La Bayadere review: The Royal Opera House’s production of an Indian fantasy is a surrealist spectacle November 16, 2018 As the days get shorter and the nights get colder, the thought of hunkering down in luxurious surroundings to watch a ballet becomes ever-more appealing. And there couldn’t be a better contrast to this chilly dark season than La Bayadere. This Indian fantasy is a sumptuous riot of colour, full of imagery of sacred flames [...]
Hadestown at the National Theatre review: Great tunes help mask a modern musical that doesn’t quite click November 16, 2018 Hadestown is the latest breakout musical to transfer from Broadway to London, with a run at the National Theatre almost certain to be followed by a sold-out stint on the West End. It’s a modern, stylised retelling of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, the original star-crossed lovers who even death couldn’t separate. After meeting [...]
Suspiria review: Call Me By Your Name director’s remake of Dario Argento classic is a wild ride November 16, 2018 Dario Argento’s horror masterpiece Suspiria shuns traditional storytelling. The absurdist fairy-tale about a young girl enrolling at a ballet school run by witches takes place in an hermetically sealed doll’s house filled with surreal nightmares. Gaudy, acid-trip visuals and layer upon layer of baroque texture create a sense of claustrophobic delirium that’s been aped – [...]
Pinter Three and Four review: The Harold Pinter Theatre continues its excellent run of the eponymous playwright’s short works November 16, 2018 The Harold Pinter Theatre continues its season of one-act plays written by its namesake with another six hours of rarely-performed material that can – nay, should – be viewed in a single, mammoth sitting. Pinter Three – there will be a total of seven productions, running through to next year – is the most challenging [...]
Dead In A Week (Or Your Money Back) review: A jokeless black comedy that fails to spin comedy from suicide November 15, 2018 Like cancer, terrorism, and Theresa May’s inbox, there’s not much fun to be found in suicide. But that’s not to say there’s no comedy in it. Chris Morris spun satirical gold out of slapstick jihadists in Three Lions, and life-affirming cancer caper 50/50 deftly showed the funnier side of a terminal illness. But black comedy [...]
Why edgy art, craft gin and spa treatments are all part of the modern hairdressing experience November 14, 2018 The digital age has come for many traditional industries over the past few years, from taxi driving to hotels. But one trade that won’t be disappearing with the tap of an app is hairdressing. Anyone who has seen that video of the Boston Dynamics robot falling over while stacking boxes will know that androids aren’t [...]
Homes Future at the Design Museum is a mad, retrofuturist vision of how designers of the past thought the future might look November 14, 2018 That the British are obsessed with our homes is a truism. Few other nations obsess quite so much about daily fluctuations in house prices, or attach quite so much cultural and social cachet to the idea of home ownership. The tale of modern British history is in large part the tale of our relationship with [...]
Juliet, Naked is far too preoccupied with its flat jokes to actually get to the heart of its abandonment issues November 2, 2018 Nick Hornby is the master of the manchild and Duncan, the one from the 2009 novel this film is based on, is one of his. He’s in thrall to a similarly adolescent idol, a mopey indie star called Tucker Crowe, who became a recluse following the release of his only album ‘Juliet’. Stuck in the [...]
Macbeth at the Barbican review: Christopher Eccleston plays the Scottish traitor in this horror-inspired version by the RSC November 2, 2018 Macbeth lives and dies on its witches. “When shall we three meet again?” squeaks the first, a young girl in a red dress and white tights, ribbons in her hair. Two identically dressed girls answer, then run energetically off the stage, giggling shrilly. These escapees from The Shining weave in and out of this otherwise [...]
Composer Nitin Sawhney opens up about the dystopia inspired by his father’s death, Brexit and Schrodinger’s Cat November 2, 2018 Nitin Sawhney is difficult to pin down. He’s best known as a contemporary classical composer, but he’s also an impressive musician in his own right, playing the piano, classical and flamenco guitar, tabla and sitar. He’s written countless scores for films, TV and video games, as well as stand-alone studio albums; he received the Ivor [...]