Category: Community
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Our Town at the Open Air Theatre review ****
Our Town Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, 23rd May 2019 Now I’ll be honest, until I started taking this theatre malarkey seriously, I had only the faintest idea of what Thornton Wilder’s most famous play, Our Town, was about. And even going in to this production at the Open Air…
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Out of Water at the Orange Tree Theatre review *****
Out of Water Orange Tree Theatre, 9th May 2019 The Tourist was much taken with Zoe Cooper’s last play, Jess and Joe Forever, also at the Orange Tree, in 2016. A coming of age story which charted the relationship of Joe, Norfolk born and bred, and Jess, posh and up…
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Stones in His Pockets at the Rose Kingston review ***
Stones in His Pockets Rose Theatre Kingston, 1st March 2019 Like Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan, and written at the same time, Marie Jones’s Stones in His Pockets is a comedy which examines the impact when a Hollywood film crew descends on a small Irish community. But where one…
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Sweat at the Donmar Warehouse review *****
Sweat Donmar Warehouse, 24th January 2019 Who is the greatest living playwright (in the English language). Caryl Churchill. Obviously. Who is, in the opinion of the Tourist, probably the most talented playwright under 40 in Britain today. Ella Hickson. What was the best original play the Tourist saw last year.…
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Approaching Empty at the Kiln Theatre review ***
Approaching Empty Kiln Theatre, 16th January 2019 An overly optimistic faith, despite a welter of evidence to the contrary, in the combined efforts of South Western Railway and Network Rail’s ability to convey passengers to the stated destination on time meant that the Tourist pitched up late for this showing.…
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White Teeth at the Kiln Theatre review ****
White Teeth Kiln Theatre, 21st November 2018 I have never read Zadie Smith’s 2000 debut novel White Teeth. So I have no benchmark against which to set the adaptation by Stephen Sharkey, directed by Indhu Rubasingham, which is still showing at the Kiln. I gather it is something of a…
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Peterloo film review ****
Peterloo, 2nd November 2018 I doubt that there has ever been a more carefully researched, painstakingly assembled or more vividly imagined “history” film than Peterloo. If you like Mike Leigh (I do) you are going to love this. If you like British social, economic and political history (I do) you…
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Holy Sh!t at the Kiln Theatre review ****
Holy Sh!t Kiln Theatre, 19th September 2018 Their exclamation mark not mine. Even at my age I get a vicarious thrill out of swearing to cause offence. A little bit of punk attitude remains I like to think. Actually, on the subject of manufactured offence, I gather there have been…
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Pericles at the National Theatre review *****
Pericles National Theatre Olivier, 26th August 2018 So how do you like your theatre? Or more particularly how do your like your Shakespeare? Utterly faithful to the First Folio? Set in the time and place that big Will intended (however baffling)? All blokes in tights? Performed by elite, public school…