21st century
Fung, BBC Philharmonic, Weilerstein, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - clever and comicalMonday, 19 February 2024Placing the UK premiere of Katherine Balch’s whisper concerto (for cello and orchestra) after Haydn’s Symphony No. 100 was probably an inspired idea from the BBC Philharmonic and conductor Joshua Weilerstein.In its day, the so-called “Military”... Read more... |
Othello, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - 21st century interpretation delivers food for thoughtThursday, 08 February 2024Detective Chief Inspector Othello leads a quasi-paramilitary team of Metropolitan Police officers investigating gang activity in Docklands. With a chequered past now behind him, he has reformed and has the respect of both the team he leads and his... Read more... |
All of Us Strangers review - a haunting story about the power of love, masterfully toldFriday, 26 January 2024Andrew Haigh’s films come at you like stealth bombers, presenting everyday scenes in a spare narrative style, and then using them to blitz you with unexpected emotions. His latest is no exception. It starts with the familiar sight of a... Read more... |
Night Swim review - hardly immersive horror flickMonday, 08 January 2024The water is wild in Night Swim, the weirdly wet horror debut from director Bryce McGuire, in which a backyard bathing pool becomes the locus of all things supernatural.For a while, this mild, many-angled shocker, produced by horror impresarios... Read more... |
A Woman Walks into a Bank, Theatre 503 review - prize-winning play delivers on its promiseThursday, 14 December 2023We’re in Moscow (we hear that quite a lot) where an ageing woman on a rare trip out of her apartment block catches sight of an advert in a bank’s window. She is soon inside and subjected to a sales pitch by a keen young bank "manager", torn between... Read more... |
£1 Thursdays, Finborough Theatre review - dazzling new play is as funny and smart as its two heroinesMonday, 04 December 2023It’s 2012 and the London Olympics might as well be happening on the Moon for Jen and Stacey. In fact, you could say the same for everyone else scrabbling a living in Bradford – or anywhere north of Watford – and we know what those left-behind places... Read more... |
The Eternal Daughter review - tricksy ghost story with a poignant emotional coreFriday, 24 November 2023Joanna Hogg has made a film that resolves itself backwards: what happens in the final reel recasts what you have just seen completely. It’s something of a departure from her previous films in style, but equally probing and moving.The Eternal... Read more... |
A Stitch in Time review - feelgood Aussie indie with an undernourished scriptFriday, 24 November 2023There’s a faint whiff of Strictly Ballroom about Sasha Hadden’s Australian indie A Stitch in Time, another tale of people in later life rekindling lost dreams and a long-buried love while nurturing younger folk with the same passions. Here, though,... Read more... |
32 Sounds: Interview with innovative documentarian Sam Green about his audio and visual feastThursday, 23 November 2023Sam Green’s film 32 Sounds has been described as the greatest documentary you’ve ever heard, which is a pretty noisy claim – how does anyone know all the documentaries you’ve experienced? What is certainly true is that the way Green... Read more... |
Nineteen Gardens, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs review - intriguing, beautifully observed two-hander tilts power this way and thatSaturday, 11 November 2023A middle-aged man, expensively dressed and possessed of that very specific confidence that only comes from a certain kind of education, a certain kind of professional success, a certain kind of entitlement, talks to a younger woman. Despite the fact... Read more... |
Feldmann, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - adventures in the unusualMonday, 30 October 2023For the most adventurous programme in its autumn Saturday series at the Bridgewater Hall, the BBC Philharmonic’s John Storgårds brought two works from his native Finland’s repertoire, and a concerto some distance from the beaten track.Like the Hallé... Read more... |
Manic Street Creature, Southwark Playhouse review - songs in the key of a traumatised lifeFriday, 27 October 2023There’s an old-fashioned feel to the story at its outset: Young woman, guitar in hand, Northern accent announcing as much as it always did, who makes a new life in London, all the money going on a room in Camden. One recalls Georgy Girl or Darling,... Read more... |