At Home He Feels Like A Tourist

  • The Wedding Present at Cadogan Hall review ****

    The Wedding Present Cadogan Hall, 14th October 2017 Regular readers of this blog (remember chums, the best clubs are exclusive) will be aware that the Tourist doesn’t really do “gigs”. It is all a bit loud for his aged ears. The number of bands/artists he would pay money to see…

  • Victory Condition at the Royal Court Theatre review **

    Victory Condition Royal Court Theatre, 12th October 2017 Apparently the writer of Victory Condition, Chris Thorpe, likes to experiment with the dramatic form. I haven’t seen Confirmation, a one man work in which he also took the lead as a white supremacist, which apparently prodded and provoked its audience. It…

  • B at the Royal Court Theatre review ***

    B Royal Court Theatre, 12th October 2017 I wasn’t entirely sure what to see from the plays on offer in this latest season at the Royal Court. I don’t know enough about the writers and the teasers on the website are exactly that, teasers. Seeing too many is an extravagance,…

  • Blade Runner 2049 film review *****

    Blade Runner 2049, 12th October 2017 Confession time. I think the original Blade Runner film is OK. Even in all the re-cut versions. Not brilliant, not a great leap forward in the cinematic science fiction genre, not a searing insight into the human condition. Just OK. Worth seeing but just…

  • The Real Thing at the Rose Theatre Kingston review ****

    The Real Thing Rose Theatre Kingston, 10th October 2017 Thinking cap donned it’s a short hop to the Rose for the next leg in my Stoppard education. And what a fine lesson this production, (shared with the Theatre Royal Bath and Cambridge Arts Theatre), tuned out to be. Once director…

  • Giulio Cesare opera at Hackney Empire review ***

    Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Parts 1 and 2 Hackney Empire, 7th October 2017 The more opera I see, the less I want to see. Yet this does not mean I don’t enjoy opera: on the contrary, when it works, it can match the best that theatre can offer in terms…

  • The Seagull at the Lyric Hammersmith review ***

    The Seagull Lyric Hammersmith, 9th October 2017 Right where I come from seagulls are a bloody menace. There are times when I feel the same way about Chekhov. You sit there thinking all his people are self-indulgent, lovelorn whingers who just need to lighten up and get a grip. But…

  • Ninagawa’s Macbeth at the Barbican Theatre review ****

    Macbeth Barbican Theatre, 8th October 2017 When I was a young’un, come to make my fortune in the Big Smoke, I was lucky enough to secure free or cut price tickets to productions at the Barbican and NT. But then, as now, I am afraid I was more “Dick” than…

  • My Name is Rachel Corrie at the Young Vic review ****

    My Name is Rachel Corrie Young Vic, 6th October 2017 I have raved about actor Erin Doherty in the past. She was the lynchpin in the excellent ensemble for Jack Thorne’s Junkyard (Junkyard at the Rose Theatre review *****), and was unbearably poignant in Katherine Soper’s excellent debut play Wish…

  • Soul of a Nation exhibition at Tate Modern ****

    Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power Tate Modern, 5th October 2017 I seem to have taken an age to get around to seeing Tate’s survey of African American Art through the vital twenty year period from 1963. There are a couple of weeks left to…