‘A lonely one-handers’ A high energy interpretation of a deeply personal history, this story is warped by intimate contact and left me, as a spectator on the outside, confused.  We are all a tapestry of stories and secrets. Unwinding that in front of a live audience has in the past proved a theatrical gold mine. The personal history on the ...

‘A rip-roaring night out that the theatre’ What were you doing on International Women’s Day 2022? Protesting? Sitting at home reading Nella Larsen? Spending quality time with the women who inspire you? Or were you watching two men in very bad drag craft a pub table biography of Britain’s most famous queen? I think we can guess which scenario I ...

‘Puccini is still master of the miserable’ English Touring Opera Nestled semi-ironically amongst the red velvet and golden embellishments of the Hackney Empire, Giacomo Puccini’s classic opera arrives in a flurry of sweet words and cold snow. While musically divine, some visual choices detract from this outpouring of love and loss. The story follows a bohemian set living in squalor ...

‘A musical funhouse’ A vague haze fills the Barbican as if someone had a furtive ciggy right before everyone filed in. The dark shapes of the multitudinous BBC Symphony Orchestra are broken up by a glittering jacket here and there like scattered gemstones – appropriate for a night filled with moments of bright beauty. Lit by four large, glass globes ...

‘Expansive talent’ London Symphony Orchestra and Barbara Hannigan Barbara Hannigan. Photograph: Marco Borggreve / courtesy Barbican Surrounded by the masked, pointed bows of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) at the Barbican, on strides the imposing figure of Barbara Hannigan. Hannigan is celebrating her recent appointment as the LSO’s associate artist for the next three years. What wonders will they bring? ...

‘Crossing theological, geographical, and genre boundaries’ On a red-carpeted platform, a circular plunge pool quietly ripples. But what follows is a far cry from any jubilant christening or happy summer days splashing about in a paddling pool. Myth and Mental health form a treacherous undertow in Dipo Baruwa-Etti’s choppy new play. Rosie Elnile set echos the inside of a church, ...

‘Springing wry smiles from our lips’ What comes to mind when you think of the Netherlands? Soaring handsome blondes? Fields of variegated tulips? Or other more….illicit plants? Well, if you also thought of blooming youthful talent you would be bang on. Thanks to Dance Consortium Nederlands Dan Theater’s pioneering wing, NDT2 flings itself into Sadlers Wells, for a sprightly evening ...

‘Hunter is a born clown’ What can be said of Eugene Ionesco’s subline surrealist play The Chairs? A little like dropping acid at a children’s birthday party the experience proves hard to describe, but as it is my job to do so, I’ll try. Bursting into the pre-war gloom of the British theatre scene Ionesco joined the illustrious ranks of Europe’s ...

‘Larger group scenes slip into a forced sense of the importance’ American playwright Carey Crim’s gutsy emotional drama takes its first faltering steps in the UK. The play attempts to weave various issues surrounding consent and family into an overarching narrative but gets itself twisted in the process. We are ushered into the domestically blissful world of Alison played by ...

‘Deeply funny and moving’ With the shadow of Pina Bausch less looming large and more guiding their actions, Tanztheater Wuppertal brings one of the late choreographer’s older works back to London. But how does the gender politics of 1978, wrapped in the clothes and music of the mid-1930s, land in 2022? I love Bausch, and Kontakthof has all the elements we come ...