Reviews
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Friday, 14 November 2025
We are bowled over!
Kiefer / Van Gogh, Royal Academy review - a pairing of opposites
Saturday, 05 July 2025
When he was a callow youth of 18, German artist Anselm Keifer got a travel grant to follow in the footsteps of his idol, Vincent van Gogh. Some sixty years later, work by the two artists has been brought together at the Royal Academy in a show that highlights Van Gogh’s influence on his acolyte and invites you to compare and contrast.
Siglo de Oro, Wigmore Hall review - electronic...
Saturday, 05 July 2025
Siglo de Oro are a vocal ensemble who specialise in older music – and especially neglected older music – but they have also always programmed...
Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting, National...
Friday, 04 July 2025
When in the 1990s, Jenny Saville’s peers shunned painting in favour of alternative media such as photography, video and installations, the artist...
Hot Milk review - a mother of a problem
Friday, 04 July 2025
Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Hot Milk, adapted from Deborah Levy’s 2016 Man Booker shortlistee, has been described as a "psychological drama". Strictly...
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Glastonbury Festival 2025: Five Somerset summer days of music, controversy and beautiful mayhem
The full, brain-frazzling, immersive deep dive into Worthy Farm's music and arts spectacular |
Tom Raworth: Cancer review - truthfulness
A 'lost' book reconfirms Raworth’s legacy as one of the great lyric poets |
Hill, Sky Documentaries review - how Damon Hill battled his demons
Alex Holmes's film is both documentary and psychological portrait |
The Shrouds review - he wouldn't let it lie
More from the gruesome internal affairs department of David Cronenberg |
Jurassic World Rebirth review - prehistoric franchise gets a new lease of life
Scarlett Johansson shines in roller-coaster dino-romp |
Semele, Royal Opera review - unholy smoke
Style comes and goes in a justifiably dark treatment of Handelian myth |
Sudan, Remember Us review - the revolution will be memorised
Gonzo documentary shines light on a lost opportunity in the Arab spring |
Le nozze di Figaro, Glyndebourne review - perceptive humanity in period setting
Mostly glorious cast, sharp ideas, fussy conducting |
Quadrophenia, Sadler's Wells review - missed opportunity to give new stage life to a Who classic
The brilliant cast need a tighter score and a stronger narrative |
Fidelio, Garsington Opera review - a battle of sunshine and shadows
Intimacy yields to spectacle as Beethoven's light of freedom triumphs |
Summer Laugh review - five comics gear up for the Fringe
Terrific initiative by Scottish stand-ups |
Album: Brìghde Chaimbeul - Sunwise
A singular sonic auteur reshapes traditional Celtic music |
Music Reissues Weekly: Rupert’s People - Dream In My Mind
How ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ transformed a London mod-pop band |
Intimate Apparel, Donmar Warehouse review - stirring story of Black survival in 1905 New York
An early Lynn Nottage work gets a superb cast and production |
Hercules, Theatre Royal Drury Lane review - new Disney stage musical is no 'Lion King'
Big West End crowdpleaser lacks punch and poignancy with join-the-dots plotting and cookie-cutter characters |
Chicken Town review - sluggish rural comedy with few laughs (and one chicken)
A comedy great gets lost in an English backwater |
Aldeburgh Festival, Weekend 2 review - nine premieres, three young ensembles - and Allan Clayton
A solstice sunrise swim crowned the best of times at this phoenix of a festival |
F1: The Movie review - Brad Pitt rolls back the years as maverick racer Sonny Hayes
Joseph Kosinski's motorsport spectacle delivers bang for your buck |
Brad Mehldau Trio, St George's Bristol review - exquisite intelligence
A brilliant trio in scintillating conversation |
Dangerous Matter, RNCM, Manchester review - opera meets science in an 18th century tale
Big doses of history and didaction are injected into 50 minutes of music theatre |
Ian Leslie: John and Paul - A Love Story in Songs review - help!
Ian Leslie loses himself in amateur psychology, and fatally misreads The Beatles |
Album: BC Camplight - A Sober Conversation
Brian Christinzio exorcises childhood trauma |
Schubertiade 3 at the Ragged Music Festival, Mile End review - five great musicians keep spirits soaring
Kolesnikov, Tsoy, Leonskaja, Ibragimova and Hecker in spellbinding performances |
Showmanism, Hampstead Theatre review - lip-synced investigation of words, theatricality and performance
Technically accomplished production with Dickie Beau never settles into a coherent whole |
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