Reviews
Torn, Royal Court TheatreThursday, 15 September 2016
The family is a war zone. Bam, bam, bam. For some people, it can be the most dangerous place on earth. Its weapons include domination and betrayal, blackmail and abuse, and its frontline is memory – what really happened, and who is most to blame? In... Read more... |
Bridget Jones's BabyWednesday, 14 September 2016
If you happened to catch the second part of the Bridget Jones story – Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004, directed by Beeban Kidron) - on terrestrial television recently, or have read the character's creator Helen Fielding's novel Mad About the... Read more... |
Doctor Faustus, RSC, Barbican TheatreWednesday, 14 September 2016
What price a human soul? That’s the question Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus asks – a question whose answers are rooted in faith and theology. But in a society with little use for faith and still less for theology, how do you reframe the question? Director... Read more... |
British Sitcom: 60 Years of Laughing at OurselvesTuesday, 13 September 2016
Sixty years of sitcoms in 60 minutes? That's a big ask, but the makers of this whizz-through of British sitcoms tried, with a mega session of clips and comedy experts opining about them in a one-off documentary charting the importance of sitcom in... Read more... |
Norma, Royal OperaTuesday, 13 September 2016
You wait ages for a Norma, and then three come along at once. English National Opera saw something nasty in the woodshed back in February with their 19th-century American take on Bellini, while up at the Edinburgh Festival this summer the opera’s... Read more... |
Giuseppe Penone, Marian Goodman GalleryTuesday, 13 September 2016
Guiseppe Penone’s lyrical and tactile works, made from the simple elemental materials that typify the 1960s Italian Arte Povera movement (of which he is a key exponent), belong largely to the outside world of woods and gardens. But they also find an... Read more... |
Two WomenTuesday, 13 September 2016
Ralph Fiennes has long felt at home in the Russian repertoire, whether onstage in Fathers and Sons near the start of his career or, in 1997, taking the Almeida's Ivanov to Moscow as the first UK company to bring Chekhov home, as it were.Add in... Read more... |
Jess and Joe Forever, Orange Tree TheatreMonday, 12 September 2016
We’re living in the age of the small play. Although there are plenty of baggy epics around on our stages, they are outnumbered by the small and short two-hander, whether it's John O’Donovan’s gloriously titled If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could... Read more... |
Tom BallardMonday, 12 September 2016
Australian stand-up Tom Ballard was nominated for best newcomer in last year's Edinburgh Comedy Awards for Taxis & Rainbows & Hatred; last month he went one better with The World Keeps Happening, which gained him a nomination for the main... Read more... |
Last Night of the Proms, BBCSO, OramoSunday, 11 September 2016
I had never been to the Last Night of the Proms until last night, nor really paid much attention to it in recent years. To the extent I did, I have been resentful of the fact that to many people it represents the Proms as a whole, with its flag... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Tamam ShudSunday, 11 September 2016
In 1969, the Australian band Tamam Shud improvised as a film was projected onto the wall of a recording studio. The results were heard on the Evolution album. Playing original music live to accompany a film screening isn’t commonplace these... Read more... |
Prom 74: Verdi Requiem, OAE, AlsopSaturday, 10 September 2016
Tradition – a choral spectacular for the penultimate night of the Proms – but with a twist – a youth choir and period instruments. Marin Alsop this evening led a spectacular Verdi Requiem, not least for the sheer scale of the chorus, the BBC Proms... Read more... |
