‘A heart-breaking reality, one that runs throughout the evening like a song of familial longing.’ Many of us on this emotionally pruned island only hug our mums at Christmas. In my household, a little shoulder squish is about as demonstrative as we get, and we’re a pretty liberal bunch. Professional Dancer Mohamed Toukabri stages a celebration of touch and connection ...

‘All manic laughter and not very much else’ A 1930s tragicomedy of manners filled with venom and set partly on a balcony should feel right at home in the ancient shell of a Roman amphitheatre. Shouldn’t it? I mean they are both outside, and both involve historic exhibitions of cruelty. OVO and Adam Nichols resurrect one of Noël Coward’s most ...

‘Glamour like only the Italians know how to do’ Despite you reading this in a hopefully sweltering August (the UK general release date) I crammed myself into the Curzon basement for the press screening in June. Now that might not seem relevant until we realise that the gay gods gifted British theatre critics with a coming-of-age trans story, set in ...

‘The songs are vaguely familiar, the dance routines long, numerous, and deeply impressive and the overall effect pleasant if not ground-breaking’ Billed as “the original showbiz musical” it would be more astute to call it a Frankensteinian opulent 80s rework. Isn’t that a catchy nickname? Resurrected from a 1933 musical film of the same name producer David Merrick spliced the original lyrics ...

‘Singing is what you’re coming for, isn’t it?’ The latest dining/ theatre experience to hit London is SingEasy, situated in the heart of the West End’s Theatreland. We sent our intrepid Gabriel along to sample not just the food, but the whole experience. Hell is personal. Mine is people playing music out loud on the Tube. So, when I describe a ...

‘Colour, flavour, and pounds of gorgeous bread’ What makes a restaurant a perfect refuge from the nibbling insecurities of life? Why, for instance, is a café, sausage rolls and all, not a restaurant? How about a food truck outside a brewery or a hotdog stand manned by two entrepreneurial 11-year-olds? The line between different purveyors of food and atmosphere is ...

‘Come for the bar, stay for the barbecue delights’ The scrabble for the sun has begun. Londoners starved of warmth stagger out from the dark interiors of pubs like zombies growling in the harsh rays. But sometimes the option of slowly swaying into inebriation outside your local while dodging Deliveroo drivers isn’t so appealing. You are an adult, damn it. ...

‘A bouncing ride, never lagging, never stopping, pushing onward with soul, funk, and feeling‘ A blinking billboard proclaims The Temptations at the Fox Theatre. A booming American voice jovially tells us to turn off our phones and topically makes a joke about unwrapping our lozenges now. A generation who grew up with The Temptations on record as I did with Britney Spears ...

‘A story steeped in the heat and horror of the early days of the civil rights movement but with an urgent message for our current warming and woeful world’ I love honey, and the little yellow jackets that craft it so carefully (much to the disappointment of my vegan mother), AND I love Lynn Nottage’s glowing version of Sue Monk ...

‘The concept is innovative, flowing from the lunchtime practice in the Indian sub-continent of dabba delivery services’ Being ethical isn’t easy. I know we are meant to lie and say that it is: skipping through a field of native deciduous woodland picking violets for our home infusions, wearing cotton weaved from reclaimed sea kelp. But it’s expensive, arduous and at ...