Reviews
American Made review - Tom Cruise flies againThursday, 24 August 2017
How funny are gun-running, drug-smuggling and money-laundering? It depends who’s doing them. In American Made none other than Tom Cruise gets behind the controls of a twin-engine plane and flies back to the 1980s, a sepia-tinted yesteryear when all... Read more... |
Loot, Park Theatre review – dizzyingly enjoyableThursday, 24 August 2017
Fifty years ago this month, playwright Joe Orton was murdered by his lover Kenneth Halliwell. His debut play, Entertaining Mr Sloane, had both outraged and delighted West End audiences in 1964, and his follow-up a year later was Loot, which was a... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Estonia and Latvia - Pärnu Music Festival's great orchestra goes southThursday, 24 August 2017
For the first time ever Paavo Järvi has been showing other nations why the Estonian Festival Orchestra is among the world's best – travelling to other Nordic countries after their annual gathering in Estonia’s summer capital of Pärnu, with the big... Read more... |
Prom 51 review: Perianes, BBCSO, Oramo - brightly coloured musical postcardsWednesday, 23 August 2017
Six weeks in and we’ve got to that sweet spot in the Proms season where thematic threads start to knit together, sequences begin to fill out, cycles to finish – when you hear not just the concert in front of you but the echoes of those already past... Read more... |
Knives in Hens, Donmar Warehouse review – Yaël Farber not symbolic enoughWednesday, 23 August 2017
Hark, is that the call of the earth I hear? In a frenetic urban world, the myth of rural simplicity exerts a strong pull. Surely a simpler life is possible; a more natural rhythm and a slower pace? Oh yes, I can smell burnt peat, and almost scent... Read more... |
Agents of Mayhem review - digital déjà vuWednesday, 23 August 2017
Once upon a time there was a game called Grand Theft Auto that opened the door to free-roaming open-world games. It spawned a whole load of "me too" offspring, mostly bad, some good. Among the more promising relatives were the Saints Row titles... Read more... |
Prom 50 review: Josefowicz, Clayton, CBSO, Gražinytė-Tyla - personality in every barTuesday, 22 August 2017
Everything you may have read about Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla's wonder-working with her City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is true. Confined to a Turkish hospital bed when their first Prom together took place last August, I wondered from the radio... Read more... |
Proms 47, 48 & 49 review: Reformation Day - superlative Bach as the bedrockMonday, 21 August 2017
Reformation Day, Luther 500 - in Proms terms it can only mean Bach, the alpha and omega of music, flourishing roughly two centuries after the Wittenberg Nightingale nailed his 95 theses to the church door. Those of us who headed home on Saturday... Read more... |
Edinburgh Festival and Fringe 2017 reviews round-upMonday, 21 August 2017
Wondering what on earth to choose between as you tramp the streets of the festival? These are our highlights so far.STANDUPAthenu Kugblenu, Underbelly Med Quad ★★★ Strong debut hour of political and identity comedyCally Beaton, The Caves ★★★★ Single... Read more... |
Edinburgh Festival 2017 review: Verdi's Macbeth - exhilarating and overwhelmingMonday, 21 August 2017
Skeletal horses; piles of newborn babies smothered in a bloody sheet; a whole garden centre of prickly pears. There’s no denying that Italian director Emma Dante’s new production of Verdi’s Macbeth, which Turin’s Teatro Regio brings to the Edinburgh... Read more... |
The State, Channel 4 review - dishonest portrait of British jihadisMonday, 21 August 2017
It’s a burning question of western civilisation: what persuades young people brought up among us to walk out on their lives and join the cult of murderous fanatics who call themselves Islamic State? If any dramatist could attempt a coherent answer... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2017 reviews: Ingrid Oliver / Darren Harriott / Jayde AdamsMonday, 21 August 2017
Ingrid Oliver ★★★★ Ingrid Oliver is an old Edinburgh hand as one half of the sketch duo Watson and Oliver, but this is her debut solo show, and a very fine one it is. The set-up in Speech! is that she plays various characters giving speeches –... Read more... |
