Franco Milazzo - Page 7

Jim Steinman's Bat Out Of Hell roars back into town so, over the sound of screeching motorcycles and teenage screams, we speak to star Sharon Sexton

That Leonard Cohen, one of the greatest modern troubadours, inspired such a disconnected dance show is possibly a testament to just how elusive his songs are.

Belgian dance company Peeping Tom verily put the 'trip' into Triptych, a brilliantly bizarre neo-noir dance trilogy full of deliciously dark delights.

Whether you see this because of the scintillating score or because a night at the opera is now cheaper than heating your home, The Barber Of Seville is sure to warm the cockles of your heart.

Jude Christian's visually stunning take on this goriest of stories from Shakespeare is bound to raise more than a few eyebrows. In a gender reversal of what likely took place on its first outing, this production has an all-female cast committing the heinous murders. The many, many deaths are portrayed by candles being snuffed out. This may be set in ancient Rome, but the dress code here is pyjamas and, in place of lyres and pan pipes, the music here consists mainly of darkly comic songs. A classic interpretation? Hardly

A party where no guests turns up. A punch bowl spiked with enough booze to get a mountain gorilla drunk. And a dancing carrot stick. Welcome to Bill's 44th birthday.

Quite why there aren’t more boundary-pushing, avant-garde, drag-slash-dance troupes around that appropriate film, TV and music to bring us satirically twisted versions of real-life and fictional historical figures, I really have no idea. So let’s treasure the ones that are around, eh?

Slashed, smashed, squished, shot, stabbed and splatted: these are only some of the ways that Canadian company The Old Trout Puppet Workshop kill off their creations in the pitch-black Famous Puppet Death Scenes, making its London premiere at The Barbican as part of this year's London International Mime Festival.

Part of this year’s London International Mime Festival, The Nature of Forgetting from Theatre Re dynamically tackles the topic of memory and what we do – and don’t – recall.

South African performance artist Jemma Kahn and her seven kamishibai stories both start off appearing quite ordinary before revealing remarkable levels of sex, violence and all manner of delightfully sordid behaviour.

There are generally two kinds of audiences at Cirque du Soleil shows. The first kind is usually by far the majority: excited, expectant, often slack-jawed at the amazing feats and ready to clap at any opportunity. Then there’s the rest: hesitant chin-rubbers who still hold out hope after seeing one too many over-hyped shows from this billion-dollar company, non-plussed by the standard circus tropes rolled out in the show-specific costumes or staging but quite ready to rave about whatever makes this production genuinely special. Hello, my name is Franco and I’m a Cirque cynic.

Backed by an extensive PR campaign that can probably be seen from outer space, George Takei’s Allegiance has finally landed in London. The media attention has been focused on the marquee name attached to this much-anticipated musical, but its political topic is the real talking point here.

As Cirque du Soleil returns to the Royal Albert Hall this month with Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities, we speak to its artistic director Rachel Lancaster.

If 2020 was the year theatre ground to a halt and 2021 was when it nervously found its legs again (only to fall over occasionally), then 2022 was when it blasted back to some kind of normal with many pandemic-delayed shows finally seeing the inside of a venue.

As the wrangles continue over the funding of the arts in general – and London opera in particular – up pops David McVicar’s The Magic Flute to show just what the fuss is all about. @royaloperahouse #opera

How much does the world love Dolly Parton? Let us count the ways. She gave $1m to help fund the Moderna vaccine which has saved around two million lives, she started up in 2007 the Imagination Library which every month now donates more than 40,000 books across the UK and she wrote “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” on the same day.

To paraphrase Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, when Mandela is good, it’s very, very good, and when it’s bad, it’s almost unwatchable.

Sir Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty debuted in 2012 to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Bourne’s New Adventures company. Ten years on, the celebratory production is now in its own turn being celebrated.

Those who deride this particular vision of Handel’s masterpiece as being inauthentic should be locked in some stocks and pelted with facts.

Drag queens are rarely charged with the crime of being understated so it is hardly surprising that San Fran’s Peaches Christ and her co-host Edwin Outwater chose to partner up with the Royal Albert Hall for the UK debut of their perennial Christmas show.