London
Pericles, National Theatre review - a fizzingly energetic productionMonday, 27 August 2018
A break-dancing mini Michael Jackson, a transvestite Neptune, and a hero who wears his hubris as proudly as his gold-tipped trainers, are unconventional even by Shakespeare’s standards, but they all play a key part in this joyful act of subversion.... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: It Happened HereTuesday, 21 August 2018
Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo’s It Happened Here surely deserves the acclaim often accorded it as “the most ambitious amateur film ever made”, and the rich supporting extras on this BFI dual-format release make clear why. Best of all is a 65-... Read more... |
Box office poison? Joan Crawford at BFI SouthbankMonday, 30 July 2018
What’s that? Joan Crawford had no sense of humour? Well, take a look at It's A Great Feeling. It’s a pretty bizarre (and pretty bad) 1949 musical with Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan playing themselves running round the Warner Brothers lot... Read more... |
Prom 12, Weilerstein, BBCSO, Canellakis review - energetic 20th century classicsTuesday, 24 July 2018
Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto combines the composer’s usual angst and nerviness with a sardonic humour, right from the opening bars, where the cello and orchestra seem to be playing in contradictory keys. At last night’s Prom, cellist Alisa... Read more... |
Mission: Impossible - Fallout review - brilliant summer blockbusterMonday, 23 July 2018
This is the second Mission: Impossible movie written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the first time any director has been called back for an encore on the series. He did a smart job on 2015’s Rogue Nation, but this time he has pulled out... Read more... |
Paul Simon, BST Hyde Park review - still sprightly after 76 yearsMonday, 16 July 2018
"Homeward Bound – the Farewell Tour", they were calling it. But with a show this strong, nobody would complain if that farewell were to turn out at some point not to be absolutely final.Paul Simon is 76, and there is absolutely no doubt that as he... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Woodfall - A Revolution in British CinemaWednesday, 11 July 2018
Woodfall was the independent film production company responsible more than any other for launching and realising the British New Wave of the early 1960s. The outfit was formed in 1958 by theatre and film director Tony Richardson, playwright... Read more... |
The London Mastaba, Serpentine Galleries review - good news for ducks?Thursday, 21 June 2018
It’s not as immersive as New York’s The Gates, 2005, nor as magnificent as Floating Piers, 2016, in Italy’s Lake Iseo – it has also, according to Hyde Park regular Kay, “scared away the ducks,” – but superstar artist Christo’s... Read more... |
Julie, National Theatre review - vacuous and unilluminatingSaturday, 09 June 2018
It seems appropriate that an onstage blender features amidst Tom Scutt's sleek, streamlined set for Julie given how many times Strindberg's 1888 play has been put through the artistic magimix. Rarely, however, have the results been less illuminating... Read more... |
Sancho: An Act of Remembrance, Wilton's Music Hall review - pure entertainmentFriday, 08 June 2018
One space, one person, one story, one voice – the monologue is theatre distilled, the purest form of entertainment. On a stage of packing boxes and boards, over the course of just over an hour, Paterson Joseph relays and plays the life of... Read more... |
Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One, Tate Britain review - all in the mindTuesday, 05 June 2018
Not far into Aftermath, Tate Britain’s new exhibition looking at how the experience of World War One shaped artists working in its wake, hangs a group of photographs by Pierre Anthony-Thouret depicting the damage inflicted on Reims. Heavy censorship... Read more... |
Joan Baez, Royal Albert Hall review - diamonds, but no rustWednesday, 30 May 2018
2018 has become a year of farewells as a mighty handful of musicians who have, in their different ways, defined popular music bow out. Among them is Joan Baez, a star on the Harvard Square coffeehouse scene when she made her unannounced debut at the... Read more... |
