• Genesis Inc at the Hampstead Theatre review **

    Genesis Inc. Hampstead Theatre Upstairs, 25th June 2018 Sometimes less is more. A lesson that writer Jemma Kennedy and director Laurie Sansom here chose to, if not ignore, certainly bypass. Made even more frustrating because, at the kernel of this play, and in its execution, are some very good ideas. I applaud the ambition of…

  • Sea Wall at the Old Vic Theatre review

    Sea Wall Old Vic Theatre, 23rd June 2018 I might have told this story before. My memory is failing. A few years ago the SO, BD and LD went to see Groundhog Day at the Old Vic. Terrific film and terrific musical. Made more terrific by the presence of Ben Wishaw and Andrew Scott in…

  • Cave at the Printworks review ****

    Cave The Printworks, Surrey Quays, 23rd June 2018 Cave is the second collaboration between composer Tansy Davies and librettist Nick Drake. Their last work, Between Worlds, which took as its subject the Twin Towers on 9/11, was superb. It was an immensely moving and sensitive elegy which focussed on the last conversations with loved ones…

  • Zama film review ****

    Zama, 22nd June 2018 Now here is a work of imagination. Just what film is for. I suspect its languorous pace might not be to everyone’s taste but it delicately captures the sense of isolation and ennui that its hero, the eponymous Diego de Zama finds himself trapped in. We are in Asuncion on the…

  • Red at the Wyndham’s Theatre review *****

    Red Wyndham’s Theatre, 21st June 2018 The original production of John Logan’s play Red at the Donmar Warehouse in 2009 with Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne passed me by. More fool me. So I was looking forward to catching this revival directed by Michael Grandage, (who directed the original), with Alfred Enoch now playing fictional…

  • The Flight of the Conchords at the O2 Arena review ****

    The Flight of the Conchords The O2 Arena, 20th June 2018 Father and Son Deana and Ian The Most Beautiful Girl (in the Room) Inner City Pressure Bowie Chips and Dips Albi The Racist Dragon 1353 (Woo a Lady) The Ballad of Stana Bus Driver’s Song Mutha’uckas / Hurt Feelings The Seagull Back on the…

  • Isabelle Faust and Kristian Bezuidenhout at St Luke’s Old St review *****

    Isabelle Faust (violin), Kristian Bezuidenhout (harpsichord) LSO St Luke’s Old St JS Bach Sonata no 3 for violin and harpsichord in E major BWV 1016 Partita no 2 for solo violin in D minor BWV 1004 Sonata no 1 for violin and harpsichord in B minor BWV 1014 Toccata for harpsichord in D minor BWV…

  • Venetian Baroque: Academy of Ancient Music at St Luke’s Old St review ****

    Academy of Ancient Music, Bojan Cicic (violin), Persephone Gibbs (violin), Sarah McMahon (cello), Alistair Ross (harpsichord), William Cater (theorbo) LSO St Luke’s Old St, 15th June 2018 Dario Castello – Sonatas No 10 a 3 Book Two, No 1 a 2 Book One, Sonata No 1 for violin (Book Two), Sonata No 2 for violin…

  • Monet and Architecture at the National Gallery review *****

    Monet and Architecture National Gallery, 14th June 2018 I am not the biggest fan of Monet’s later, post-Giverny work. Loved the actual garden, the white suits, the pipe, the spectacular beard, the repetition and the joy. But the colours make me queasy and the smudginess is disorientating. I know that is what his eye could…

  • Beast film review *****

    Beast, 14th June 2018 I can be pretty certain I am going to thoroughly enjoy a film in a cinema. I can go when pretty much no-one else is there, to a showing near the end of a run, which satisfies my misanthropy and intolerance of distraction, and I can rely on the combination of…

At Home He Feels Like A Tourist