At Home He Feels Like A Tourist

Category: London

  • Obsession at the Barbican Theatre review ***

    Obsession Barbican Theatre, 13th May 2017 In retrospect there were warning signs. This was an adaptation of Luchino Visconti’s 1943 debut film, Obssessione, itself based on a book by James M. Cain, the Postman Always Rings Twice, which in turn was later made into an American film in 1946 (Lana…

  • Babette’s Feast at the Print Room Coronet review ****

    Babette’s Feast Print Room at the Coronet, 10th May, 2017 Ahh Babette’s Feast. A gently understated but uplifting Oscar winning film directed by Gabriel Axel (it beat Au Revoir Les Enfants to the 1987 foreign film prize !!) that ranks pretty high up on my list of all time faves.…

  • City of Glass at the Lyric Hammersmith review **

    City of Glass Lyric Hammersmith, May 11th 2017 So I remembered too late. I have thumbed copies of Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy so I think I must have read it, or at the very least City of Glass, when it came out in the 1980’s as any young, trendyish, new-to-theworld-of-work-but-still-able-to-go-out,…

  • The Ferryman at the Royal Court Theatre review *****

    The Ferryman Royal Court Theatre, 11th May 2017 Right then. For once the tourist finds himself not seeing a performance near the end of the run, casting off his usual workshy approach to blog posting and sufficiently motivated to rave about something. So just to say THIS IS FECKING OUTSTANDING. If…

  • Tim Gill (cellist) at Kings Place review *****

    London Sinfonietta’s Tim Gill: Avant Cello Kings Place, 6th May 2017 Tim Gill – cello Fali Pavri – piano Sound Intermedia Anton Webern – 3 kleine Stücke, Op. 11, Olivier Messiaen – ‘Louange à l’Éternite du Jesus Christ’ (‘Praise to the eternity of Jesus’) from Quartet for the End of…

  • Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos at St John’s Smith Square review ****

    Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment: The Brandenburgs St John’s Smith Square, 2nd May 2017 Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 JS Bach. Tick. Brandenburg Concertos.…

  • Madame Rubinstein at the Park Theatre review ****

    Madame Rubinstein Park Theatre, 4th May 2017 Jez Bond and his team at the Park Theatre (with the help and goodwill of assorted North London luvvies I think) are doing an ever more successful job in my view in staging new plays and productions that people want, or should want,…

  • David Hockney at Tate Britain review ****

    David Hockney Tate Britain, 2nd May 2017 OK so this is embarrassing so I will get it out of the way. I didn’t really know David Hockey’s works beyond a cursory glance at a handful of works in permanent collections and some mixed exhibitions and didn’t really know what all…

  • Steve Reich’s Drumming and Tehillim at the Royal Festival Hall review *****

    The Colin Currie Group, Synergy Vocals Royal Festival Hall, 5th May 2017 Steve Reich – Tehillim 1981 Steve Reich – Drumming 1971 There are a handful of sacred founding texts when it comes to the world of US minimalist music. Terry Riley’s In C certainly, John Adams’s Harmonielehre and Short…

  • Hagen Quartet at the Wigmore Hall review ****

    Hagen Quartet Wigmore Hall, 29th April 2017 Dmitry Shostakovich String Quartet No. 3 in F major Op. 73 String Quartet No. 14 in F sharp major Op. 142 String Quartet No. 15 in E flat minor Op. 144 To paraphrase a great man about a great band “always different, always…