Mountains and Seas – Song of Today 山海 · 今日之歌 is a new multidisciplinary work co-produced by Kakilang. A visually impressive if somewhat impenetrable world of ancient creatures becomes a tool to confront the challenges we face today. Mountains and Seas – Song of Today Despite the frequency with which I go to evening performances of one kind […]
The V&A’s latest blockbuster exhibition Marie Antoinette Style focuses on the queen’s lasting impact on fashion, design and art. Are there no more pressing lessons to learn from this stylish queen? Marie Antoinette Style It was a tale of two very different exhibitions when I was last at the V&A. Design and Disability took steps […]
Carlotta and Cecilia dream of life as Broadway stars in La Bella Bimba! Will they make it, or will 1920s New York be too harsh a place for these two Italian girls? La Bella Bimba! I wrote when I saw Crownless last week that it was my last Voila! Theatre Festival outing for the year. […]
Townsend Theatre Productions revive We Are The Lions, Mr Manager! ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Grunwick dispute in Willesden, North London. The Story of the Grunwick Strike Last night’s theatre outing was a double discovery – of Sands Films Studio as a venue, and of the story of Jayaben Desai and the Grunwick […]
Abdelwahab, a one-off performance at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, explores the music and legacy of father of modern Egyptian music Mohamed Abdelwahab. Abdelwahab at Theatre Royal Drury Lane I had a wonderfully London-y day on Sunday. I went to the National Gallery and saw highlights from the Kröller-Müller Collection (post coming soon). Followed by […]
Crownless puts a new spin on Hamlet, incorporating text from the original and from feminist writers. Clever and fast-paced, this is a worthwhile watch. Crownless I’ve written previously about how I feel I’ve seen enough Hamlets now. He is paralysed by inaction. He’s not nice to Ophelia (or pretty much anyone). We get it.* This […]
Duccio Baldasseroni invites us right into the psyche of a “professional actor and writer” in SOLO. SOLO SOLO is a somewhat idiosyncratic piece, but I found myself drawn to it. On now at the Barons Court Theatre as part of Voila! Theatre Festival, it sits in a space between theatre and exercise, where the performer […]
Precipice is an ambitious, musically inventive new musical that, despite some limitations, tackles the end of the world with more honesty, humour and humanity than you’d expect from a two-hour show set in a Greenwich tower block. Precipice Precipice is a bold and heartfelt new musical from Timelapse, supported by New Diorama Theatre. One of […]
Threepenny Collective mine a dark story from history in L’Indiscipline, making its English-language debut as part of Voila! Theatre Festival. Content warning: discusses historic treatment of mental illness, including outdated practices and terms. L’Indiscipline Sometimes you don’t have to depart too far from reality to conjure up a story that seems stranger than fiction. That’s […]
Sophia Griffin’s After Sunday explores healing and harm in a medium-secure hospital’s weekly Caribbean cooking group. After Sunday I’m not sure that the saying ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’ quite flies in this day and age. Smacks a bit of traditional gender roles. But I would argue that the way […]
