fri 29/03/2024

politics

Fellow Travellers, Paramount+ review - four-decade saga of power, politics and gay love

Derived from the similarly-titled novel by Thomas Mallon and directed by Ron Nyswaner, Fellow Travellers tracks the course of its protagonists through several decades of 20th Century American history. It’s also an account of changing attitudes to...

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Charlie Porter: Bring No Clothes - Bloomsbury and the Philosophy of Fashion review - dress to impress

It’s not hard to miss the fact that Bloomsbury is back in fashion at the moment. This summer, it felt like everyone’s Instagram story showed a trip to Charleston (the home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant). In the last month alone, the Charleston...

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The Flea, The Yard Theatre review - biting satire fails to sting

A flea bites a rat which spooks a horse which kicks a man and… an empire falls?James Fritz has won writing awards already in his developing career, but he has set himself quite the challenge to weave a thread that can bear that narrative weight. Two...

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Dead Dad Dog, Finborough Theatre review - Scottish two-hander plays differently 35 years on, but still entertains

I know, I was there. Well, not in Edinburgh in 1985, but in Liverpool in 1981, and the pull of London and the push from home, was just as strong for me back then as it is for Eck in John McKay’s comedy Dead Dad Dog. Back in London for the...

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The Foreigners' Panto, BOLD Theatre review - no laughing matter

The starting point of this musical comedy – using a panto format to take a deep dive into the UK's immigration law – comes from such a good place that one feels a real heel for criticising it. But however much I wanted to like Shani Erez's ambitious...

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Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape, Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh review - a maze of ideas

The title of Peter Arnott’s new play – a co-production with the Pitlochry Festival Theatre, and now partway into a ten-day run at Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre – might conjure a painterly image of contented friends and family in an idyllic rural...

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Imposter 22, Royal Court Theatre review - ace on representation, less so on structure

The Royal Court’s collaboration with Access All Areas (AAA) may not be theatre’s first explicit embrace of the neurodiverse community on stage: Chickenshed has five decades of extraordinary inclusive work behind them and Jellyfish, starring Sarah...

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Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon Play, Young Vic review - committed and important play let down by heavy-handed writing

Seldom can a title have given so much away about the play to follow, not just in terms of the subject matter but also in terms of the sledgehammer approach to driving home its points. Kimber Lee, who won the inaugural Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting...

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Infamous, Jermyn Street Theatre review - Lady Hamilton challenges the patriarchy and loses

Towards the end of the 18th century, Lady Emma Hamilton (like so much in this woman's life, hers was a title achieved as much as bestowed) was the “It Girl” of European society.They’ve always been around – women who have the combination of...

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Edinburgh Fringe 2023 reviews: The Insider / Sensuous Governing

The Insider, ZOO Southside ★★★★Uncovered and investigated in 2017, the Cum-Ex scam was a complex tax fraud that stole billions from the coffers of several European countries. Its principal was simple (well, fairly simple): companies would...

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Makeshifts and Realities, Finborough Theatre review - Edwardian dramas with a pinch of Chekhov

We’re in (pretty much literally so in this most intimate of venues) an Edwardian sitting room, time hanging heavily in the air, gentility almost visibly fading before our eyes. Two sisters (young, educated, attractive) bicker with each other. But...

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La Cage Aux Folles, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - 40 years on, the drag show still entertains and educates

Forty years ago, the world was very different for gay men. AIDS was devastating their communities, especially in the big cities where hard-won enclaves of acceptance were being hollowed out, one sunken-eyed friend after another. Media screamed “Gay...

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