Reviews
The Habits, Hampstead Theatre review - who knows what adventures await?Thursday, 13 March 2025
“The exercise of fantasy is to imagine other ways of life,” says one of the role-players during a Dungeons & Dragons marathon, because “without understanding how others might live, I ask you, how will we ever understand ourselves?” It’s a good... Read more... |
Levit, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer, RFH review - anger unleashed, fantasy finessed in ProkofievWednesday, 12 March 2025
A showstopper for starters followed by dark depths, a quirky compilation after the interval: it’s what you might expect from Iván Fischer and his 42-year-old Budapest Festival Orchestra. All Prokofiev, too: the sort of thing we used to get from... Read more... |
Farewell Mister Haffmann, Park Theatre review - French hit of confusing genre, with a real historical villainWednesday, 12 March 2025
When Yasmina Reza’s cerebral play Art arrived in London in 1996, we applauded it as a comedy. Now another French hit, Jean-Philippe Daguerre’s Adieu Monsieur Haffmann, has landed, and the genre confusions could start all over again.This is a story... Read more... |
Jonathan Buckley: One Boat review - a shore thingTuesday, 11 March 2025
One Boat, Jonathan Buckley’s 13th novel, captures a series of encounters at the water’s edge: characters converge like trailing filaments on the shoreline, lightly touching, their eventual separation assumed. Through this, Buckley pays profound... Read more... |
A Form of Exile: Edward Said and Late Style, CLS, Wood, QEH review - baggy ferment of ideas and soundsMonday, 10 March 2025
You could plan an entire concert season around the theme of “late style”, its paradoxes and variations. For this one-off, many of us expected a concentrated mesh of Edward Said’s only-connect observations with a well-balanced musical programme,... Read more... |
Edward II, RSC, Swan Theatre, Stratford review - monarchs, murder and mayhem from MarloweMonday, 10 March 2025
“Don’t put your co-artistic director on the stage, Mrs Harvey,” as Noel Coward once (almost) sang. Tamara Harvey took no heed and Edward II sees her RSC compadre, Daniel Evans (pictured below, kneeling centre), back on stage after 14 years and... Read more... |
BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - an International Women's Day specialMonday, 10 March 2025
Anja Bihlmaier returned to the BBC Philharmonic – for the first time in the Bridgewater Hall as principal guest conductor – with a programme to mark International Women’s Day, and consisting entirely of music by women composers, past and present.... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Liverpool Sunset - The City After MerseybeatSunday, 09 March 2025
What happens after the spotlight is directed towards another target? In the case of Liverpool and the Merseybeat boom – which, in terms of chart success, peaked in 1963 – the question is addressed by Liverpool Sunset: The City After Merseybeat 1964–... Read more... |
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Czech Philharmonic, Bychkov, Barbican review - from Russia, with tough loveSaturday, 08 March 2025
Exactly half a century ago, Semyon Bychkov fled the USSR for the United States as he sought to swap tyranny for liberty. Last night, in a world that feels utterly different yet even more terrifying, the great conductor turned the stellar talents of... Read more... |
Drive to Survive, Season 7, Netflix review - speed, scandal and skulduggery in the pitlaneSaturday, 08 March 2025
Last year’s sixth season of Drive to Survive radiated an air of diminishing returns. It was as though the novelty of its spy-in-the-paddock ethos was wearing off as the Formula One teams sought to mould the show to suit their own interests, and what... Read more... |
Bonhoeffer review - flawed biopic of a saintly man of courageSaturday, 08 March 2025
The German theologian, pastor and anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a saintly, courageous figure, of major historical significance. Those are good reasons to ensure that his story gets told and becomes better known. At a time... Read more... |
Matt Forde, Touring review - politics, poo and ViagraSaturday, 08 March 2025
Matt Forde gives a warning: “Don’t heckle the disabled – that’s a hate crime.” What an opener for his latest touring show, The End of an Era, which I saw at the Oxford Glee Club. To explain: in 2023 the back pain that Forde thought was sciatica... Read more... |
