London
Gary Naylor
Such is the USA administration’s overwhelming saturation of the news cycle that, even with the comforting presence of an ocean between, it’s hard not to find Talking Heads’ unforgettable lyric relentlessly buzzing through your brain on repeat – “And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?”. It is the mission of The American Vicarious theatre company to “... create art that challenges us to confront the gap between America’s ideals and its lived realities”. Guys, there’s never been a better time.Almost three years on from their electrifying Debate: Baldwin vs Buckley recreated Read more ...
Gary Naylor
In the long slide from its imperial economic might, it’s hard to make a case for finding a place for “The UK” and ‘“World-leading” in the same sentence. But we’re pretty good at pop music, particularly once you offset Sir Cliff with Johnny Hallyday. C’mon Europe, whaddya got?It’s taken a while for that to be recognised by The Establishment, eventually getting round to gonging up Sir Macca and Sir Ringo, Sir Elton and Sir Rod, Sir Mick and Sir Tom. But who exactly is Sir Ray? He certainly needs more than one name, so what’s he ever done?That Knight of the Realm is, of course, Sir Ray Davies ( Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
If any readers can still remember 2024’s first iteration of Red Eye, they will have an approximate idea of the kind of things they can expect from this second instalment, in short, fast-food drama tarted up with a bit of political skulduggery. Screenwriter Peter A Dowling has cunningly identified a niche in the market for aviation-centric thrillers, though where last year’s model was set almost entirely on board an aircraft en route to Beijing, this one is mostly locked inside the American Embassy in London.Aviation-wise, the McGuffin du jour is an RAF aircraft which has mysteriously crashed Read more ...
Matt Wolf
If it's possible for snippets from live theatre to play in the mind on a perpetual loop, the London theatre during 2025 offered many such moments that I am (very happily) finding it hard to shake. I won't soon forget, for instance, the first glimpse of the furry, pint-sized Peruvian otherwise known as Paddington bear in Paddington the Musical, that rare homegrown musical painstakingly nurtured over time that spoke to the effort paid in bringing Michael Bond's creation to the stage. Amidst the bouquets that have quite properly been thrown the direction of the show's creatives - Luke Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Peace and Goodwill to All Men outside. Inside, on stage at least, there’s not much peace nor goodwill to be had on the horror-filled Saturday afternoon before Christmas. A high-spirited full house is set to spend a couple of hours with spirits of a very different kind. In every sense, it's a shocking contrast.Of course, this is no original IP, many punters, having seen what they liked in the Paranormal Activity movies, sitting down, drink in hand, bag of merch tucked under the seat, for a new fix, this time in the West End. That said, ghost stories are a Christmas tradition, whether Marley Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Eugene Jarecki’s forensic investigation concludes that Julian Assange’s character flaws are dwarfed by the high crimes he exposed, and can’t justify the cruel and unusual punishment of his cramped Ecuadorian Embassy sanctuary. This reverses what he sees as self-interested manipulation of the official narrative, which stoked personal condemnation as a smokescreen for state slaughter and surveillance.Character has dominated Assange’s evolving cinema persona, which began with fellow Australian Robert Connolly’s admiring Underground (2012), an account of young Julian the teen hacker in the barely Read more ...
Gary Naylor
In a warehouse, Tube trains rumbling below, Noah, his sister Tamara and his (Gentile) girlfriend Maud, live in a disused space, a North London simulacrum of a kibbutz, but with drug dealers at the door, unhinged co-tenants wandering in and out and a Christmas tree in the corner.Their father, Elliot, is visiting this kinda home for a kinda Christmas dinner which is also to be attended by Jack (now calling himself Aaron), Tamara’s kinda ex-bf, who moved to Tel Aviv for its skinny dipping and various other ‘Berlin of the East’ attractions. He brings a suitcase, but he and Tam have far more Read more ...
Joe Muggs
One of this year’s best music books, Songs in the Key of MP3 by Liam Inscoe-Jones, paints a picture of musicians of the “streaming era” having a different relationship to the past, compared to those of… well, the past. He shows how artists like Dev “Blood Orange” Hynes have adapted to mass availability of culture by indulging not in nostalgia for something vague, but using the endless micro detail at their fingertips for reconstructing, picking up unfinished business, creating “alternative presents” from which new lineages might branch off.So it is with a lot of this year’s best records. Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
This follow-up to 2022’s Man vs Bee finds Rowan Atkinson reprising the role of Trevor Bingley, a bumbling no-hoper who is somehow still at large in the community. He’s now separated from wife Jess (Claudie Blakley), with whom his daughter Maddy (Alanah Bloor) has been living, and dwells alone rather forlornly in a remote house in the countryside.Quite why Atkinson (in collaboration with co-writer Will Davies) seems so invested in this hapless and rather pathetic character remains a mystery, since it eschews entirely what used to be Atkinson’s main strengths (eg sardonic delivery, deadpan but Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
There is, of course, a long tradition in this country of Christmas Messiah performances – but it’s not one I’ve ever previously participated in. This was the first time I’ve ever heard Messiah live, despite being quite long in the tooth – and it was terrific. I can see what I’ve been missing out on all these years. Handel really knew what he was doing – as do the Philharmonia Chorus, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and four excellent soloists, all under the leadership of Eamonn Dougan.I am no expert on the scholarship behind performance practice of Messiah, although the piece is Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
As reports come in of theatre audiences behaving badly, slumped drunkenly in the aisles, gorging on noisy food and wrestling with their latest smartphones, it’s refreshing to see that kind of behaviour safely onstage, and played for big laughs. Surprisingly, perhaps, this mayhem comes courtesy of Noel Coward.The redoutable Menier has found another gem to polish after Nancy Carroll’s superb revival of Pinero’s The Cabinet Minister and its exuberant The Producers: a 100th birthday edition of Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels. Roundly denounced for its vulgarity and loose morals at its debut, the Read more ...
Gary Naylor
You can add to “Would The Taming of the Shrew still be staged, were it not written by William Shakespeare?” the question, “Would My Fair Lady still be staged were it not for those timeless songs?” Such conjectures are but sophistry, but they do present a dilemma to a director, and it’s always interesting to see how each new production deals with the issues the book throws up.It’s 1912 and the Suffragettes are demanding the vote, the mores and fashions of a still new century are asserting themselves and the carnage of Flanders is not yet visible on the horizon. A phonetics professor, Henry Read more ...