At Home He Feels Like A Tourist

  • My top 10 plays of 2017

    Message to self. Do not drone on. Nobody will read this. You are seemingly dispossessed of any edit function. And there are literally millions of other lists of best plays/theatre of 2017 produced by people who know what they are talking about. This may be your blog, intended to consolidate…

  • Cezanne Portraits exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery review *****

    Cezanne Portraits National Portrait Gallery, 14th December 2017 Frankly they could have hung the 50 or so paintings here upside down and turned the lights off. I would still have given it 5 stars. It’s Cezanne. The painter who showed all the other painters who have come since how to…

  • Dali/Duchamp at the Royal Academy review ***

    Dali/Duchamp Royal Academy, 29th December 2017 I don’t really get Salvador Dali. Maybe it is the over-familiarity with images of his work. Maybe it is the obviousness of the in-yer-face Freudian, symbolism. Maybe it is the flat, lifeless effect of his paintings. Maybe it is the fact that once he…

  • Daisy Pulls It Off at the Park Theatre review ***

    Daisy Pulls It Off Park Theatre 200, 16th December 2017 Funny thing the memory. Even more curious is consciousness itself. It used to be that clever folk conceptualised consciousness as a kind of “theatre of the mind”. Apparently now the cutting edge of neuroscience, psychology and philosophy says this dualism…

  • Titus Andronicus at the Barbican Theatre review ****

    Titus Andronicus Barbican Theatre, 13th December 2017 Titus Andronicus is a comedy right. Yet I see it is customarily bracketed with the other Shakespearean tragedies, and here forms part of the RSC’s latest take on the quartet of Roman tragedies, entitled, er, Rome. Now I know this comedy/tragedy/history play division…

  • The Florida Project film review ****

    The Florida Project, 13th December 2017 I missed out on Sean Baker’s previous film, Tangerine, shot entirely on an I Phone camera. It was on the “to-see at the cinema list” but I failed to get round to it. More fool me. This clearly needs to be put right based…

  • Peter Wispelwey (cellist) at Kings Place review ****

    Peter Wispelwey, cello Cello Unwrapped: Bach Through Time Concert III. Kings Place Hall 1, 8th December 2017 JS Bach – Cello Suite No 1 in G, BWV 1007 Benjamin Britten – Cello Suite No 3, Op 87 Gyorgy Ligeti – Sonata for solo cello JS Bach – Cello Suite No…

  • Happy End film review ****

    Happy End, 7th December 2017 Michael Haneke is a light-hearted fellow. At least that is what he claimed in a recent interview I read. I still have my doubts. Mind you he clearly has a sense of humour. Albeit of the dark variety. As his films reveal. It is a…

  • The Hound of the Baskervilles at Jermyn Street Theatre review ****

    The Hound of the Baskervilles Jermyn Street Theatre, 10th December 2017 Everyone likes Sherlock Holmes right. And everyone can see that the stories are ripe for comic treatment. Indeed you have probably seen this done on numerous occasions. Even the amazing Cumberbatch/Freeman/Moffat/Gatiss Sherlock, which is regarded with reverence in the…

  • Bach and Telemann: Academy of Ancient Music at Milton Court review *****

    Academy of Ancient Music, Bojan Cicic (director and violin), Rachel Brown (flute and recorder), Rachel Beckett (recorder), Alistair Ross (harpsichord)  Bach and Telemann: Reversed Fortunes, Milton Court Concert Hall, 7th December 2017 I see I am now close to being a Academy of Ancient Music groupie. Not in a sinister…

  • Parliament Square at the Bush Theatre review *****

    Parliament Square Bush Theatre, 6th December 2017 As a few slightly unkind people have pointed out most of the “reviews” I somewhat sadly post on this “blog” are worse than useless as, more often than not, they appear after the event. Fair criticism but I can’t be toddling off to…

  • The Cardinal’s Musick at Wigmore Hall review ****

    The Cardinal’s Musick, Andrew Carwood (director) Wigmore Hall, 4th December 2017 Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c.1525-1594) – Missa Hodie Christus natus est Anon – Gaudete, Hail Mary full of grace, Quem Pastores, Salutation Carol Jacob Handl (1550-1591) – Mirabile mysterium Richard Pygott (c.1485-1549) – Quid petis O fili Tomás Luis…