Category: Culture
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Blood Knot at the Orange Tree Theatre review ***
Blood Knot Orange Tree Theatre, 19th March 2019 To date I have only seen two plays by Athol Fugard. Both bravely examine racial politics in a South Africa divided by apartheid. Both are two-handers examining the relationship between two men, John and Winston, two prisoners on Robben Island practicing for…
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Shipwreck at the Almeida Theatre review *****
Shipwreck Almeida Theatre, 18th March 2019 The Tourist, as this blog shows, is a nice bloke given to giving creatives the benefit of the doubt. Hence the string of positive reviews on these pages. He likes to think that he is wise in his choice of entertainment. The reality is…
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Richard III at the Alexandra Park Theatre review ***
Richard III Headlong, Alexandra Park Theatre, 17th March 2019 Right. Let’s get the gripe out of the way. Maybe in the smaller venues where this production will tour it might creep up to a 4* but Alexandra Park Theatre, whilst an undeniably superb space after the refurbishment, is just a…
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All About Eve at the Noel Coward Theatre review ****
All About Eve Noel Coward Theatre, 15th March 2019 Bloody West End theatres. The Noel Coward Theatre is by no means the worst offender, and we went early and cheap in terms of booking, which was probably the right strategy, but even this VFM perch was uncomfortable, tight, too hot…
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The Talented Mr Ripley at the Vault Festival review ****
The Talented Mr Ripley The Faction, Vault Festival, 14th March 2019 Having missed this on a couple of previous occasions the Tourist was delighted to see it pop up on the Vault listings and even more delighted that the SO deigned to come. Downfall or The Talented Mr Ripley. The…
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Berberian Sound Studio at the Donmar Warehouse review ****
Berberian Sound Studio Donmar Warehouse, 14th March 2019 I sort of stumbled across Peter Strickland second full length film by accident. Always keep half an eye on what’s coming up on Film 4. Record anything that I recognise as requiring a watch, (on the basis of pretentious film buff recommendations),…
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Equus at the Theatre Royal Stratford East review *****
Equus Theatre Royal Stratford East, 7th March 2019 Never seen Peter Shaffer’s Equus on stage before. Seen the film version which is a bit dry IMHO. So I was very happy to see that TRSE, in conjunction with the most excellent English Touring Theatre, were taking it on, joining the…
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Cyprus Avenue at the Royal Court Theatre review ****
Cyprus Avenue Royal Court Theatre, 4th March 2019 From one black comedy which imagines taboo breaking violence to make a political point (here big as well as small “p”) to another. Having seen the Ladykiller from The Thelmas at the Vault Festival it was off next evening with the SO,…
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Ladykiller at the Vault Festival review ****
Ladykiller, The Thelmas Vault Festival, 3rd March 2019 Blimey. The Thelmas, director and founder Madelaine Moore and writer Guleraana Mir, together with the writer here, Madeline Gould, aren’t pulling any punches here. The company is “dedicated to the development and promotion of early career female writers and theatre makers”. They…
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Unmythable at the Vault Festival review ****
Unmythable, Out of Chaos Vault Festival, 3rd March 2019 There was all sorts of cutting edge theatre, comedy and performance on at the Vault Festival this year, but being the old fart that he is the Tourist largely plumped for the safe options of comic takes on Greek myths. Satisfying…
