythmic. Suddenly, it is over.“Straumen frobi... Read more... |
