thu 28/03/2024

fairytales

The Antipodes, National Theatre review - mysterious and gently momentous

The National Theatre is forging its own special relationship with American playwright Annie Baker, having now produced three of her plays within four years, all in their smallest Dorfman space. The result has allowed a gathering acquaintance...

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Ghost Quartet, Boulevard Theatre review - a beguiling journey into the beyond

London’s latest new theatre opens with an appropriately otherworldly Halloween offering: American composer Dave Malloy’s teeming 2014 song cycle, which played at the Edinburgh Festival in 2016. It’s a superb piece for demonstrating the benefits of...

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Maleficent: Mistress of Evil review - fantasy follow-up falls flat

Angelina Jolie is back again with those cut-glass cheekbones and ink-black wings, reprising her role as the self-proclaimed ‘Mistress of Evil’, in Joachim Rønning’s nauseating sequel to the 2014 live-action spin on Sleeping Beauty. As the...

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Rusalka, Glyndebourne Festival review - away with the distressed fairies

When you think of the extravagant, violent, super grown-up subject-matter that stalked the operatic stage round about 1900 - the Toscas and the Salomes, the Cavs, the Pags and the rest of the verismo pack - you might find it strange to contemplate...

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The Cunning Little Vixen, Rattle, LSO, Barbican review – dark magic in the woods

As midsummer night’s dreams go, it would be hard to surpass the darkly enchanting collaboration between Sir Simon Rattle and Peter Sellars that will bring The Cunning Little Vixen to the Barbican again this evening and on Saturday. Janáček’s...

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Hansel and Gretel, ENO, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - into the broomstick woods

Shoving a child-eating drag-queen witch into an oven can't be good for any kid's psyche. Director Timothy Sheader doesn't let us forget it in a production which nevertheless treads a fine line between the darkness of the Grimm story and the...

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Dumbo review - does Tim Burton’s new adaption take flight?

At its heart, Disney’s fourth-feature, Dumbo, was about the love between mother and child, and defying expectations. The 1941 animation was based on Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl’s short story and told the tale of a baby circus elephant with...

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Border review - genre-defying Oscar-nominated Swedish film

This might just be the most challenging film review I’ve had to write in decades. The best thing would be to go and see Border knowing nothing more than that it won the prize for most innovative film at Cannes. Don't watch the trailer, and...

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Hänsel und Gretel, Royal Opera review - not quite hungry enough

Once upon a time there was the terrible mouth of Richard Jones's Welsh National Opera/Met Hänsel und Gretel, finding an idiosyncratic equivalent to the original Engelbert Humperdinck's dark Wagnerian heart. Then came something very nasty in the...

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The Nutcracker, Royal Ballet review - a still-magical tale of two couples

Once a year is never too often to revisit one of the most perfect of all orchestral scores (not just for the ballet), a climactic Russian Imperial Pas de deux and the old-fashioned magic of illusionist painted flats flying in and out across a...

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Cendrillon, Glyndebourne Tour review - too many ingredients in the magic soup

Supernatural wonders, consciously avoided in Rossini's enlightened tale of goodness rewarded La Cenerentola and unrealised by second-rank composer Isouard in his 1810 Cendrillon, recently uneathed by Bampton Classical Opera, flood Massenet's gem-...

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Isouard's Cendrillon, Bampton Classical Opera review - stepsisters shine in fairy-tale bagatelle

Cinderella as opera in French: of late, the palm has always gone to Massenet's adorable (as in a-dor-Ah-bler) confection, and it should again soon when Glyndebourne offers a worthy home to the master's magic touch. The Cendrillon of Maltese-born...

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