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David Nice
Tuesday, 27 June 2017
Why stage a stiff opera about half-frozen royals by a not-yet-divine Mozartino? The best Mitridate really deserves is one of those intimate concert performances with brilliant...
Saskia Baron
Tuesday, 27 June 2017
All the accolades heaped onto this documentary in the near 50 years since it was made are wholly deserved. Over 251 minutes, Marcel Ophüls weaves together an extraordinary...
David Nice
Monday, 26 June 2017
Perfect comedies for the country-house opera scene? Mozart's Figaro and Così, Strauss's Ariadne - and Britten's Albert Herring, now 70 years and a few days old, but as ageless as...
Stephen Walsh
Monday, 26 June 2017
Opera directors must, I suppose, direct. But one could wish that they kept their mouths shut, at least outside the rehearsal studio. The condescension in Longborough’s programme-...
Sarah Kent
Monday, 26 June 2017
Portraying a Nation juxtaposes photographs by August Sander with paintings by Otto Dix. It's an inspired idea as both artists wanted to hold up a mirror to German society during a...
Joe Muggs
Monday, 26 June 2017
Imagine that The Ramones were not only still playing into the mid 2000s, but were still writing new songs as good as “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” and still sending young audiences...
Marina Vaizey
Sunday, 25 June 2017
Reading the Rocks has a provocative subtitle, “How Victorian Geologists Discovered the Secret of Life”, indicating the role...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 25 June 2017
Considering Shelleyan Orphan, Melody Maker said “someone’s been smearing themselves in art…were they artists or did they...
Mark Kidel
Sunday, 25 June 2017
As Wonder Woman hits screens worldwide, the publication of a book that explores the myth and reality of the Amazon seems...
Barney Harsent
Sunday, 25 June 2017
Those coming to Lifetime of Love expecting something – anything – approaching Moses Archuleta’s day job in Deerhunter will...
Nick Hasted
Saturday, 24 June 2017
Isabelle Huppert isn’t just here for the nasty things in life. Her rape non-victim in Elle was one of the most iconoclastic...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 24 June 2017
Falla: Nights in the Garden of Spain, Ravel: Piano Concertos Steven Osborne (piano), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/...
Peter Quinn
Saturday, 24 June 2017
Denys Baptiste's deep dive into the mid-1960s work of jazz icon, sax player and composer John Coltrane also...
Matt Wolf
Friday, 23 June 2017
As with life, so it is in art: in the same way that one can't predict the curve balls that get thrown our way, the American...
Saskia Baron
Friday, 23 June 2017
It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen a movie as staggeringly awful as The Book of Henry. If it was just a touch more...
Aleks Sierz
Friday, 23 June 2017
Can the theatre be a courtroom? A good public place to debate morality and to arrive at profound decisions? You could answer...
Barney Harsent
Friday, 23 June 2017
Immigration…immigration… immigration… that’s what we need! Not the words of record-breaking, tap-dancing trumpeter Roy...
Graham Rickson
Friday, 23 June 2017
F Percy Smith was a maverick film-maker whose most important work was created in a house in suburban Southgate, North London...
Ismene Brown
Thursday, 22 June 2017
Recorded on disc, this cast would be extraordinary for much of the time — to look at, not so much. Royal Opera conductor...
Matt Wolf
Thursday, 22 June 2017
Do the makers of the essentially unnecessary Hampstead have a secret vendetta against north London and its citizenry?...
disc of the day
DVD/Blu-ray: The Sorrow and the Pity
The greatest documentary ever made, about France during the Second World War
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tv
Who Should We Let In? Ian Hislop on the First Great Immigration Row, review – how history repeats itself
The Private Eye editor's eye-opening examination of our attitudes to immigration, past and present
Chance, Universal review – Hugh Laurie is reborn as a film-noir shrink
Dr House finds a new home in San Francisco
film
DVD/Blu-ray: The Sorrow and the Pity
The greatest documentary ever made, about France during the Second World War
Souvenir review – Huppert does deadpan like Buster Keaton
Isabelle Huppert gives her tragicomic all to a Eurovision comeback
The Book of Henry review - staggeringly awful
Dazzlingly inept movie starring Naomi Watts that doesn't know what genre it belongs in
new music
Reissue CDs Weekly: Shelleyan Orphan
Box set dedicated to arty British duo pays tribute to their recently lost Caroline Crawley
classical
Classical CDs Weekly: Falla, Ravel, Antoine Tamestit, The American Brass Quintet
French and Spanish piano music, plus seductive viola sounds and phenomenal brass playing
Ensemble InterContemporain, Wigmore Hall
Eccentricity inspires colour, nuance and slapstick from young composer Matteo Franceschini
Classical CDs Weekly: Antheil, Debussy, Hosokawa, Schmidt
Symphonies from a self-styled 'bad boy', plus music from Austria, France and Japan
opera
Mitridate, Re di Ponto, Royal Opera review - Crowe and costumes light up pointless revival
Good singing not enough to justify the return of Graham Vick's 1991 production
Albert Herring, The Grange Festival review - playing it straight yields classic comedy gold
A true ensemble has a focused ball under veterans John Copley and Steuart Bedford
Fidelio, Longborough Festival review - death to the concept of concepts
Beethoven's only opera musically solid but imprisoned in a director's bad idea
theatre
Gloria, Hampstead Theatre review – pretty glorious
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's Off Broadway hit makes a vibrant crossing to London starring Colin Morgan
Terror, Lyric Hammersmith review – more gimmick than drama
Audience participation cannot save a trial that suffocates in abstraction
dance
Scottish Ballet, Sadler's Wells review - striking and memorable dance
Crystal Pite's 'Emergence' is a smart pick for the company
Sergei Vikharev, master ballet-reconstructor, 1962-2017
Sudden death at 55 of bold seeker after 'authentic' classical ballet
Ashton triple bill, Royal Ballet review – fond farewell to Zenaida Yanowsky
The prima ballerina bows out in 'Marguerite and Armand' as Akane Takada makes a lovely debut in 'The Dream'
comedy
Jeremy Hardy, Brighton Festival review - expert raconteur shows political bite
Radio 4 regular's conversational style masks a passionate pin-sharp topicality
Ricky Gervais, Touring review - chatty and relaxed riffing
Some very personal material among the edgy content
Ayesha Hazarika, Soho Theatre review - 'politics is her patch'
Former Labour adviser finds the funny in politics
gaming
Injustice 2 review - the even better sequel
A superhero soap opera with more twists and turns than a Netflix 12-parter
visual arts
Portraying a Nation, Tate Liverpool review – an inspired juxtaposition
Two artists hounded by the Nazis for their unflinching portrayal of the German people
National Gallery of Ireland review - bigger and better
Dublin celebrates the reopening of its refurbished art gallery with Vermeer
Fahrelnissa Zeid, Tate Modern review - rediscovering a forgotten genius
How a major 20th century painter was erased from history
latest comments
"...and perhaps reflecting Boyd’s penetratingly...
An excellent review of an underwhelming film.
I liked the inconsistency (generally I like...
I was up in Tier 2 and the sound was awful, so...
Nearly all the participants had loving,...
Ismene - Critics often review an event through a...
It was dire. Two lots of Russian 'baddies'...
Considering it's literally at the ends of the...