The Yard Covid rather dominated the end of 2019, starting 3 years of global upheaval that we are still paying for. However, 2019 was the year of return, marking 400 years since the first enslaved Africans touched down in Hampton Virginia, stolen from Ghana by the British. An international tragedy that dwarfs the pandemic in death toll and lasting effect. ...
The Barbican Islands are where the world pauses, takes a breath, isolated bubbles with their own rules. Yet the stamp of modernity rarely allows many to escape unaffected. Castle of Joy is another tale in a long lineage, pushing against the conforming boot of the mainland, extending in a furious but rather frantically aimed retaliation. Det Ferösche Compagnie is a ...
New Wimbledon Theatre How jazz hands are you as a person? I only ask as Garry Marshall’s touring production of everyone’s favourite Hooker-Businessman romance will test even the most ardent musical theatre zealot. It was 1990, the last gasp of the 80s, a decade so dusted with cocaine and capitalism that something had to give. The late great Garry Marshal directed a ...
The Yard As someone who has been rewatching the same four 90s sitcoms for the last ten years, I could not be called good at “endings”. So at least I have something in common with Mary Higgins and Ell Potter as they explore the phenomenon from all angles. I mean mainly from the theatrical one, but you get the idea. ...
Arcola Theatre January is a tense month, isn’t it? Cold and tense. Everything seems portentous to the coming year. My first dinner out in 2024, my first run, my first breakdown, my first trip to the theatre. Speaking of, my first tumble on the boards is a resurrection of a long-forgotten Michael Hastings play. Hastings’s work, although not obscure, has ...
Almeida Theatre ‘A thinking person’s musical Flippantly christened “a Soviet-peasant Fame” (by me), Paweł Pawlikowski’s Oscar-nominated 2018 film, Cold War, has now been musicalised. And you can add in a sprinkle of Elvis Costello and a sparkle of Conor McPherson because, after all, it is Christmas. Luminous telly stars and Polish folk music combine for an evening that glows, in ...
Although I know it’s only November, it’s late in the day, whether you like it or not, and we are in the festive season. Theatrically that means two things, clawing sentiment and brashy spectacle. It rarely means a flurry of Mongolian culture in the West End’s largest theatrical venue. The Mongol Khan started life as the 1998 play The State Without a ...
Adelphi Theatre Adding a 4th ABBA-based show to this already overstuffed city seems a brave move, but can the Swedish pop sensations still pull a crowd? Will the call of flesh and blood triumph (if only briefly) over the flatness of projected light? Let me start at the beginning. I am melded to a lovely Norwegian bloke. ABBA, along with thermal long johns ...
Arcola Theatre Haruki Murakami, master of Literature. Rambling global settings and gnawing sense of loss have cemented themselves as staples in his style, along with a lack of concise endings. Bryony Lavery’s recent adaption wrestles with a lesser-known work, Sputnik Sweetheart. Having very little to do with space (sadly) narrator K (Naruto Komatsu) has a stunted, pining, and dependent relationship ...
Almeida Theatre, ‘Impressive depiction of crumbling mental health’ Your enjoyment of a show can be as fickle as a spring breeze. Sometimes the stars don’t align, and a serene work might fall on deaf ears or a closed heart. The day you have led leading up to the anticipated evening obscures the trip itself. This is the conundrum I find ...