Reviews
Home, I'm Darling, National Theatre review - Katherine Parkinson in career-best formWednesday, 01 August 2018
Add Katherine Parkinson to the top rank of theatre performers in a town where talent abounds. As Judy, the retro-minded housewife at the bruisingly comic heart of Laura Wade's National Theatre/Theatre Clwyd collaboration Home, I'm Darling, ... Read more... |
Age Before Beauty, BBC One review - mid-life makeover madnessWednesday, 01 August 2018
If you were looking for the antidote to Love Island, this might be just the job. Instead of airbrushed 20-something Instagram fanatics flaunting their “gym-honed” physiques in the Mediterranean sun, in Age Before Beauty (BBC One) writer Debbie... Read more... |
Roderic O’Conor and the Moderns, National Gallery of Ireland review - experiments in Pont-AvenWednesday, 01 August 2018
In the autumn of 1892 Émile Bernard wrote home to his mother that, following the summer decampment to Pont-Aven of artists visiting from Paris and further afield, there remained "some artists here, two of them talented and copying each other. One... Read more... |
SWAP'ra Gala, Opera Holland Park review - all-women stars and scenesWednesday, 01 August 2018
Two women, Julia Sporsén's female Composer and Jennifer France's Zerbinetta in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, stole most hearts with their togetherness at Holland Park recently. Many more trod similar air last night in favour of a down-to-earth cause... Read more... |
Prom 21, BBC Scottish SO, Volkov review - horncalls and mountainscapesTuesday, 31 July 2018
This concert was inspired by the huge scale of the Albert Hall. The three works all evoke spacious vistas, through their expansive textures, echo effects and horn calls. Mozart, Haas and Strauss made for a diverse programme though, the three works... Read more... |
A Sicilian Ghost Story review - a beautiful, confusing journeyTuesday, 31 July 2018
Childhood is an inimitable experience – the laws of the world are less certain, imagination and reality meld together, and no event feels fixed. A Sicilian Ghost Story recreates this sensation in the context of real world trauma, producing a... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Three Choirs Festival - religion, passion and Nordic fakeryTuesday, 31 July 2018
Not to be outdone by the Proms, the 2018 Three Choirs Festival in Hereford burst into action on Saturday with a major choral work, the Mass in D, by music’s most famous suffragette, the majestic figure of Dame Ethel Smyth. Dame Ethel embodies... Read more... |
Prom 19, Ten Pieces review – creative format engages young audiencesMonday, 30 July 2018
Children’s concerts are a tricky business, but the BBC has hit on a good formula with its Ten Pieces project, now in its fifth year. Ten works are chosen for their diversity and accessibility, and these become the basis for education projects... Read more... |
WOMAD, Charlton Park review – drawing the world a little closerMonday, 30 July 2018
Even seasoned veterans can suffer from programme amnesia over the four days and nights of rock, pop, dance and traditional music from around the world to be found at WOMAD, such is the array of choices across its 10 stages, ranging from the main... Read more... |
Pagliacci, Scottish Opera review - roll up, roll up for opera like never before!Monday, 30 July 2018
Yes it’s opera, but not as you know it. The circus-tent style structure, pitched on the grounds of Seedhill sports complex and dubbed "Paisley Opera House", was home this weekend to Scottish Opera's incredible, immersive production of Leoncavallo’s... Read more... |
Hidden, Series Finale, BBC Four review - a whydunnit, not a whodunnitSunday, 29 July 2018
Some contend that this Snowdonia-set mystery was a Scandi hommage too far, a mere recycler of gloom-shrouded riffs familiar from the likes of The Bridge or The Killing. Well yes, there was that element to it, but if you stuck with it it grew into... Read more... |
Rachel Heng: Suicide Club review - skin-deep dystopiaSunday, 29 July 2018
When Lea is nervous she picks at the skin near the nail of her thumb. When she draws blood the wound repairs instantly because she is a member of the Second Wave endowed with SmartBlood™ and DiamondSkin™. Aside from this tic she is an otherwise... Read more... |
