The Ukraine war is not the only place of horror in the world, but it does present a challenge to theatre makers who want to respond to events that dominate the news. And which make us all feel powerless, including our leaders. Instead of staging a play such as Bad Roads, Ukrainian playwright Natal’ya Vorozhbit’s savage 2017 account of the conflict, the Royal Court has chosen a meta-theatrical and metaphorical response. Adapted from the 2019 book of poems by Ukrainian-American author Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic is a contemporary fable of war, atrocity and resistance. A collaboration Read more ...

Laura Benanti has been enchanting Broadway audiences for several decades now, and London has this week been let in on the secret that recently charmed playgoers at this summer's Edinburgh Festival: the comedienne perhaps best known in some circles for her wicked impersonations of Melania Trump can hold her own in a solo show that mixes self-deprecation and determination in equal measure.The first quality is there in the show's faintly damning subtitle, Nobody Cares, which was offered up by one of Benanti's two young daughters - her children so clearly the apple of their mother's eye that you Read more ...

Manchester Camerata is enhancing its reputation for pioneering with three performances featuring Nick Martin’s new Violin Concerto, which it has commissioned, two of them in art galleries rather than conventional music venues.So the concerto had its world premiere in The Whitworth, Manchester’s university-linked gallery, with the second performance at The Hepworth in Huddersfield. There’s a reason for that: Martin has taken his inspiration from “a carved torso-sized, cradle-like form, in elm, with nine strings of fishing line” by Barbara Hepworth: it’s called Landscape Sculpture.In it ( Read more ...

“I never abandoned you,” says Jule (Ophélia Kolb; Call My Agent!) to her 10-year-old daughter Claire (Jasmine Kalisz Saurer), setting a fairly low bar as far as motherhood is concerned.Swiss-American director Jasmin Gordon’s first feature, with a screenplay by Julien Bouissoux, is a compelling, though too mysterious, portrait of a single mother versus society. Set in a wealthy town in the mountainous Lower Valais in Switzerland, Jule, a woman on the margins, gazes out from her window at the murmuring trees that, in a hypnotic, recurring motif, seem to offer a portal for escape.She lives in a Read more ...

Fans of the US version of The Office may wonder what happened to the assorted oddballs of Dunder Mifflin, proud creators of paper products in Scranton, Pennsylvania. They will be none the wiser after watching the pilot episode of The Paper, though they will certainly want to stick around for this very welcome spinoff. Its format is much the same as before (one of its writers, Greg Daniels, wrote the original US Office): a film crew is stalking workers in a sleepy office, who regularly talk to the camera, betraying their feelings and their colleagues. Here the business is a moribund Read more ...

Now in its third year, Edinburgh Psych Fest returned to multiple venues in the old town and the city’s southside for 2025; namely Summerhall, Queen’s Hall, The Mash House and Sneaky Pete’s. Offering a day long feast of psych-tinged sounds, Manchester-based promoters Now Wave brought a mix of bigger names and lesser-known bands to these various stages.Opening with a set from English experimental rockers The Moonlandingz, the band brought an irreverent humour to their set, with lead singer Lias Saoudi (who also fronts alt-rock group Fat White Family) joked that they had the "worst slot of the Read more ...

Ever wondered if there was one moment when in-yer-face theatre started? Well, yes there was; there was one play that kicked off that whole 1990s sensibility, a drama that had a direct influence on Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill and Jez Butterworth, and an ongoing inspiration for countless others. That moment was January 1991, and the play was Philip Ridley’s The Pitchfork Disney.Now revived in the suitably claustrophobic subterranean space of the King’s Head Theatre, the legendary 90-minute real-time story is set in an East End flat where Presley and Haley Stray, 28-year-old “shut in” twins, are Read more ...

The annual Supersonic Festival is a major jewel in Birmingham’s musical crown – but not, it seems, one that is particularly valued by the city’s establishment and more powerful decision-makers. Based in the relatively bohemian area of Digbeth, and despite receiving international plaudits and recognition, time and again it is forced to fight for its very existence.Each year, venues that have been traditionally used to house performances, events and workshops by this wonderful celebration are closed down. Rents for the remaining spaces spiral into the cosmos and property developers flex their Read more ...

Why isn’t Eve Myles a superstar? Though well known for her appearances in the likes of Torchwood, Broadchurch and the brilliant Keeping Faith, you’d imagine that by now she’d have been snapped up for some mega-budget extravaganza on Amazon or Apple TV or be romping around with Tom Cruise.But she obviously likes to keep close to her Welsh roots, as she does in The Guest, and it helps her deliver a power and authenticity that might be lost in the jungle of corporate streamer-land. She plays Fran Sharp, a wealthy businesswoman who lives in a splendid house in the country near Cardiff with her Read more ...

The title refers to a line in Henry VI, Part III: the future Richard III boasts that midwives cried, "Oh Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth", a sign of both his monstrosity and his readiness to snarl and bite.Modern technological analysis suggests that the three Henry VI plays might well have been written by Shakespeare in collaboration with Marlowe, an idea which started American playwright Liz Duffy Adams on an imaginary journey into their possible relationship, set against the dangerous world of Elizabethan politics. "Born with teeth" is both a phrase the collaborators might have Read more ...

International is Saint Etienne’s 13th album. It is their last. According to the promotional material, it was written while recording their last album, 2021’s I’ve Been Trying To Tell You. The trio – Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs – must have known back then they were planning to bow out.Where I’ve Been Trying To Tell You was blurred, gauzy, low to mid-tempo and impressionistic, its counterpart is often up-tempo and avowedly poppy. Both albums, though, are shot-through with reflectiveness and melancholy. Underlining this, Cracknell ambivalently declares “looking back I could be worse Read more ...

Every year, the Royal Albert Hall proves complicit in the magic of the quietest utterances if, as Barenboim put it, you let the audience come to you and don’t try too hard. Pekka Kuusisto is the ultimate communicator, the ideal guide for the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. Stitching "classical" string music with numbers from a Sámi singer, Katarina Barruk, though, didn’t quite come off.Barruk (pictured below) is a striking performer, with her silver dress, her inherited jewellery and the strange, fluid movements she uses to accompany her Sámi joiks, a very specific kind of song. Contrary Read more ...