The British composer and sound designer Sarah Angliss received her inspiration for this new opera from a visit to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons where she saw the huge skeleton of the man known as The Irish Giant. The museum started as a private collection of the esteemed anatomist and surgeon … Read more
Richard Wagner was still in his late-20s when he achieved his first great operatic hit with The Flying Dutchman, but both the plot and the music already showed the grandeur, the ambition and the power he was to achieve in his later highly-acclaimed works. The opera is based on a legend of a ghost ship, … Read more
There are essentially three types of opera director: those who stick as faithfully as possible to the original composer’s and librettist’s intentions; those who add a few touches of their own to enhance or modernise the original; and those who try to adapt the original into a vehicle for their own ideas. Simon McBurney is … Read more
I’ve said it before, this is the greatest new British musical for years. Transferring from the National Theatre to the West End’s Gillian Lynne after bagging Best New Musical and Best Original Score at the 2023 Olivier Awards, Britpop legend Richard Hawley’s back catalogue soundtracks a gut-punchingly charged tale of three sets of inhabitants of … Read more
“Now, what seems to be the problem?” chirps Keeley Hawes’ indefatigable 1940s GP and aspiring politician Iris to us at the end of the play. Errm, the play, obviously. Hours of soporifically muddled plotting, creaking dialogue, clunky exposition, extraordinarily wandering accents, pretentious staging, jarring projections and one cringingly am-dram marital tussle make the diagnosis simple. … Read more
If suds are your thing, you’ll still get a nice lather out of this product, even without the sulfates, an ingredient you won’t find in any of the Cécred formulas, in addition to artificial dyes, BPA, BHA, BHT, DEA, formaldehyde, microbeads, mineral oil, phthalates, PEGs, and silicones. Cruel: The hydrating shampoo really lathers. While I … Read more
On paper, Hadestown really shouldn’t work. A broodingly melancholy musical based on Greek myth via modern industrial and socioeconomic concerns, with a fusion steampunk and New Orleans setting, a meandering plot and distinct lack of catchy show tunes? And yet… The packed crowd exuberantly cheered as each character came on, and their delirious delight sustained … Read more
London ticket prices, eh? At least for £395 you get to gawp at two Hollywood stars in Plaza Suite, with Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick on high form in a sub-par play just down the road (which is sadly not paved for most of us with precious metals). In this wildly radical, techtastic reboot … Read more
Don’t be fooled by the pink spangly costumes and cheesy grins. This gloriously written tragicomedy with sensational performances across the board is a piercing elegy to the ties that don’t just bind but suffocate down the years. Set in the ‘public front room’ of the clapped-out Blackpool Sea View motel during the sweltering summer of … Read more
In director Reinaldo Marcus Green’s reverential biopic of Bob Marley, the reggae singer travels to late 1970s’ London with his entourage to begin work on a new album. “I wanna make a record that can shake up the place,” he vows, having recently survived an assassination attempt in Kingston, Jamaica. Bob Marley: One Love doesn’t … Read more
