Category: Power
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Vice film review *****
Vice, 30th April 2019 It’s been a shocking year so far in terms of getting to the cinema for the Tourist. No excuses. He has the time, the wherewithal and the desire but the theatre and concert addiction, (there have also been a few notable misses on the exhibition front),…
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Top Girls at the National Theatre review ****
Top Girls National Theatre Lyttleton, 4th April 2019 OK. So I might have oversold this one. It is still Caryl Churchill. With that extraordinary opening act. And that carefully calibrated feminist message, as relevant now as it was when it first appeared in 1982, of how to balance “success” in…
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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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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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Mother Courage and her Children at the Royal Exchange Manchester review ****
Mother Courage and her Children Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester, 28th February 2019 Brecht. Royal Exchange. Headlong (This House, People, Places and Things, Labour of Love, Common, Junkyard, 1984, The Glass Menagerie, American Psycho and Enron – and that’s just what I can vouchsafe), Anna Jordan adapting, Amy Hodge, the Associate…
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I Am Ashurbanipal exhibition at the British Museum review ****
I Am Ashurbanipal King of the World, King of Assyria British Museum, 15th February 2019 Crikey. Those Assyrians had a way with reliefs carved in gypsum/alabaster. Even if it was primarily all in the service of terrifying aggrandisement. The King hunting, the King and his soldiers slaying his enemies, the…