1930s
Cosi fan tutte, English Touring Opera review - a blissful, uncomplicated delightMonday, 02 March 2020
Cosi fan tutte is, as the opera’s subtitle clearly tells us, “A School for Lovers”. But too often these days it can feel like a school for the audience. Joyless productions lecture us sternly on the battle of the sexes – on chauvinism, feminism,... Read more... |
Mr Jones review - a timely testament to journalismFriday, 07 February 2020
While the horrors of Hitler’s rule are well documented, Joseph Stalin’s crimes are less renowned, so much so that in a recent poll in Russia he was voted their greatest ever leader. This chilling fact made acclaimed director Agnieszka Holland feel... Read more... |
Filmmaker Agnieszka Holland: 'Without journalism, democracy will not survive'Tuesday, 04 February 2020
Agnieszka Holland is one of Europe's leading filmmakers. Growing up in Poland under Soviet rule, her films have often tackled the continent's complex history, including the Academy Award-nominated Europa, Europa, In Darkness and Angry Harvest. In... Read more... |
Mephisto [A Rhapsody], Gate Theatre review - the callowness of historyThursday, 10 October 2019
You wonder about the title of French dramatist Sam Gallet’s Mephisto [A Rhapsody], an adaptation for our days of Klaus Mann’s 1936 novel about an actor unable to resist the blandishments of fame, even if they come at the cost of losing himself.... Read more... |
Youth Without God, Coronet Theatre review - the chill control of nascent NazismTuesday, 24 September 2019
The only novel by the Hungarian dramatist Ödön von Horváth, Youth Without God was written in exile after he fled Anschluss Vienna and published in 1938, shortly before his death. In the English-speaking world, we know von Horváth for his plays,... Read more... |
For Services Rendered, Jermyn Street Theatre review – uneven revival of 1930s dramaThursday, 12 September 2019
“I don’t think I have the right to influence her,” says an older character of her daughter in For Services Rendered, W Somerset Maugham’s 1932 anti-war drama. If only all elder statesmen and women felt the same about the youth. Tom Littler’s revival... Read more... |
Evita, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - a diva dictator for 2019Friday, 09 August 2019
Following a triumphant resurrection of Jesus Christ Superstar, now playing at the Barbican, the Park works its magic on another of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Seventies rock operas. Jamie Lloyd’s stripped-down, super-sleek, contemporary take... Read more... |
Prom 15: Bavarian RSO, Nézet-Séguin review - perfect Beethoven, nuanced ShostakovichWednesday, 31 July 2019
While we wish the great Mariss Jansons a speedy recovery, no-one of sound heart and soul could be disappointed by his substitute for the two Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Proms, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, whose supreme art is to show the score's... Read more... |
Blues in the Night, Kiln Theatre review - hard times, hot tunesThursday, 25 July 2019
It’s too darn hot, BoJo is in Downing Street, and we’re all going to Brexit hell – so we might as well sing the blues. Or at least take a night off from the apocalypse to enjoy a virtuoso company singing them for us in this rousing revival of... Read more... |
The Damned, Comédie-Française, Barbican review - slow-burn horrors in devastating imagesFriday, 21 June 2019
Is the terrifying past of Germany in 1933 also our future? Having had nightmares about the brilliant dystopian TV soap opera Years and Years, which built like all the best of its kind on present fears, I wasn't expecting to be confronted so soon by... Read more... |
Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking, Dulwich Picture Gallery review - a cut aboveWednesday, 19 June 2019
Under a turbulent sky racked with jagged clouds suggesting bolts of lightning, pale figures hurl themselves into a spitting expanse of water. Swathed in white towels, other figures mingle with the pink bodies, seeming to process along the pier as if... Read more... |
Porgy and Bess, Grange Park Opera review - good versus evil in Catfish RowMonday, 10 June 2019
If you go to a British country house opera to see a work about an addict and a cripple in a poverty-stricken Deep South tenement, you know the contrast between stage and garden marquee will be extreme. Seeing Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at Grange... Read more... |
