love
'The din is loud these days': playwright Cordelia Lynn on her imminent premiere at the Donmar WarehouseMonday, 11 October 2021
As I write this, we've just had our final day in the rehearsal room and are going into tech onstage next week with my new play, which is also reopening the Donmar not only to live performance but follows major renovations at their home address.It’s... Read more... |
Album: James Blake - Friends That Break Your HeartSaturday, 09 October 2021
There I was, gleefully prepared to give this a good kick-in but, annoyingly, it’s defied my expectations. I’ve come to associate James Blake’s singing with the worst excesses of I’m-so-vulnerable-me, post-Jeff Buckley, falsetto-voice-breaking, and... Read more... |
Metamorphoses, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - punchy, cleverly reworked classicThursday, 07 October 2021
Ovid was exiled – or to put it in twenty-first century terms, "no-platformed" – by an indignant Emperor Augustus for the scandal caused by his three-book elegy on love, Ars Amatoria. Most scholars believe the intrigue behind his banishment to be... Read more... |
How to Survive an Apocalypse, Finborough Theatre review - millenarian millennialsMonday, 04 October 2021
Despite its painfully relevant title, How To Survive An Apocalypse was written in 2016. If only Canadian playwright Jordan Hall knew, eh? The end times aren’t just creeping but hurtling towards us, these days. Luckily for those weary of Covid... Read more... |
Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's Globe review - foot-stompingly good funWednesday, 11 August 2021
The best version of Twelfth Night I’ve seen is not called Twelfth Night. For sheer knockabout entertainment, nothing beats the 2006 film She’s the Man. But Sean Holmes’ production for the Globe’s summer season, brimming with song and physical comedy... Read more... |
Thora Hjörleifsdóttir: Magma review - love burns in debut novel from IcelandTuesday, 03 August 2021
Thora Hjörleifsdóttir’s Magma is certainly not an easy read. It describes, in short chapters, the obsessive and ultimately destructive power of an abusive relationship. It is, at times, patchily written (perhaps because we have been... Read more... |
L'amico Fritz, Opera Holland Park review - slow-burning love, Italian styleSaturday, 17 July 2021
“If this is love, then why have I fought it?” The stock romantic-comedy prevarications had a Greenwich Village setting in Bernstein’s Wonderful Town at Opera Holland Park less than two weeks ago. Last night, the place was nominally Alsace but the... Read more... |
Two of Us review - a lesbian love story with a differenceThursday, 15 July 2021
“Do you have a problem with old dykes?” demands Nina (the superbly ferocious Barbara Sukowa) of a bland, nervous young estate agent, halfway through this wonderfully original first feature from director Filippo Meneghetti. No, he stammers. “You see... Read more... |
Romeo & Juliet, Shakespeare's Globe review - unsatisfactory mix of clumsy and edgySaturday, 10 July 2021
"It is dangerous for women to go outside alone," blares the electronic sign above the stage of the new Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare's Globe. This disquieting sentiment obviously takes some of its resonance from the Sarah Everard case, yet it also... Read more... |
Constellations, Vaudeville Theatre review - a starry revivalFriday, 02 July 2021
A cosmologist and a beekeeper walk into a barbecue. Or a wedding. The beekeeper is in a relationship, or married, or just out of a relationship, or married again. The cosmologist shares the secret of the universe with him: it’s impossible to lick... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Flowers of ShanghaiTuesday, 22 June 2021
Rounding out a decade of personal success – beginning with his Cannes Jury Prize-winning The Puppetmaster (1993), followed by a best director award for Good Men, Good Women (1995) – the Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien... Read more... |
In the Heights review - to life, Lin-Manuel Miranda-styleFriday, 18 June 2021
The general uptick of late in film versions of stage musical hits continues apace with In the Heights, which, to my mind anyway, is far more emotionally satisfying and visually robust onscreen than it was on Broadway, where it won the 2008 Tony for... Read more... |
