Reviews
Best of 2024: OperaFriday, 27 December 2024
Ireland takes the palm for best of 2024, with Wexford hitting comic heights among its three rarities in Donizettian let’s-make-an-opera, while Irish National Opera gave us a world-class Salome, a Vivaldi rarity strongly cast, a Rigoletto featuring... Read more... |
Jamie Foxx, Netflix Special review - doctors and divine interventionFriday, 27 December 2024
In April 2023 the actor and comic Jamie Foxx had a stroke and was lucky to survive. In his latest Netflix Special, What Had Happened Was... he tells us about it, and his recovery. It's fitting, he tells us, that the show was recorded in Atlanta,... Read more... |
Best of 2024: TheatreFriday, 27 December 2024
It's the images that linger in the mind as I think back on a bustling theatre year just gone. Sure, the year fielded excellent productions (and some duds, too), but as often as not it's a particular sight that sticks in the mind.I shan't soon forget... Read more... |
All Creatures Great and Small, Christmas Special, Channel 5 review - Mrs Hall steps into the spotlightTuesday, 24 December 2024
Since its revival in 2020, All Creatures Great and Small has drawn big audiences internationally and become Channel 5’s biggest hit, even if there have been occasional grumbles about how it takes liberties with James Herriot’s original books.The... Read more... |
Travis, OVO Hydro review - a Christmas night out with some regretsTuesday, 24 December 2024
Travis arrived onstage with the theme tune from classic sitcom Cheers as an accompaniment. The cavernous OVO Hydro might not be a place where everyone knows your name, but a Glasgow homecoming by local lads made good certainly tapped into a festive... Read more... |
Nosferatu review - Lily-Rose Depp stands out in uneven horror remakeTuesday, 24 December 2024
Robert Eggers' strength as a director is his ability to bring historical periods alive with gritty, tactile realism. He does this successfully because of his anthropological attention to props, costume and language, but also his willingness to treat... Read more... |
Death in Paradise Christmas Special, BBC One review - who killed Santa Claus?Monday, 23 December 2024
Though Death in Paradise is an Anglo-French production filmed in Guadeloupe, in the French West Indies, the Frenchness seems to have mysteriously leaked away. Where Sara Martins was a long-standing regular as DS Camille Bordey, and other French... Read more... |
The English Concert, Bicket, Wigmore Hall review - a Baroque banquet for ChristmasMonday, 23 December 2024
Enough is as good as a feast, they say. But sometimes, especially at Christmas, you crave a properly groaning table. At the Wigmore Hall, The English Concert, directed by Harry Bicket, concluded their festive Baroque banquet with Bach’s Magnificat... Read more... |
The Unthanks in Winter, Cadogan Hall reviewMonday, 23 December 2024
A suitable place to find yourself out for the winter solstice, buttoning up for the longest night of the year, was at the Cadogan Hall off Sloane Square, a former place of worship marking its 20th year as a concert hall.The Unthanks, too, are... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Hawkwind - X In Search Of Space, Doremi Fasol LatidoSunday, 22 December 2024
One of last year’s major joys was the box set version of Hawkwind's Space Ritual, an 11-disc extravaganza which made the great live album, originally issued in May 1973, even more great. Now the two studio albums which preceded it – X In Search Of... Read more... |
Twelfth Night, Royal Shakespeare Theatre review - comic energy dissipates in too large a spaceSunday, 22 December 2024
It is not just Twelfth Night, it’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will in The Folio, a signpost of the choices the inhabitants, old and new, of Illyria must make. Perhaps it’s also an allusion to Will’s own choices as an actor/playwright in the all... Read more... |
Nutcracker, English National Ballet, Coliseum review - Tchaikovsky and his sweet tooth rule supremeFriday, 20 December 2024
No new production of a beloved old ballet can please everyone, and there is none more beloved, or more frequently produced, than The Nutcracker. English National Ballet has staked its identity on performing Tchaikovsky’s last, most hummable and... Read more... |
