Review: Henry V
Bracing, fresh, wholly re-thought in every line, emerging with gleaming power, menace and wit. And I defy anyone not to smile at this new take on Shakespeare’s downbeat ending.
Genre: Live Music
Review: David Copperfield
A paean to live theatre; soaring seasonal spirit, struck with tenderness, joy, sorrow, plangent affirmation.
Review: Dinner With Groucho
McGuinness produces one of his finest works wrought from the sawdust of others and rendered it the burst of stars that irradiate the end.
Review: From Here to Eternity
Grabs you from the towards the close of Act One and doesn’t let go: from here to curtain we’re in heart-stopping eternity.
Review: Pericles
Kelly Hunter’s team have wrought a miracle of flight, realised by an outstanding cast who here at least, make us rank Pericles with Shakespeare’s other late Romances.
Review: St Nicholas Evelyne Harrison and Zhanna Kemp Saxophone/Piano Recital
A rare line-up, and a delight.
Review: All Saints Sara Oschlag Quartet Recital
A sovereign group, with Sara Oschlag a wonderful vocalist at its core
Review: John Collins St Nicholas Organ Recital
Yet another superb Collins recital. A hidden luxury we should enjoy.
Review: Michiko Shimanuki Piano Recital at All Saints, Hove
Consummate exploratory playing by a composer-pianist wholly inside these idioms.
Review: Chapel Royal Peter Sulski and Philippa Mo in Concert Mozart Violin/Piano Recital October 18th 2022
Sulski is sovereign in the viola, and Mo proves a radiant partner. An outstanding recital.
Review: SMC Concert Unitarian October 15th 2022
I can’t remember such unalloyed delight in an SMC concert.
Review: Unitarian, Kevin Allen Piano Recital
Kevin Allen stands among other composer-pianists who essay this territory: for whom the music is essential as composer and a language to breathe in.
Review: Chapel Royal Jane Faulkner and Gary Peacock in Mozart Violin/Piano Concert
Consummate Mozart performers - with a revelatory unskeining of the Lili Boulanger.
Review: Michele Roszak and Lynda Spinney: Love – Its Depths of Joy and Despair
A terrific way to blow the autumn leaves
Review: Yoko Ono and Paul Gregory Piano/Guitar Recital
Revelatory and a spellbinding introduction than in these performers hands, couldn’t be bettered.
Review: Karen Wong Solo flute, piccolo & baroque flute
Karen Wong, solo or playing in trio, is clearly a driving force of new repertoire, often the prelude to a great career
Review: The Doctor
A triumph for all concerned. Juliet Stevenson even gains in stature. Robert Icke’s revival could hardly go better than this.
Review: I, Joan
The title role goes to Isobel Thom, making their professional debut: the greatest I’ve ever seen.
Review: Tam O’ Shanter – Tales and Whisky
Burns' and other gothic poetry and stories told with a dram of whisky
Review: Movin’ Melvin Brown: A Man, A Magic, A Music
75 minutes of music history through stories and tap dancing
Review: Fruit Flies Like a Banana
No banana could fly as fast as these three virtuoso performers in this must see show as they combine virtuoso musicianship with acrobatics and dance
Review: Rebel
You may not know where you are going, but they promise it won’t be boring… and they deliver
Review: The Tempest
A joyous production, that without its gimmicky close, could certainly furnish a way in for many
Review: Jack Absolute Flies Again
What Richard Bean and Oliver Chris manage is homage, both to Sheridan’s shade, his early bawdy, and despite anything a memorial to those who laughed at themselves to death. A must-see.
Review: Much Ado About Nothing
This isn’t the most revelatory Much Ado, but the most consummate and complete for a while.
Review: Dad’s Army
You feel you’ve been part of an invited audience at one of the original TV productions
Review: Shake the City
A real play bursting out of its hour-plus length; with complex interaction, uncertain journeys, each character developing a crisis of isolation only resolved by sisterhood
Review: Waitress
Halfpenny raises soaring music theatre, an ounce of gold in the throat and stars six inches above it.
Review: Henry VIII
A wonderful score and musicians, above all Bea Segura’s titanic act of shrivelling, make this a must-see.
Review: Now That’s What I Call A Lot Of Songs About Science
John Hinton performs hilarious songs of science from a very extensive repertoire
Review: Cocky and the Tardigrades
Bonkers brilliance. Cocky couldn’t have been premiered with two more stunning actors, and the author’s flawless stepping-in remains remarkable.
Review: Spirit of Woodstock 2 – The Sequel
There’s no greater writer/performer working in Brighton, or Sussex, and Spirit of Woodstock Parts I and 2 is Jonathan Brown’s most dazzling show to date.
Review: The Misfortune of the English
Pamela Carter’s schoolboys embody human connectedness, warmth, a final camaraderie before the chill of history. Unmissable.
Review: The Corn is Green
There’s many reasons to see Williams’ finest play. To realise our potential it’s not enough to have dreams, but for someone to show us what those dreams could be.
Review: The Rise and Fall of Little Voice
The Rise and Fall of Little Voice sings out of damage into heartbreak and redemption. Those who don’t know the play or its outcome should see this, even those who have.
Review: Michele Roszak and Lynda Spinney: Spring’s Arrival
A terrific way to blow the cherry blossom
Review: The Paradis Files
Not so much an event as a concentration of Errollyn Wallen’s genius celebrating the life of blind composer Maria Theresia van Paradis, in Graeae’s world-class production
Review: Private Lives
Private Lives can never disappoint: it plays itself and as far as it’s a work of verbal tennis this production won’t pall either
Review: The Merchant of Venice
A reading of Adrian Schiller’s Shylock as probing as other great productions of the past decade; and of Sophie Melville’s nearly-rounded, brittle Portia.
Review: Beautiful
Outstanding, and outstandingly transferred as a tour that brings its stature with it.
Review: Measure for Measure
Immerse yourself in Blanche McIntyre’s quizzical production. You’ll come nearer to this play.
Review: Hamlet
Jumbo’s Hamlet strips out accretions and ghosts you into asking who or what Hamlet is. See it if you possibly can.
Review: Macbeth
Building out of Macbeth a recurring epic of structural violence not ended with one overthrow, sets the seal on this outstanding production.
Review: Heathers
Sometimes the dark is light enough. Meanwhile enjoy an exceptional cast and talent you’ll long to see again in something finer.
Review: Twelfth Night
With Michelle Terry as Viola, one of the most touching and truthful Twelfth Nights I’ve seen.
Review: Romeo and Juliet
A fleet, brilliantly upending, wholly relevant take on the Verona-ready toxicity feeding male violence and young depression
Review: Dirty Dancing
There’s a fitting heart-warming climax to a dream of production. And a surprise to those who think they know the film.
Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Even more than 2019, a carnival riot of joy – with enough misdirection to evoke moonshine
Review: The Dream Train
Contemplative and beautiful to watch, 4 characters interact in juxtaposed realities underscored by Bach's Goldberg Variations
Review: Celebrating Okoe
A beautiful homage to a personal friend and teacher that is rich and deep in the rhythm of celebration.
Review: Elsa McTaggart : When The World Stood Still
Foot tapping tunes emerge from a surreal lockdown experience.
Review: The Twits
A summer must-see to charge you up for the autumn, and taking on the real twits ahead.
Review: The Merchant of Venice
This production needs a run. It’s potentially a great interpretation.
Review: Dracula
You should see this with some fine acting and a storyline making more sense of Dracula than Stoker does himself.
Review: Tom Lehrer
Another sovereign tribute. Stefan Bednarczyk brings Tom Lehrer swaggering out of retirement.
Review: and breathe…
Yomi Sode’s hybrid theatre is a compelling immersion of witness and poetry: we need more of it.
Review: More Grimm Tales
A rollicking production with razored timing, musical cues and ad-libs worked in to half-second slots. A must-see.
Review: Bette: Bathhouse to Broadway!
One of the most musically satisfying, funny, filthy and inclusive tribute acts of its kind.
Review: Branching Out
Three very fine and one outstanding work, Scratches – the best kind of play on depression, self-harm, black holes. Because it’s screamingly funny and deeply connected to why we do theatre.
Review: Dazzling Divas
Issy Van Randwyck brings seven divas to life in this paean to tragic fulfilment.
Review: Chamberlain: Peace in Our Time
A light-filled small gem of a show, tuning into wireless crystals of a lost world.
Review: Vagabonds My Phil Lynott Odyssey
An original off-kilter approach to elegy, tribute and becoming yourself.
Review: Living Newspaper #6
Like all the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper series, we need this. Watch what this does with the future
Review: Hymn
Its potency lies in a fine peeling apart by Adrian Lester and Danny Sapini, and the language that bridges it.
