At Home He Feels Like A Tourist

Category: History

• Culture History London Renaissance Spain Theatre

  Losing Venice at the Orange Tree Theatre review ***

  Losing Venice Orange Tree Theatre, 24th September 2018 A modicum of research was all that was required to realise that this was going to be a curious, but also intriguing, entertainment. Which is near enough exactly what it was. Jo Clifford’s play was a hit at the Edinburgh fringe when…

  October 8, 2018
• Culture History Politics Shakespeare Theatre War

  Henry V at the Tobacco Factory Bristol review *****

  Henry V Tobacco Factory Theatre, 22nd September 2018 Hello. I feel another bout of hyperbole coming on. It could just be that cumulative exposure is making me realise what the smarter punters and all the luvvies have known for hundreds of years, that nothing comes close to Shakespeare. It could…

  October 3, 2018
• Culture History Ireland London Religion Theatre

  Aristocrats at the Donmar Warehouse review ****

  Aristocrats Donmar Warehouse, 20th September 2018 Brian Friel, like his own dramatist hero Chekhov, can take a bit of time to get going. Faith Healer, at this theatre a couple of years ago, exerted a vice like grip on me from the open, though that may have been because it…

  October 2, 2018
• Culture Economics History London Theatre USA

  The Lehman Trilogy at the National Theatre review *****

  The Lehman Trilogy National Theatre Lyttleton, 18th September 2018 So I gather this staging of Stefano Massimi’s play The Lehman Trilogy is a very different take from that lauded across Europe after its premiere in 2015 in Italy. No cast of thousands here. Just three amazing actors in Simon Russell…

  September 29, 2018
• art Culture Exhibition History London Photography Prints War

  Aftermath at Tate Britain review ****

  Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One Tate Britain, 29th August 2018 Historians abhor teleology these days. It’s a tricky business identifying events that “changed the history of the world”. For us simple layfolk though the First World War must surely mark a defining shift in the human…

  September 9, 2018
• Culture History London Theatre

  Translations at the National Theatre review ****

  Translations National Theatre Olivier, 6th June 2018 At the end of the day it is all about the words. That’s theatre. The power of language. Which is exactly what Brian Friel’s play is all about. A modern classic, first seen in 1980, in Derry (with Stephen Rea, Liam Neeson and…

  June 18, 2018
• Classical Music Contemporary Classical Culture History Literature London Opera Theatre

  Lessons in Love and Violence at the Royal Opera House review ****

  Lessons in Love and Violence Royal Opera House, 26th May 2018 Here is an extract from an illuminated manuscript showing Eddy II getting a crown. Or more precisely a second crown. Not sure what that is all about but given he was by reputation a high maintenance sort of fella…

  June 6, 2018
• Culture History Literature London Theatre

  Describe the Night at the Hampstead Theatre review ****

  Describe The Night Hampstead Theatre, 23rd May 2018 In our country the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Describe the Night hasn’t gone down too well with the London critics. The SO and I think they might have missed a…

  May 31, 2018
• Culture History Literature London Theatre

  Life and Fate at the Theatre Royal Haymarket review ***

  Life and Fate Maly Drama Theatre of St Petersburg, Theatre Royal Haymarket, 20th May 2018 The Maly Drama Theatre of St Petersburg was founded in 1944 and is one of just three European theatre companies to have been awarded the title Theatre of Europe from the EU. (No I didn’t…

  May 28, 2018
• Culture History London Musicals Opera Pop/Rock/Indie

  Caroline, or Change at the Hampstead Theatre review *****

  Caroline, or Change Hampstead Theatre, 18th April 2018 How many exceptions does it take before the rule is unproven? I don’t, as a rule, like musicals, as I have oft repeated on these very pages. I absolutely adored this though. That might be because it isn’t your classic show tunes,…

  April 29, 2018