Reviews
Der fliegende Holländer, Royal Opera review - compellingly lucid with an austere visual beautyFriday, 01 March 2024
The shadow of Nosferatu hangs heavily over Tim Albery’s powerfully austere staging of Wagner’s opera of desire and damnation, which returns to the Royal Opera House 15 years after it premiered there. Bryn Terfel’s Dutchman is a subtly vampiric... Read more... |
Cruel Intentions, The Other Palace review - uneasy vibes, hit tunes and sparkling stagingFriday, 01 March 2024
Transgression was so deliciously enticing. Back in the Eighties when I saw Les Liaisons Dangereuses in the West End on three occasions, life was simpler – or so us straight white men flattered ourselves to believe. Consent was unproblematic for... Read more... |
Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - Bruckner is backFriday, 01 March 2024
Sir Mark Elder conducted Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8 for his first time in last night’s Hallé series concert, a reflection of his untiring exploration of new territory even as he nears the end of his time as the orchestra’s music director.So this was... Read more... |
The Magic Flute, English National Opera review - return of an enchanted eveningThursday, 29 February 2024
Trials by fire and water pale in comparison with trials by Arts Council England. English National Opera’s long torment has lately involved redundancy notices issued mid-performance and the enforcement of a sub-standard contract for chorus and... Read more... |
The Human Body, Donmar Warehouse review - Keeley Hawes and Jack Davenport excel in an intriguing stagingThursday, 29 February 2024
Keeley Hawes onstage is something to look forward to, so rare are her appearances there. In Lucy Kirkwood’s new play, The Human Body, we are given a double treat: Hawes, plus her black and white screen image, projected all over the Donmar’s back... Read more... |
Red Island review - Madagascar miniaturesThursday, 29 February 2024
The French military outpost on Madagascar is a “family cocoon, full of love and benevolence”, according to a character in this fictional portrait of the country in the early 1970s. Of course, as soon as we hear this claim near the start of Red... Read more... |
Nachtland, Young Vic review - German black comedy brings uneasy humour and discomfiting relevanceThursday, 29 February 2024
If Mark Twain thought that a German joke was no laughing matter, what would he make of a German comedy? That quote came to mind more than once during Patrick Marber’s production of Marius von Mayenburg’s 2022 play, Nachtland. I know it’s... Read more... |
Cable Street, Southwark Playhouse review - engaging new musical in an impressive stagingWednesday, 28 February 2024
Hot on the heels of Brigid Larmour’s updating of The Merchant of Venice to the East End in 1936, a spirited new musical across town at Southwark Playhouse is tackling the same topic: the impact of rising British fascism in the same era,... Read more... |
Colin Currie Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - toccatas for triangles and teacupsWednesday, 28 February 2024
I have never seen the Wigmore Hall stage more crammed with instruments than for this Colin Currie Quartet concert. Sadly the auditorium was not similarly packed, the hall’s admirable initiative of broadening its repertoire away from mainly dead... Read more... |
Andy Parsons, Touring review - reasons to be cheerful...Wednesday, 28 February 2024
In the middle of another age of austerity, a climate crisis and seemingly intractable international conflicts, it's cheering that a comic should tour with a show called Bafflingly Optimistic. Even more so when that comedian is Andy Parsons, whose... Read more... |
Out of Season, Hampstead Theatre review - banter as bullyingWednesday, 28 February 2024
One island off the coast of Spain has more cultural oomph than all the rest put together. I’m talking about Ibiza, the sun-soaked, music-happy and drug-friendly paradise for anyone in their roaring luved-up twenties who wants a break that will fry... Read more... |
'Migrations' String Quartet Weekend, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - memorials and masterpiecesTuesday, 27 February 2024
It was chance that the National Concert Hall’s weekend of quartet events featuring responses to war and refugees should coincide with the second anniversary of Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine. By late Saturday morning thousands of Ukrainians and friends... Read more... |
