Category: Reviews

Gogol Bordello, the punk rock band, lends its name in more ways than one to Dave Molloy’s energetic, beautifully cast rock opera musical of Tolstoy’s realistic and philosophical War and Peace novel, granted only of a tiny sliver of it, seventy pages out of an epic book over a thousand pages long. But not to worry, you… Continue reading Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812

This is a jolly rendition of Sleeping Beauty, which starts with the familiar story then, retaining the plot, largely leaves convention behind. So it starts with Carabosse, feeling spurned for being excluded from the Princess’s naming ceremony, vengefully condemning Bella to prick her finger and die. But with a novel twist, it is Yorkshire’s underachieving… Continue reading Sleeping Beauty

Glitzy, glossy and full of razzmatazz, Crossroads Pantomimes’ engaging Snow White is exactly what big budget pantos are all about: much singing, dancing, pyrotechnics, sumptuous costumes, jokes and slapstick. Lesley Joseph (Birds of a Feather, Sister Act and ITV’s Love Your Weekend) is resplendent as the wickedest Queen Dragonella, desperate to be the fairest in the land and aiming to… Continue reading Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

First performed in 1992 and staged only fitfully since then, Northern Ballet’s version of A Christmas Carol is further proof of the company’s flair for creating enthralling narrative dance spectacles. With its combination of dynamic choreography (courtesy of Massimo Moricone) and lucid storytelling, I would rank A Christmas Carol alongside Cathy Marston’s version of Jane Eyre and David Nixon’s retelling of The Great Gatsby as… Continue reading A Christmas Carol

For sixteen years, Only Fools and Horses had the nation hooked to its Christmas special, with millions of us tuning in to see what brothers Del Boy and Rodney were up to next. For much of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, the sitcom was a much-loved part of most people’s viewing habits on Christmas day.… Continue reading Only Fools and Horses

A billowing, grey silk curtain like a ship’s wind-buffeted sail fills the proscenium arch, and the thunder of a musical storm is already building up a tempest as the audience arrive, a foretaste of what is to follow when the lights go down. Less noticed, but equally ominous, the stage is flanked by towers of… Continue reading The Tempest

I have been to many Eastern Angles Christmas shows over the years, but I have to say that this one is really up with the best of them. Dickens’s famous story has been performed thousands of times over the years and in many different media and guises, so to make it fresh and vibrant is… Continue reading A Christmas Carol

Handel composed Theodora nearly a decade after his last opera. It was his favourite oratorio, the only one based on a Christian subject, with characterful music broken into nearly 60 episodes. But a challenge in presenting any oratorio, written for static performance, is where to set it for the operatic stage. Here’s the context: the Roman governor,… Continue reading Theodora

Pantomime’s centuries-long survival is down to its willingness to evolve. Recent years have seen great transformations in the genre, with Evolution Productions’ Jack and the Beanstalk at York Theatre Royal celebrating the very best 21st century pantomime has to offer. Thankfully, passive Princesses are almost extinct from Pantoland today, and indeed writer Paul Hendy dispenses with them completely.… Continue reading Jack and the Beanstalk

In 2019, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) brought three programmes of dance to Sadler’s Wells, now they return with four programmes. Rereading my enthusiastic reviews of 2019, I wonder what more to add—I love the company’s infectious joie de vivre, alluring sensuality, sinuous musicality. If you need uplift, go see… A thirty-minute work from 2022 by… Continue reading Contemporary Voices: Are You In Your Feelings / For Four / Unfold / Revelations