Category: Reviews

It’s easy to overlook, hearing a celebrity tenor perform “Questa o quella” in concert with devil-may-care abandon, just what a nasty piece of work the duke really is, and what a degenerate court he rules over. No mistake here, though. Verdi’s censors originally complained of the piece’s “repellent immorality.” The composer’s point was to contrast… Continue reading Rigoletto

What a glorious triple bill (curated by Carlos Acosta)—I nearly write tipple, and I wouldn’t be far wrong, didn’t someone say that Beethoven must have written his Seventh Symphony in a drunken state? Hotel is very trippy. And Forgotten Land, for me, it is the best tipple of the evening—music and dance in perfect mix.… Continue reading Into the Music: Forgotten Land / Hotel / Seventh Symphony

In an effort to make the plays of Shakespeare relevant to contemporary audiences, directors regularly stage them in radically different places and times than originally intended. Generally, this process is not applied to other classic playwrights like Ibsen or Chekhov possibly because their works are so closely related to specific time periods or events. Although… Continue reading The Cherry Orchard

Bollywood—in the West, the word conjures up a big budget spectacle of dance and colour that usually tells the story of a hero and a heroine, star-crossed lovers with a fairytale ending. In India, the actors are the icons of the people and the films escapist blockbusters that are an intrinsic part of their lives.… Continue reading Bombay Superstar

Much Ado is a popular play this year with productions by the National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, the RSC (which also got televised) and elsewhere. This lively production was the eighth to be reviewed by BTG this year when it opened in Sheffield. One version was trimmed down to 90 minutes with only six actors, another… Continue reading Much Ado About Nothing

Based on Lindqvist’s 2004 novel and the author’s own adaptation for screen for the 2008 Swedish horror film, this play by Jack Thorne has at its heart a growing relationship between an almost-teenager and an ageless creature who survives from drinking blood but is certainly no Twilight. it begins with such a constant stream of… Continue reading Let The Right One In

The idea of a European monarch being assassinated in Italian-ruled Italy was clearly too much for censors when Verdi first presented the opera that was to become Un Ballo in Maschera. How I would have loved therefore to be present in their conclaves if they had been presented with the prospect of this modern production… Continue reading Gustavo III

The doomed romance of Orpheus and Eurydice is one of the most enduringly popular Greek myths, exerting a powerful influence on the cultural imagination. However, this is hardly surprising given the story’s focus on the transformative power of art, not to mention its moving depiction of love, loss and grief. For the Baroque scholar Frederick… Continue reading Orfeo ed Euridice

Destiny is getting ready for her “best night evahhh” at Karma nightclub in Chippenham—to the sound of Destiny’s Child, obvs! Except she’s no youngster. She’s all of 15, with a head full of glamorous dreams, about to be flushed away by the nightmare reality ahead of her. Writer and performer Florence Espeut-Nickless starts this monologue… Continue reading Destiny

William ShakespearePhil WillmottRotherhithe and East London Playhouse (The Hithe Albion St)25 October–6 November 2022 It is a brave decision to open a new theatre in these economically troubled times. The new Rotherhithe and East London Playhouse, which is located in a small cosy attic of a building described as The Hive, is intended to be… Continue reading All’s Well That Ends Well