Reviews
The Diary of One who Disappeared, ROH review – song cycle-as-opera is a mish-mashFriday, 07 June 2019
Singer Ian Bostridge once described The Diary of One who Disappeared as “a song cycle gone wrong”. But this reimagining of it as an opera, by the Belgian director Ivo van Hove at the Royal Opera’s Linbury Theatre, also goes wrong, throwing in... Read more... |
The Firebird triple bill, Royal Ballet review - generous programme with Russian flavourThursday, 06 June 2019
You can’t accuse the Royal Ballet of lightweight programming: the three juicy pieces in the triple bill that opened at the Royal Opera House on Tuesday add up to a three-hour running time. That’s a lot of ballet for your buck. Whether they actually... Read more... |
The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Cheek by Jowl/Pushkin Theatre, Barbican review - theatre satire updatedThursday, 06 June 2019
Director Declan Donnellan has a rich record of working with Russian actors: his previous walk on the Slavic side, the darkly powerful Measure for Measure that came to the Barbican four years ago, was preceded by some magnificent versions of... Read more... |
Late Night review - Emma Thompson star vehicle needs a serious rewriteThursday, 06 June 2019
“Get me rewrite!”: That’s likely to be a common reaction to Late Night, the well-meaning but surprisingly slipshod star vehicle for Emma Thompson set in and among the writing world of a New York late-night chat show that is hitting the skids.... Read more... |
Das Rheingold, Longborough Festival Opera review - more Wagnerian excellence in a Gloucestershire barnThursday, 06 June 2019
The whole raison d’être of the Longborough Festival was always the performance of its founder Martin Graham’s beloved Wagner. So it’s perfectly natural that the twelfth anniversary of the start of the festival’s original Ring cycle should be marked... Read more... |
Education, Education, Education, Trafalgar Studios review - politics and pupils, mayhem and musicThursday, 06 June 2019
It's the 2nd May 1997, the morning after the night that swept New Labour into power. We’re in the staffroom of a school somewhere in Britain and the teachers are jubilant. They've been glued to their TV sets for the results and have shagged and... Read more... |
Gloria Bell review - dancing away the heartacheThursday, 06 June 2019
With Gloria (2013), A Fantastic Woman (2017) and Disobedience (2018), Chile’s Sebastián Lelio has earned a deserved reputation as a sympathetic director of women. It may seem a strange move for him to remake Gloria only a few years after the Spanish... Read more... |
The Virtues, Episode 4, Channel 4 review - a bitter redemptionWednesday, 05 June 2019
Shane Meadows has said that he always wanted to make a film where people didn’t talk. It’s homage to the European cinema he loves, with its preference for atmosphere over action, ambiguity over resolution, but it is also a way to confront an... Read more... |
Frank Bowling, Tate Britain review - a marvelWednesday, 05 June 2019
In a photograph taken in 1962, Frank Bowling leans against a fireplace in his studio. His right hand rests on the mantlepiece which bears books, fixative and spirit bottles, his left rests out of sight on the small of his back. His attire is... Read more... |
63 Up, ITV review - age is beginning to wither themWednesday, 05 June 2019
The first film in this extraordinary series, Seven Up!, was made for Granada Television’s World in Action in 1964. It picked 14 seven-year-old British children from different social backgrounds, aiming to revisit them every seven years to see how... Read more... |
Manon Lescaut, Opera Holland Park review - attempt to empower commodified woman falls flatWednesday, 05 June 2019
"Waiting is always wearisome," declare the socialites as glitter-and-be-gay Manon Lescaut receives in the home of her nasty old "protector" Geronte. Despite the numerous sugar-plums Puccini weaves into his first fluent operatic masterpiece, waiting... Read more... |
Wife, Kiln Theatre review - queer epic is joyful and intenseWednesday, 05 June 2019
In one lifetime, the many loves that once dare not speak their names have become part of everyday chatter. But it would be shortsighted to believe that ancient prejudices are easy to overcome, or that change does not run the risk of creating... Read more... |
