At Home He Feels Like A Tourist

Category: London

• Classical Music Concert Contemporary Classical Culture London War

  Brodsky Quartet at Kings Place review *****

  Brodsky Quartet, In Time of War Kings Place, 18th November 2018 Karen Tanaka – At the grave of Beethoven Erwin Schulhoff – String Quartet No 1 Shostakovich – String Quartet No 8 Dave Brubeck – Regret George Crumb – Black Angels It’s been donkey’s years since I last saw the…

  December 3, 2018
• Biography Crime Fiction Fiction Film Literature London Novel Theatre Thriller

  Switzerland at the Ambassadors Theatre review **

  Switzerland Ambassador’s Theatre, 16th November 2018 A couple of weeks prior to Switzerland the Tourist took in another play by Joanna Murray-Smith, Honour, at the Park Theatre. A very fine cast and a sharp enough dissection of a marriage broken by the cliche of the husband leaving for a younger…

  December 2, 2018
• Comedy Culture Italy London Politics Theatre

  Mistero Buffo at the Arcola Theatre review ****

  Mistero Buffo Arcola Theatre, 15th November 2018 This probably ranks as one of the Tourist’s least insightful assertions, (and trust me there is stiff and substantial competition), but, in his experience, there are two types of one person theatre. The pure monologue, often fairly static, relying on the appeal of…

  December 1, 2018
• Architecture art Culture Design Exhibition Literature London Love Photography Poetry Sexuality

  Modern Couples at the Barbican Art Gallery review ****

  Modern Couples: Art, Intimacy and the Avant-Garde Barbican Art Gallery, 15th November 2018 Here’s another smart bit of curating from the team at the Barbican, in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou-Metz here led by Jane Alison. Track the history of modernism in art – not just painting, but sculpture, photography,…

  November 30, 2018
• Culture London Shakespeare Theatre

  Macbeth at the Barbican Theatre review ***

  Macbeth Barbican Theatre, 15th November 2018 Is this a dagger I see before me … well maybe more of a kitchen knife … It is pretty tightly plotted (at least if you pare it down). It is quick by comparison to a lot of the Bard – half the length…

  November 30, 2018
• Classical Music Concert Culture London Religion

  Ligeti, Bartok and Haydn choral works at the Barbican review ****

  London Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Chorus, Francois-Xavier Roth (conductor), Camilla Tilling, Adele Charvet, Julien Behr, Christopher Purves, William Thomas Barbican Hall, 11th November 2018 Gyorgy Ligeti – Lontano Bela Bartok – Cantata profana Haydn – Nelson Mass Three composers I like. Three works I did not know. A slightly earlier start.…

  November 26, 2018
• art Classics Culture Exhibition Italy London Religion Renaissance

  Mantegna and Bellini at the National Gallery review *****

  Mantegna and Bellini National Gallery, 11th November 2018 11th November was turning into a very busy day for the Tourist. Fresh from the heady Edward Burne-Jones phantasmagoria at Tate Britain and a proper Sunday lunch, it was off to the National, now solo, for these Old Masters, before rounding off…

  November 25, 2018
• Architecture art Birmingham Culture Design Exhibition London Renaissance

  Edward Burne-Jones at Tate Britain review ****

  Edward Burne Jones Tate Britain, 11th November 2018 Turns out Burne-Jones isn’t quite as awful as I had previously thought. Don’t get me wrong. All that hippy-dippy, fey, dreamy. dusky-toned, doe-eyed, ginger-permed, long-bodied, nymph-y, mannequin-esque, briar-strewn, Arthurian, industrialisation-denying, fake-Medieval, cod-Renaissance daubing is still guaranteed to do my head in. But…

  November 25, 2018
• Classical Music Concert Contemporary Classical Culture Ireland London Opera Theatre War

  The Silver Tassie at the Barbican review *****

  The Silver Tassie Barbican Hall, 10th November 2018 Mark-Anthony Turnage (composer) Amanda Holden (libretto) Ashley Riches – Harry Sally Matthews – Susie Brindley Sherratt – The Croucher Claire Booth – Mrs Foran Marcus Farnsworth – Teddy Alexander Robin Baker – Barney Louise Alder – Jessie Susan Bickley – Mrs Heegan…

  November 24, 2018
• China Culture History London Politics Theatre War

  Forgotten at the Arcola Theatre review ****

  Forgotten Arcola Theatre, 10th November 2018 I was much taken, if not entirely convinced, by the British East Asian Yellow Earth Theatre company’s version of Tamburlaine at the Arcola 18 months ago. And this co-production, with Moongate, of a new play, Forgotten, by Daniel York Loh, which kicked off at…

  November 24, 2018