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The Funeral Director at the Southwark Playhouse review ****
The Funeral Director Southwark Playhouse, 6th November 2018 The Papatango New Writing Prize, which kicked off in 2009, is the first and only playwriting award which guarantees the winner a full scale professional production, a share of the takings and a commission for a follow up. Whilst I missed last…
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Chekhov’s First Play at the Battersea Arts Centre review ***
Chekhov’s First Play Battersea Arts Centre, 5th November 2018 Some venerable theatre grandees have had a crack a knocking Anton Chekhov’s first play into shape. The venerable Lev Dodin and The Maly Theatre presented a version based on Chekhov’s own text, albeit with nine characters chopped out and a jazz…
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Peterloo film review ****
Peterloo, 2nd November 2018 I doubt that there has ever been a more carefully researched, painstakingly assembled or more vividly imagined “history” film than Peterloo. If you like Mike Leigh (I do) you are going to love this. If you like British social, economic and political history (I do) you…
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Honour at the Park Theatre review ***
Honour Park Theatre 200, 1st October 2018 Never, ever, marry a writer. That’s the main lesson I learnt from Honour. Jessica Murray-Smith’s 2003 play, much revived, which premiered at the NT with Ellen Atkins and Corin Redgrave, tracks the break up of a 32 year marriage when literary heavyweight George…
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Porgy and Bess at the ENO review ****
Porgy and Bess English National Opera, 31st October 2018 It has been a long time coming. This co-production, together with the Met and the Dutch National Opera, is the first time it has appeared on the Coliseum stage. The re-written version, with book by Suzanne Lori-Parks, (which attracted the ire…
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The Wolves at the Theatre Royal Stratford East review ****
The Wolves Theatre Royal Stratford East, 26th October 2018 …. or 3 stars if you would prefer the opinion of LD which may be more relevant since she should have a greater affinity with the subjects of Sarah DeLappe’s novel debut play. The SO similarly enjoyed the production but was…
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The Australian Chamber Orchestra at Milton Court review *****
The Australian Chamber Orchestra, Richard Tognetti (director) Milton Court Concert Hall, 22nd October 2018 WA Mozart Symphony No 39 in E flat major K543 Symphony No 40 in G minor K550 Symphony No 41 “Jupiter” in C major K551 If you don’t know the Australian Chamber Orchestra then you should.…
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Hogarth’s Progress at the Rose Kingston review ***
Hogarth’s Progress: The Art of Success and The Taste of the Town Rose Theatre Kingston, 21st October 2018 South West London was a popular place for the cultural, liberal, metropolitan elite in the first half of the C18. It still is. Hogarth, Horace Walpole, David Garrick, Henry Fielding, Alexander Pope,…
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The Habit of Art at Richmond Theatre review *****
The Habit of Art Richmond Theatre, 19th October 2018 There are a handful of plays that I regret not seeing when they first appeared. Not those I wish I had seen, That would be a very long list and cover those periods where I was not putting the required viewing…