Superb staging is a hallmark of Mozart’s dramatic opera Idomeneo, set on the island of Crete shortly after the Trojan War. Ilia, daughter of the defeated Trojan King Priam, expresses conflicting emotions. She has love for her rescuer, Idamante, son of Cretan King Idomeneo, and hatred for her father’s Greek enemies, who killed both her dad and…
With five in the cast on a catwalk-like stage, this is a modern, generally slapstick and cartoonish interpretation of Euripides’ Greek tragedy Medea. In the historic work, Medea seeks revenge on her unfaithful husband. In Jane Miller’s Just a Boy, Standing in Front of a Girl, all the characters have received a contemporary makeover. Further, misogyny, fat shaming…
Rebecca F Kuang is better known as fantasy author RF Kuang, responsible for the Asian-inspired Poppy Wars series and the alternate history Babel. Her latest novel, Yellowface is something else entirely – a takedown of the modern publishing industry and a scathing critique of social media as a mode of criticism review and attack. It…
Comedian and actor Mary Coustas is an emotional powerhouse, whose hour-long show endears her anew to a devoted fan base. She is an enormous talent who draws upon her personal experiences (how her life has been shaped) to make us laugh and cry, through love and loss. Combining verbal and physical comedy with pathos, her stories primarily…
If Indiana Jones was a rock star instead of a movie character, the Dial of Destiny – the latest and last movie in the franchise – would be his farewell tour. The chops are still there, but the cracks are showing and the pace is a bit off. The ageing headliner is perhaps upstaged by…
With music by Gabriel Faure, Igor Stravinsky and Piotr Ilyich Tschaikovsky and choreography by George Balanchine, Jewels – by name and nature – is a gem. The world’s first full-length abstract ballet, it is actually three short ballets in one and is beautiful to look at and to savour. Sandra Jennings is responsible for the staging….
Disney on Ice is always wonderful family entertainment, but 100 Years of Wonder is the best yet. What a fabulous, engaging show it is – so warm, friendly and inviting. There were seven in my party on opening night, with the youngest being four. The look on her face throughout said it all. She was like the…
Toy company Hasbro created their line of giant shape changing robots known as Transformers way back in 1984. Then came the animated television series in 1985, which then became an animated movie in 1986 and which featured the vocal talents of Leonard Nimoy, legendary actor Orson Welles, and even DJ Casey Kasem as the voices…
Ambrose Parry (aka husband and wife team Chris Brookmyre and Dr Marisa Haetzman) is back in 19th Century Edinburgh for a fourth time in their Raven, Fisher and Simpson mystery series in Voices of the Dead. Once again Parry serves up an engaging story in a fascinating and well realised milieu. A few years after…
Art meets technology as famous paintings by Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt and many more, are projected on an enormous scale in the new 360-immersive experience, Monet in Paris. Monet in Paris is a multi-sensory experience celebrating Claude Monet and the world’s most renowned artists of…
