Reviews
Helen Hawkins
The story of Edward Scissorhands may not seem an obvious Christmas subject, but it couldn’t be a more overt call for goodwill to all men. And there’s a hint of The Nutcracker about Matthew Bourne’s dance version, too.Created in 2005 and last seen in 2014, the piece is his Sadler’s Wells seasonal treat this year, and it’s more witty and beguiling than ever before, fine-tuned for today’s world, despite its age. The staple ingredients of the piece, adapted for New Adventures by Caroline Thompson from her screenplay for Tim Burton’s 1990 film, are the familiar ones: a sunny 1950s suburban Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
We think of the Wigmore Hall as a venue for intimate revelations, but in the right hands it can feel like a stadium. Last night’s all-Bach programme of festive music from the London Handel Players managed to embrace both moods.On a bill that began with three Advent or Christmas cantatas and finished with a Magnificat that sounded, well, magnificent, characterful solo parts for singers and instrumentalists combined with blazing ensemble climaxes that gave the impression of a stage populated by far more than five voices and 15 players. The outfit led by violinist-director Adrian Butterfield Read more ...
mark.kidel
To take a trip into the world of Issy Wood is to be embraced by paradox. A richness of imagery that can at time shock with its blandness and at others seduce with a sense of wonder; a perfectly accomplished surface that reveals, with familiarity, a labyrinth of unexpected depth and sensuality; a confrontation with the glitz of hyper-reality that’s constantly playing with the illusory nature of all images; collections of apparent trivia bathed in an aura of mystery.She has a large show right now at the splendid Lafayette Anticipations, a very well-run showcase for cutting-edge contemporary art Read more ...
aleks.sierz
There is a song by Syd Barrett, founder member of Pink Floyd, called “Golden Hair”. It’s on his album The Madcap Laughs, released in 1970, a couple of years after he left the band, and every time I hear it I feel like I’m falling in love again. It also features in Tom Stoppard’s 2006 epic, the aptly named Rock ’N’ Roll, now revived at the Hampstead Theatre by playwright and director Nina Raine.The figure of Barrett – an antic madcap whose use of LSD both inspired his psychedelic music and destroyed his mind – runs, skips and somersaults through the play, which spans European Cold War history Read more ...
Hugh Barnes
Half way through Something, I Forget, in a poem entitled “Returns”, and subtitled “Invasion of Ukraine, February 2022”, Angela Leighton writes, “Today’s my birthday. Many happy returns. / Elsewhere there’s shot, mortar shells, grenades.”The technical term for this is poetic licence because Leighton’s birthday falls on 23rd February, and Russia’s invasion of that particular "elsewhere" didn’t happen until the following day. Strictly speaking, the poem can’t be true. Leighton’s birthday was as quiet and uneventful in Ukraine as it was anywhere else.One of the strengths, however, of Angela Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
There are probably two distinct audiences for the latest adaptation from Les Enfants Terribles, The House with Chicken Legs: the young teens who lapped up the fantasy novel by Sophie Anderson on which it is based, and the adults who came with them. The latter may not be as enraptured as fans of the book by the piece’s staging, not to mention its almost three-hour length. The piece made its debut at Manchester’s HOME venue, where it seems to have had a favourable reception. The QEH, though, is a different kind of space: quite steeply raked and with inadequate acoustics, which make it hard Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Typically tagged as the originators of pub rock, Brinsley Schwarz were where Nick Lowe honed his muse. But there were twists, turns and a waywardness which makes approaching them as a linear proposition difficult. Sometimes, they pointed one way yet then headed in a different direction. Next, off elsewhere. The complete-catalogue, seven CD set Thinking Back - The Anthology 1970-1975 encapsulates all of this.They had evolved from Kippington Lodge, a straightforward pop group which had released five singles on Parlophone over 1967 to 1969. Chafing at their unadventurous persona, they rejigged Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The original title of this French crime drama was Pax Massilia, a reference to the classical roots of its setting in what is now known as Marseille. Dating back to the 6th Century BC, it’s supposedly the oldest city in France. An atmospheric mix of architectural styles, dramatic views, a Mediterranean climate and multiple ethnicities, it makes the perfect stage for this fast-paced and sometimes horrifically violent thriller.It’s directed by Olivier Marchal, an ex-cop whose CV includes Braquo and 36 Quai des Orfèvres. And while the eternal struggle between police and thieves is hardly the most Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
David Ireland’s Edinburgh Fringe hit Ulster American is essentially a play about a play that a Hollywood big name has been cast in by a leading English theatre director. Appropriately, it stars two actual Hollywood “big names”, Woody Harrelson and Andy Serkis, the latter seen here for once without motion-capture tags or prosthetics. Welcome back.The setting is a typical middle-class period house In London, gutted and expensively decorated, where Leigh (Serkis, pictured below left) is preparing for a meeting with the Oscar-winning star of his latest production, Jay Conway (Harrelson, Read more ...
Mert Dilek
Stranger Things has shown us over four seasons that the alternate dimension known as the Upside Down can be the seat of many things: terror, mystery, camaraderie, compassion. As it turns out, it can spawn great theatre, too, for Stephen Daldry’s much-anticipated stage production of the prequel to the Netflix mega-hit has finally summoned its demonic energy to take the West End by storm.In this intensely cinematic and technically stunning show, a spirited ensemble breathes ambitious life into a villain origin story that feels at once epic and intimate – and with no shortage of wow factors. Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
There’s a touch of Dr Zhivago about director Paweł Pawlikowski’s screenplay for his 2018 film Cold War. Its plot is driven by the same Lara/Yuri dynamic, of an overwhelming love affair trying to outflank the forces of history. Now it's been adapted at the Almeida as a play-with-music by Conor McPherson, with lush songs by Elvis Costello, directed by Rupert Goold. It’s not remotely Christmassy, though offers a gift of no ordinary kind.The Polish lovers who consistently find themselves confronting the fault line dividing post-war Europe are Wiktor (Luke Thallon) and Zula (Anya Chalotra). Read more ...
Saskia Baron
This fascinating American documentary tackles the societal and medical treatment of the 1.7% of people born with intersex traits that leave them with sex characteristics (chromosome patterns, genitals, gonads) that aren’t obviously male or female. These people are the ‘I’ in the LGBTQI+ acronym.We meet three charismatic and impressive campaigners who have intersex conditions.Their life stories are riveting, their arguments persuasive. Political consultant Julia Roth Weigel was born with XY chromosomes and instead of ovaries had testes, which were removed in childhood so the doctors could call Read more ...