A Little Night Music, Opera Holland Park review - wasn't it bliss?

★★★★ A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, OPERA HOLLAND PARK For one night, we were part of a full-on theatrical experience once again

For one night, we were part of a full-on theatrical experience once again

A lot of rain and untold bliss: those were the takeaways from Saturday night’s alfresco Opera Holland Park concert performance of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s eternally glorious 1973 musical, A Little Night Music.

Zalika Reid-Benta: Frying Plantain review - tales of growing up young, black and female in Toronto

★★★★ ZALIKA REID-BENTA: FRYING PLANTAIN Young, black and female in Toronto

A writer-in-the-making studies the art of not making a scene

It is as unsurprising as it is vital that a spotlight has been thrown on writing by people of colour this year. It is unsurprising, too – looking at bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic since June – that most of that light is being shed on particular kinds of writing by people of colour: stories and histories of struggle and suffering. These books, non-fiction and fiction alike, are typically said to “bear witness” – as they should.

Emily St John Mandel: The Glass Hotel review - a Ponzi scheme and its ghostly repercussions

EMILY ST JOHN MANDEL: THE GLASS HOTEL A scintillating follow-up from the author of 'Station Eleven'

A scintillating follow-up from the author of Station Eleven

Vast wealth and equally vast fraud are part of the plot in The Glass Hotel, Emily St John Mandel’s irresistible fifth novel, but much stranger things are at play here – ghosts, parallel universes, the threads that connect us. Vincent, an impoverished bartender in a remote hotel on Vancouver Island, leaves her job to enter a new life in the “kingdom of money” with Jonathan Alkaitis, an immensely rich, much older New York financier. But she has an unsettling sense of other versions of her life being lived without her.

Songs for a New World, The Other Palace Digital review - chimes with our extraordinary 'moment'

★★★★ SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD, THE OTHER PALACE DIGITAL Abstract musical offers resonant tales of the unexpected

Jason Robert Brown's abstract musical offers resonant tales of the unexpected

We’ve already had The Last Five Years in lockdown; now, we get a digital production of American composer Jason Robert Brown’s earliest work. A series of wistful pop/jazz numbers loosely linked thematically, rather than narratively, this 1995 abstract musical features various characters responding to a moment that upends their lives.

Good Manners review - compellingly eerie

Daring Brazilian film defies genres

Stylish, eerie and unexpectedly moving by the time of its apocalyptic finish, the strangely titled Good Manners makes for a genuine celluloid surprise.

Blueprint Medea, Finborough Theatre online review – well-meaning but clunky update

★★★ BLUE PRINT MEDEA, FINBOROUGH THEATRE Well-meaning but clunky

Updated Greek tragedy has some good ideas but doesn't fully deliver

Medea is the original crazy ex-girlfriend: the wronged woman who takes perfectly understandable revenge on the man who made her life hell. In Blueprint Medea, a new adaptation premiered at the Finborough Theatre in May 2019 and available on YouTube until 2nd August, writer-director Julia Pascal gives us a 21st-century reworking of Euripides’ tragedy. 

Bette Howland: Blue in Chicago review – the city on trial, with the writer as witness

★★★★★ BETTA HOWLAND: BLUE IN CHICAGO The city on trial, with the writer as witness

Short stories with a terrifying talent for the damning summing up

You feel at times, while reading the collection Blue in Chicago, that Bette Howland might have missed her vocation. In another life, Howland – until recently almost completely lost to literary history – could have made a name for herself as a distinctly unnerving judge; one feared by criminals and lawyers alike. She has a terrifying talent for the damning sum-up.