Cameron Mackintosh’s new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s masterful work The Phantom of the Opera sizzles. Everything about the production works a treat. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music, a cavalcade of riches, still stirs the soul 36 years after the musical debuted in London. In this case, plaudits to Orchestra Victoria for bringing it to life, with Anthony…
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….
In a word, Mary Poppins is Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! The theatrics – the staging, set design and magic introduced into this Disney and Cameron Mackintosh production are sublime. I speak of everything from the doll’s house that opens up to the Banks’ family home to the appearance of Poppins’ iconic large-scale brolly towards the end of the show. You simply…
Mad. In a good way. That’s how I’d describe Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All by Jonas Jonasson, author of The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden. Here’s the blurb: It’s never too late to start again. And again. It’s always awkward…
Sometimes a show is so unique that review words can do little to aptly describe the reality of its shared experience. From the first moments of entry into the Metro Arts Sue Brenner Theatre via its alongside carriageway of welcoming performance artists, Cargo Club presents an enriched multi-artform celebration of culture and tradition in its…
The latest album from Daniel Lanois, established producer to the stars (Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Emmylou Harris, Peter Gabriel, and along with Brian Eno, some of U2’s biggest hits), can be described in one word: haunting. While the recordings that have gotten the most attention from Lanois tended to be singer/songwriter affairs like Acadia (1989),…
Vivarium is a descent into madness. It did my head in. Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) and Gemma (Imogen Poots) are a happy couple. They’re considering buying a house together. One day they wander into a shop displaying cardboard models of the same perfectly manicured home. A strange real estate salesman – Martin (Jonathan Aris) – implores…
Sex, drugs and disco? The popular New York disco Studio 54, run by entrepreneur Steve Rubell, epitomised the hedonistic lifestyle of the late 70s. Rubell’s aim was to create a place where ordinary, but good looking people, could mix with celebrities for a party that would never end. He created a place where the rich…
Elizabeth Gonzalez James has crafted a fascinating historical tale out of stories from her own ancestry. The Bullet Swallower follows different generations of the Sonoro family linked across time from outlaw Antonio in the late nineteenth century to movie star Jaime in the mid-1960s. And in doing so asks the question as to whether family…
In 2002, the tense thriller Phone Booth (2002) was centred around, you guessed it, a phone booth. Now, 22 years later, Robert Zemeckis’ new drama Here is centred around a lounge room. It’s about the people who lived and roamed in that space dating back to the formation of Earth. It features a volcanic eruption,…
