thu 31/07/2025

Reviews

The Lighthouse, English Touring Opera

Confinement is a thread running through English Touring Opera’s autumn season. In Albert Herring it is in the priggish village; in The Emperor of Atlantis it is in the circumstances of its creation within the Terezín concentration camp; in The...

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LFF 2012: Dead Europe

The title couldn’t be more resonant, as the economic crisis makes the one-time First World visibly slip another notch. But in Tony Krawitz’s adaptation of Christos Tsolkias’s novel, the meaning is also literal: this is a bloody continent of unquiet...

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All That Fall, Jermyn Street Theatre

Samuel Beckett recalled sinking into a "whirl of depression" while writing All That Fall. Audiences at this production - those, that is, who have managed to score a ticket for this short, sold-out run - are unlikely to emerge into Jermyn Street in a...

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Michael Mittermeier, Soho Theatre

There must be something on the air; a few foreign comics (including Edinburgh Comedy Awards newcomer winner Daniel Simonsen) were performing in English at this year's Edinburgh Fringe and now one of them, Germany's Michael Mittermeier, has brought...

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Ruby Sparks

From the makers of Little Miss Sunshine comes a funny, ethereal love story in the same vein as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Sunshine’s not all they have in common.Calvin Weir-Fields (smash the surname and you get Weirds) is a bestselling...

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Desire Under the Elms, Lyric Hammersmith

Pity the A-level English student: for them the “rarely seen masterpieces” that creep onto the curriculum and into the theatres. Judging from the frequently giggling reaction of the audience last night of around 100 17- and 18-year-olds, Eugene O’...

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LFF 2012: Underground

As Julian Assange continues to hold the world’s authorities at bay behind embassy doors, this new biopic offers Young Assange: a Melbourne teenager among the first generation of computer hackers, who cracked the Pentagon’s code on the Gulf War’s eve...

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XCOM: Enemy Unknown

In the event of an alien invasion it really is important to learn to prioritise. And to juggle. In XCOM: Enemy Unknown you are plunged into the middle of just such an invasion. As the commander of an elite anti-alien unit you are responsible for the...

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LFF 2012: Normal School

Argentine Celina Murga’s two feature films to date, Ana and the Others and A Week Alone, mark her out as one of the most original voices in a country chock full of talent.  Those films are concerned with individuals – respectively, a young...

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Swan Lake, Royal Ballet

The Royal Ballet’s autumn season began on Monday, but this was the eagerly awaited Swan Lake. Natalia Osipova, ex-Bolshoi, now principal with American Ballet Theater and the Mikhailovsky in St Petersburg, was making her debut as a guest with the...

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William Klein + Daido Moriyama, Tate Modern

William Klein’s exhibition opens with Broadway by Light (1958), a celluloid elegy to advertising made in the days before neon. Myriad bulbs flash the names of brands like Coca Cola, Camel, Budweiser and Pepsi across New York’s night sky. Silhouetted...

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DCI Banks, Series 2, ITV1

Charm, politeness and glittering repartee are clearly not considered important qualities for the Yorkshire-based policepersons who work alongside DCI Banks. TV coppers are rarely a barrel of laughs but for this bunch, spitting, snarling and glaring...

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