Reviews
Louis Cole, Roundhouse review - nothing is everythingSaturday, 10 May 2025
London's iconic Roundhouse, packed to the rafters, provided the perfect setting for the UK premiere of Louis Cole's groundbreaking album nothing – his fifth album and third on Brainfeeder. This one-night-only performance, featuring Cole on drums and... Read more... |
Here We Are, National Theatre review - Sondheim's sensational swan songFriday, 09 May 2025
You don't have to be greeting the modern day with a smile unsupported by events in the wider world to have a field day at Here We Are. The last musical from the venerated Stephen Sondheim has only grown in import and meaning since I caught its New... Read more... |
Riefenstahl review - fascinating fascism? Portrait of the Nazis' favourite film-makerFriday, 09 May 2025
There used to be an unwritten rule among BBC commissioners about how long an interval had to pass before greenlighting a new documentary on a familiar subject – Shakespeare, Ancient Egypt, Andy Warhol – they all came round again with a decent... Read more... |
Giant, Harold Pinter Theatre review - incendiary Roald Dahl drama with topical biteFriday, 09 May 2025
When Mark Rosenblatt was preparing his debut play, the miseries of the assault on Gaza were still over the horizon. Now they are here, another terrible moment in human history that resonates all through Giant. Since the play opened at the Royal... Read more... |
The Surfer review - Nicolas Cage is relentlessly down and out in western AustraliaFriday, 09 May 2025
“Don’t live here, don’t surf here,” is the menacing motto (sounds more scary with an Australian accent) of the tanned, muscular denizens of Luna Bay beach. But the unnamed hero known as The Surfer, played by Nicolas Cage, isn’t listening.The Surfer... Read more... |
Einkvan, Det Norske Teatret, The Coronet Theatre review - alienation times sixFriday, 09 May 2025
Watching the stricken faces on the split screen, I felt at times like callow Farfrae in Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge: when faced with Henchard’s account of his blackest misery, the young man replies “Ah, now, I never feel like it”. Well,... Read more... |
Desire: The Carl Craig Story review - a worthy, brand-conscious encomium for a techno starFriday, 09 May 2025
Carl Craig (b.1969) is a leading Detroit electronic music producer and DJ whose Planet E Communications label has existed for over three decades. This 90-minute documentary, which was directed by Jean-Cosme Delaloye and features over thirty... Read more... |
The Trunk, Netflix review - stylish, noir-ish Korean drama wrapped around a beguiling love storyThursday, 08 May 2025
The trunk in the title is a luxury item, worth 50 million won – just north of £27,000 – shown sinking in deep water in the opening credits. It weaves through one of the classiest recent collaborations between Netflix and Korean TV, a haunting... Read more... |
The Gang of Three, King's Head Theatre - three old Labour ghosts resurrected to entertain and educateThursday, 08 May 2025
There was a time when the only daytime TV (ex-weekends and ex-Wimbledon fortnight) comprised the annual party conferences and the Trade Union Congress. A seemingly endless parade of indistinguishable middle-aged balding white men, with Barbara... Read more... |
Words of War review - portrait of a doomed truth-seeker in Putin's RussiaThursday, 08 May 2025
The reporting of Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist who was shot dead in her Moscow apartment building in 2006 – on Vladimir Putin’s birthday, a deranged gift from his loyal security services – is perhaps the nearest thing we have to a full... Read more... |
The Excursions of Mr Brouček, LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - sensuousness, fire and comedy in perfect balanceWednesday, 07 May 2025
Who doesn’t love the quirky, passionate and humanitarian genius of Leoš Janáček? All of it, these days. Since Charles Mackerras introduced the UK to a then-unknown, even the less familiar operas have had plenty of exposure. Simon Rattle was among... Read more... |
Conversations After Sex, Park Theatre review - pillow talk proves a snoozeWednesday, 07 May 2025
In Dublin, a city that has changed more than most in the last 30 years, a young woman, with an English accent that is expensive to acquire, is cycling through sexual partners. We eavesdrop on their conversations, witness the physical intimacy fade... Read more... |
