Review: KIRILL RICHTER - THE SANDS OF TIME, London ColiseumSeptember 12, 2024Have you ever invited a guest to your own party and then seen them totally upstage you? If so, spare some sympathy for Kirill Richter who presented his new work The Sands Of Time alongside the National Symphony Orchestra of Uzbekistan for one night only at the London Coliseum.
Review: THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW, Dominion TheatreSeptember 11, 2024Featuring a press night appearance from creator Richard O’Brien and Jason Donovan as the suspender-donning scientist Frank N. Furter, The Rocky Horror Show returns to the West End. The raucous homage to the films and music of the 1950s as seen through a pansexual lens lays a claim to being the UK’s most popular musical.
Review: THE MAGNETIC FIELDS: 69 LOVE SONGS, Barbican HallSeptember 3, 2024Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of American metal band Goatwhore, Stephin Merritt and his Magnetic Fields bandmates arrived in London last weekend to celebrate the 25th anniversary of genre-blending 69 Love Songs.
Review: WING CHUN, Sadler's WellsSeptember 2, 2024Presented as a side-by-side narrative by the Shenzen Opera and Dance company, Wing Chun tells the story of kung fu grandmaster and Bruce Lee mentor Yip Man as well as that of a film crew making a movie about his life.
Review: A NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN THE MUSICAL, Peacock TheatreAugust 29, 2024Who wouldn’t want to spend a night with Janis Joplin? Despite barely hitting the charts on this side of the pond, the American singer still symbolises the best (and worst) of the Sixties over fifty years before she joined the 27 Club. Not that you would know from this show.
Review: BOUND, BargehouseAugust 27, 2024As shown in Amber Jarman-Crainey’s Bound (stylised as B O U N D), talking to the dead is not solely the preserve of spiritualists and mediums. Her immersive meditation on grief manifests in the form of nine storylines where the living pour their hearts to those who have passed.
Review: MR PUNCH AT THE OPERA, Arcola TheatreAugust 22, 2024It’s not every show that hands out party poppers as you go in. Aimed at young audiences, Mr Punch At The Opera whips together the iconic hand-puppets with a musical amuse-bouche.
Review: THE 39 STEPS, Trafalgar TheatreAugust 20, 2024Patrick Barlow’s parody The 39 Steps creaks and groans in places but still has plenty of laughs. Wrapped around the central character of Richard Hannay, the story unfurls as we see him accused of murder, run from the police and then defeat a foreign cabal of spies.
Review: MADAMA BUTTERFLY, Royal Opera HouseJuly 15, 2024There’s a singular simplicity in Madama Butterfly that draws in audiences year after year, decade by decade like moths to a flame: a man loves and leaves a woman; she gives up everything for him. With a staging that mirrors that bare but powerful concept, Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s 2002 production returns again to Covent Garden with more than a patina of authenticity.
Review: TOSCA, Royal Opera HouseJuly 2, 2024Fronted by some fresh faces, Jonathan Kent’s cinematic take on the Puccini masterwork Tosca returns for its seventeenth run at Covent Garden.
Review: MANIKINS: A WORK IN PROGRESS, CRYPTJuly 2, 2024Deadweight Theatre’s The Manikins: A Work In Progress is many things. It is interactive. It is intimate. It is thought-provoking. And, despite the misleading title, it has a polished concept that leaves its audience pondering long after the show ends.
Review: ACROBATIC SWAN LAKE, Sadler's WellsJune 24, 2024Zhang Quan’s Acrobatic Swan Lake is so much more than its title suggests. The show originated in China in 2004 and, in the intervening decades, has travelled the world and was updated in 2019 under director Yan Hongxia. As choreographer and artistic director, Quan has created a work which seamlessly blends the elegance and poetry of ballet with the ability of circus to defy physics and the limits of the human body.
Review: THE BARBER OF SEVILLE, Opera Holland ParkJune 5, 2024Even if the press night weather for this open air production suggested otherwise, this latest take on The Barber Of Seville is the perfect summer opera with its fluffy blend of humour and romance and some of the art form’s best known arias.