21st century
The Outrun review - Saoirse Ronan is astonishing as an alcoholic fighting for recoveryFriday, 27 September 2024![]() In 2016, Amy Liptrot made a fine publishing debut with a memoir about her alcoholism, The Outrun. Now she has co-written a film based on her book that is a significant achievement in its own right. It’s also the promising debut of Saoirse Ronan and... Read more... |
Lewis, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - adding the Moon to The PlanetsTuesday, 24 September 2024![]() The first piece by Grace-Evangeline Mason I heard was six years ago, a simple song in a multi-composer “Manchester Peace Song Cycle” performed at the Royal Northern College of Music when she was studying there.It was striking because of its eloquent... Read more... |
The Band Back Together, Arcola Theatre review - three is a dangerous numberMonday, 16 September 2024![]() We meet Joe first at the keys, singing a pretty good song, but we can hear the pain in the voice – but is that the person or the performance? When Ellie walks in, he leaps up like a cat on a hot tin roof, nervous as a kitten, and we know –... Read more... |
Kim's Convenience, Riverside Studios review - KC and the sunshine vibeSaturday, 14 September 2024![]() One wonders what sitcom writers will do when supermarkets finally sweep the last corner shops away with nobody left old enough to buy cigarettes, nobody so offline that they buy newspapers and nobody eating sweets, priced out by sugar taxes. The... Read more... |
Why Am I So Single?, Garrick Theatre review - superb songs in Zeitgeist surfing showFriday, 13 September 2024![]() Going to the theatre can be a little like going to church. One communes on the individual level, one’s faith in the stories underpinned by a psychological connection, but also on the collective level, belief rising on a tide of shared emotions.... Read more... |
The Echo review - a beautiful but confusing look at life in a Mexican villageFriday, 26 July 2024![]() El Eco (The Echo) is a small village in Mexico’s central highlands, about two hours drive from Mexico City. But it might as well be thousands of miles away since it feels cut off from the outside world, especially for the women and children eking... Read more... |
About Dry Grasses review - warts and all portrait of an unhappy manThursday, 25 July 2024![]() Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s latest is a test of stamina: a 3hr 15min study of a man paralysed by negative thinking. It also contains striking freeze-framed portraits of people and places that you want to pause and look at even longer than the editing... Read more... |
Next to Normal, Wyndham's Theatre review - rock musical on the trauma of mental illnessFriday, 05 July 2024![]() We open on one of those suburban American families we know so well from Eighties and Nineties sitcoms - they’re not quite Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, but they’re not far off. As usual, we wonder how Americans have so much space, such big... Read more... |
NMC Recordings at 35, Dutch Church, London review - a fitting celebrationThursday, 04 July 2024![]() NMC Recordings has spent 35 years promoting contemporary music by British composers, and this commitment to both emerging and established voices was represented at this birthday concert in London last night, part of the Spitalfields Festival. From... Read more... |
Àma Gloria review - small-scale triumph with a big emotional payloadFriday, 14 June 2024![]() In Marie Amachoukeli’s Àma Gloria there’s a remarkable performance by a child actor, Louise Mauroy-Panzani. So key is her contribution that It’s fair to say the director couldn’t have delivered the film she had planned without her,.Mauroy-... Read more... |
Sansara, Manchester Collective, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - sense of a unique experienceSaturday, 11 May 2024![]() Manchester Collective have come a long way since their early days of chamber music in dark and dingy Salford basements and former MOT test centres. But they haven’t forgotten what made those pioneering performances special: the sense of a unique... Read more... |
Multiple Casualty Incident, The Yard Theatre review - NGO medics in training have problems of their ownFriday, 10 May 2024![]() We open on one of those grim, grim training rooms that all offices have – the apologetic sofa, the single electric kettle, the instant coffee. The lighting is too harsh, the chairs too hard, the atmosphere already post-lunch on Wednesday and it... Read more... |
