Reviews
Katherine Waters
"I am dead," declares Okot before recounting the horrors he survived to reach Calais. Each time, he says, "I died." How many times can you die before you are truly dead? What is it that finally kills you? These are the questions at the heart of Good Chance’s dramatisation of the lives of the inhabitants of Calais’s Jungle which has transferred to the Playhouse Theatre following its critically acclaimed sell-out run at the Young Vic over the winter.It’s a feat of a transfer which has transformed West End plush and gilt into chipboard and oilcloth. Proscenium and stage have been swallowed Read more ...
David Benedict
They started as they meant to go on. Randall Thompson’s lush, consoling six-minute Alleluia, written in 1940, couldn’t be a better opener for Tenebrae, one of this country’s finest, most musically alert and expressive vocal ensembles. Technically, the piece is undemanding so a successful performance of it rests entirely upon expressive control.Their conductor and music director Nigel Short sculpted the sound of his 20 singers to produce gently overlapping waves of the single-word text, ideally phrased with individual and overarching rises and falls. Clean-toned, gleaming soprano lines, Read more ...
David Kettle
Writer and director David Nicholas Wilkinson felt moved to make his reflective, rather melancholy documentary on the 48% who voted to remain in the EU, he says, because nobody else was making one. When it came to funding the project, not a single Brit would invest (though he has German and Irish backers) – potential supporters were apparently too nervous of their names getting out.Have the values of Remain already become so ignored and so – well, unacceptable? Possibly. Which, of course, makes it all the more crucial that Wilkinson has provided Remainers with this platform to present their Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Swimming with Men is a British comedy which must have looked like a dead cert when it was pitched. “A bunch of middle-aged male losers do synchronised swimming. They have a bossy female coach who persuades them to go to the world championships. How funny (and moving) is that? The tears will flow. The jokes will write themselves!” Unfortunately the jokes did not write themselves, and no one else got round to writing them either.The rot sets in early when Eric (Rob Brydon), a salaryman who does the numbers for a big City firm, walks out on his marriage to Heather (Jane Horrocks), whom he Read more ...
Owen Richards
The world was captivated by the Arab Spring – thousands of citizens rising up in unity against longstanding dictatorships, filling squares and refusing to bow. But for many of us, it was a world away; the crowds were a single organism, thinking and acting as one. What The Nile Hilton Incident does incredibly well is create the feeling of being an individual on those streets: placing you in that simmering cauldron, a city on the edge.On paper, The Nile Hilton Incident is a classic noir: police commander Noredin Mostafa (Fares Fares, main picture) is placed on the murder of Lalena, a famous Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Aidan Turner may not reveal those famously bronzed pecs that have made TV's Poldark box office catnip in his West End debut. But what Michael Grandage's funny and fiery revival of The Lieutenant of Inishmore reveals in spades is the irresistible charisma and stage savvy of an actor fully at home in what can only be called Martin McDonagh-land. Bring Turner's full-on brio together with an ensemble who mine every mountingly absurdist moment of the play's deathly landscape and you've got a star vehicle that turns out to be far more than that, as well: a bruising tonic for our troubled times Read more ...
aleks.sierz
History repeats itself. This much we know. In the 1980s, under a Tory government obsessed with cuts, the big new thing was “event theatre”, huge shows that amazed audiences because of their epic qualities and marathon slog. A good example is David Edgar’s The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, an eight-and-a-half hour adaptation of the Dickens novel. Today, under a Tory government obsessed with cuts, event theatre has made a comeback: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (five and a bit hours), The Inheritance (six and a half hours) and now Imperium (almost seven hours). Adapted by Mike Read more ...
Marianka Swain
Shall we dodge? (One, two, three) No, the brilliance of Bartlett Sher’s Tony-winning Lincoln Center revival – first on Broadway in 2015, now gracing the West End, with its original leads – is that it faces the problematic elements of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1951 musical head on. But, in a canny reading, it finds such nuance in the piece that it feels freshly minted – if gorgeously attired in Golden Age trappings.Based on the memoirs of army widow Anna Leonowens (Kelli O’Hara), the show follows her journey to Siam in 1862, where she’s employed to teach the many children (by many wives) Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It was only a year ago that Nick Broomfield’s Whitney: Why Can’t I Be Me was released. Kevin Macdonald’s new documentary about the rise and hideous demise of one of pop’s greatest stars was made with the blessing of her family, but doesn’t shed significantly more light than the Broomfield version. In fact a couple of Broomfield’s interviewees who don’t appear here were more illuminating than some who do.It’s true that this time Whitney’s mother Cissy is interviewed, though she talks about the young Whitney (or Nippy, as she was always known within the family) with a great future ahead of her Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
Gender-bending, confused identities, and hedonistic anarchy go together as naturally in summer Shakespeare as strawberries and cucumbers in Pimms, and in Tatty Hennessy’s exuberant alfresco version of As You Like It, touring to squares across the capital, the mix proves an appropriately heady combination. It’s the Summer of Love in the Forest of Arden, and Joni Mitchell or Jimi Hendrix are as likely to appear as any of the traditional characters, so get your flares and your yellow-tinted sunnies on and prepare to party.The production opens with the entire cast delivering a rousing Read more ...
Steve O'Rourke
This strategic simulation game is an interesting take on the classic dinosaur franchise. Coinciding with the latest big screen release, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the title puts you behind the virtual desk of theme park manager in a clever management sim that combines playing god with dinosaurs and playing host to the demands of an army of theme park visitors. Occasionally the two meet – and it never ends well. You’re responsible for everything. From fossil excavation through to hatching new breeds and making sure there’s enough entertainment for your guests; via managing park Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
“A sad tale’s best for winter,” Leontes’ young son Mamillius tells us. By that logic the current summer heatwave should be bringing us a Winter’s Tale overflowing with joy – the songs of Bohemia drowning out the shouted accusations and desperate howls of Sicilia. But that’s not what director Blanche McIntyre has in mind.From Will Keen’s Leontes, twitching and ticking with violence, to the bare stage and makeshift revels of Bohemia, this is a decidedly chilly take on Shakespeare’s mercurial late play. Even the bear is an austerity predator – nothing more than a painted banner, barely enough Read more ...