Eyam at Shakespeare’s Globe is an impressive, emotionally draining play about accepting death September 28, 2018 Shakespeare's Globe, until 13 Oct RECOMMENDED It’s the 17th century, and the people of the plague-struck Derbyshire village of Eyam have made a noble decision to quarantine themselves, rather than risk the illness spreading to neighbouring settlements. By the time the pestilence has ended, three-quarters of the villagers will be dead. Directed by Adele Thomas [...]
Want some of the best Chinese food in the world? Go to Taiwan September 8, 2017 Seeking the best in Chinese food and culture, but feeling pressed for time? Skip the mainland and get it all in one place. Go to Taipei. In 1949, after years of civil war, the nationalist forces of the Kuomintang withdrew to an island in the South China Sea, leaving the communists in control of the [...]
Here’s the ultimate guide on where to eat in Montréal, a Canadian city where generations of immigrants have created an incredibly varied food scene July 5, 2017 This year the largest city in the French-Canadian province of Quebec celebrates its 375th anniversary. Since its founding, successive waves of immigrants have brought their culinary traditions to Montréal, adapting them to suit local tastes and ingredients. The result is a history written in rich, diverse and distinctive flavours. I visited in late March when [...]
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Young Vic review: A dispiriting slog through the mud March 3, 2017 A perennial favourite, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is traditionally presented as a magical, romantic comedy. However, Joe Hill-Gibbins’ conspicuously dismal production at the Young Vic cares little for such frivolities. The treatment of the text is fairly conservative, but there’s a subtle change in tone that refocuses the audiences’ attention on the play’s murky [...]
Love at the National Theatre: an important play about welfare in Britain that’s appropriately unenjoyable December 14, 2016 Love, at the National Theatre, is not the poverty porn that so often clutters the London stage, but a powerful indictment of the shocking state of social housing, social care, and social welfare in Britain today. Writer-director Alexander Zeldin presents a group of disparate people forced to live side-by-side in emergency housing, and the grinding [...]
Aladdin at Lyric Hammersmith is the playful reinvention that combines flying carpets with Brexit jokes December 6, 2016 Some pantomimes rely on hiring former celebrities to lure in the crowds – “Where are the best years of my career?” “Behind you!” This production has no need for such gimmicks, having instead a tight script that playfully reinvents a classic, high-energy dancing, inventive use of pop songs, engaging performances, and lots of audience participation. It [...]
An Inspector Calls at the Playhouse theatre: good, cosy fun, but lacking spleen November 17, 2016 An Inspector Calls returns once again to the London stage. A whodunnit in which a police officer investigates the causes of a young woman’s suicide should be an excoriating critique of the indifference of the upper-middle classes, but here it is repackaged as cosy entertainment for the descendants of the very people it originally sought [...]
The Nest at the Young Vic: this play with a PJ Harvey soundtrack never quite clicks November 4, 2016 The Nest is the story of a couple preparing for the birth of their first child. It has slick dialogue, fine acting, simple but effective sets, and an impressive original score by PJ Harvey, but somehow the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Based on a 1975 German work by Franz Xaver [...]
The Mountaintop play at Young Vic review: a searing, sexy, devastating imagining of Martin Luther King Jr’s last night October 13, 2016 Martin Luther King Jr is one of the towering figures of the 20th century. A champion of African-American culture and people, a religious leader, a community organiser, a crusader for civil rights, an exemplar of non-violent resistance, a model of masculinity, a moral touchstone, an icon, a martyr, a secular saint. A play about his [...]
The Libertine at Theatre Royal Haymarket starring Dominic Cooper fails to deliver on its salacious promises September 29, 2016 The Libertine begins with a promise. Dominic Cooper, as Restoration rake the Earl of Rochester, delivers a swaggering prologue, directly informing the audience that although they may like some of what he does, they will not like him. This speech is an implicit bargain; that he will behave appallingly, and the audience will be thrilled [...]