BroadwayWorld.com •

Review: PICTURE PERFECT CHRISTMAS SHOW, National Gallery

Ever wanted to step inside the world of one of the National Gallery's paintings? Immersive theatre company Boo Productions may have the answer. In what is surprisingly the gallery's first time hosting theatre, the somewhat blandly titled Picture Perfect Christmas Show takes as its inspiration the Dutch painter Hendrick Avercamp's idyllic oil snowscapes. Writer-director Francesca Renèe Reid and composer Edward Court pluck their protagonists, the steadfastly heroic Frederik (Ciarán McCormack) and...
BroadwayWorld.com •

Review: THE NATIONAL, All Points East

In their first UK festival performance since before the pandemic, American soft rock quintet The National have shown themselves to be capable of a competent return to form. Their particular brand of soaring choruses and stomping refrains is reminiscent of a brooding film soundtrack, and is a perfect fit for the atmospheric twilight surrounds of East London's Victoria Park. The National have a knack for never letting the theatricality of a live performance undermine the music itself...
BroadwayWorld.com •

Review: THE MAGIC FLUTE, Arcola Theatre

The stated goal of an opera festival such as the Arcola's Grimeborn is to put a new spin on the classics in order to introduce them to new audiences, and in this respect The Magic Flute seems to pose more adaptational challenges than most. Mozart's elaborately plotted Singspiel concerning Prince Tamino's fish-out-of-water immersion in a fantasy land of seductive Egyptian cults, demons, and vengeful queens resists straightforward transferral to a modern setting, but this is what Opera Alegría ha
The Indiependent •

‘Eiffel’—Romantic Biopic Of Tower Architect Falls Flat: Review

This new romantic epic telling the story of the Eiffel Tower’s architect and the woman who inspired him is well told, but falls short of being profound. From the opening shot of a bearded, brooding architect gazing over the Paris skyline, to the balcony of the structure which has just redefined that skyline for eternity, it is clear that the Eiffel of the title refers to Gustave Eiffel the man, not his famous tower. Martin Bourboulon’s new French-language drama resists...
BroadwayWorld.com •

Review: COSÌ FAN TUTTE at Royal Opera House

Mozart's Così fan tutte has always been a work that tells us about ourselves. The tale of two hapless lovers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, and their attempts to prove that their girlfriends, Dorabella and Fiordiligi, will be faithful in their absence (and to win a bet against their friend Don Alfonso, who believes the titular adage "all women act like that") is a timeless parable of attitudes towards gender, how we ought to conduct ourselves in relationships, and what aspects of ourselves we present...
The Indiependent •

Book Review: The Best of the West End // Charles Duff

Like so many other art forms in the 1950s and 1960s, the post-war British theatre was in a state of flux. The upper-class comedies of manners of Terence Rattigan and Noel Coward were giving way to the kitchen sink dramas of Pinter and Stoppard, and the core of theatre in London was shifting from Shaftesbury Avenue to the ‘angry young men’ of the Royal Court. In the newly reissued 1995 book The Best of the West End, it is the aim of the actor, critic and theatre historian Charles Duff to reassess...
BroadwayWorld.com •

BWW Review: THE PARADIS FILES, Southbank Centre

Plays, musicals and operas which focus on women from history have become pleasingly commonplace over the last few years, but new touring opera The Paradis Files not only tells the story of a forgotten female contemporary of Mozart, but also puts her disability front and centre. Graeae, the theatre company behind the opera, aims both to address the problem of disabled representation, by spotlighting the so-called 'Blind Enchantress' Maria Theresia von Paradis, and to make the theatre a truly inc
Cherwell •

Review: Intimacies, after Vallotton

In 1890s Paris, Swiss-French artist Félix Vallotton’s striking, monochrome woodcut series known as Intimités captured all the illicit affairs and longing glances of his aristocratic belle époque subjects. Put simply, his work explored the ways in which they related to one another, and the nature of intimacy itself. Ever ambitious in its approach to what art and theatre can be, Oxford production company Paper Moon aims with its new exhibition Intimacies, after Vallotton not only to apply Vallotto
The Isis •

Frozen In Time: A Classicist’s Portrait of Interwar Oxford | The Isis

In one of the more blatantly cliché moments of my life, I watched the 1981 TV adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s iconic Oxford interwar novel Brideshead Revisited. Notwithstanding the fact that Oxford only features in the first four episodes, it remains that for many of us, Brideshead played a part in shaping our perceptions of life at Oxford. Daisy Dunn, author, critic, and an Oxford Classics graduate (St. Hilda’s, 2005), counts herself within that number – “you think, ‘it’ll be so idyllic’”…
The Indiependent •

Live Review: Gang of Youths // O2 Academy Brixton, London, 15.03.22

Gang of Youths’ recent Brixton show, the finale of a five-month run of UK and Ireland shows for the Australian quintet, starts with a rather jarring transition. After strong support from Sunderland native and self-styled ‘future of all things guitar’ Tom A. Smith, and Charlie Collins’ ethereal, country-infused vocals, the main set began with a haunting xylophone melody from percussionist Donnie Borzestowski, instantly lulling the expectant crowd...
BroadwayWorld.com •

BWW Review: MIMMA, Cadogan Hall

When it comes to a topic as over-saturated in theatre and in culture more generally as the Second World War, there is something to be said for productions that take a new approach. The members of the Italian resistance against Mussolini who came to London in hope of safety in the years preceding the conflict may not be the first wartime narratives that spring to mind, but the new British-Australian musical Mimma, performed for one night only at Cadogan Hall, puts them front and centre in its depiction...
Cherwell •

In conversation with the Oxford Opera Society

Of all art forms, opera is the one that can perhaps feel the most overwhelming to the uninitiated — there are the venues in every major city that make you feel as though you’ve stepped back into the 1800s, the convoluted tales sung in a foreign language, and, above all, those eye-watering ticket prices. Enter Opera Scenes In Concert, a performance somewhere between a concert and an acting showcase, featuring composers from Handel and Monteverdi to Rimsky-Korsakov and Offenbach, as well as nearly
Cherwell •

'Mortality and the human condition' - Review: Wednesday, Death Meditation

Like many students at a loose end during the first lockdown, Shaw Worth joined an online yoga class. However, unlike many others, he stayed in that class, and has now written and directed a one-act play, Wednesday, Death Meditation, performed at the BT Studio throughout 4th Week, using yoga as a device to explore issues of mortality and the human condition. The play has a bipartite structure, centring around a suburban yoga class, followed by a much darker conversation between yoga teacher Sand
Cherwell •

Wearing the colour pink

Every year of my Oxford degree so far I’ve optimistically bought a ticket to the Pink Night fundraiser, and every year I’ve arrived at the same quandary a few weeks later: what to wear. I know it isn’t particularly sustainable to be buying new pink outfits every year with little repeat wear potential, even if they’re thrifted, but I am occasionally too weak to resist the promise of a fresh Instagram post, and so I have become well-acquainted with the pitfalls of wearing pink. Every possible shade...
The Indiependent •

‘The Winston Machine’ Is A Bracing Portrait Of Modern Britain: Review

Under the combined effect of pandemic-era national solidarity and the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the last couple of years have seen an increase in British wartime nostalgia, and The Winston Machine engages with this nostalgia in a more critical way than most. Devised by the Kandinsky theatre company, and currently playing at New Diorama Theatre, the play is ostensibly a quaint multi-generational saga linking the 1940s with the present day, but soon devolves into a much more biting commentary on...
Cherwell •

Review: West Side Story (2021)

For musical theatre purists and sceptics alike, Steven Spielberg’s reboot of West Side Story remains a hard sell. According to the naysayers, the Oscar-winning 1961 film, itself adapted from Sondheim and Bernstein’s musical update of Romeo and Juliet, is timeless, and sacrilegious for Spielberg even to think about revising it. Another possible argument is that the reboot should have at least set the classic story in the present day, instead of recreating 1950s New York...
Cherwell •

Review: Songs of the Silenced // Musketeer Productions

Upon reading the premise for Sav Sood and Alex Rawnsley’s new BT Studio musical Songs of the Silenced, one could be forgiven for thinking that this ground was slightly too well-trodden. In this cabaret-style series of solo performances by eleven well-known women from Greek mythology, the influence of historical revisionism musicals such as Hamilton and especially Six is never far from view, nor are the echoes of similar recent cultural attempts to ‘give voice’ to the women of antiquity...
Cherwell •

'To help us survive': On Stephen Sondheim

Right after my GCSEs, as I was gradually exiting a deeply embarrassing Hamilton phase, I saw the 1961 film adaptation of West Side Story. I was at a screening in Spitalfields Market, in an industrial former warehouse – the perfect setting for that film’s gritty vision of New York City. Yet what dragged me into a new stage of musical theatre obsession was not West Side Story’s sweeping approach to filming complex choreography, or its dazzling technicolour aesthetic, but the lyrics of Stephen Sondheim...
The Indiependent •

'The Girls of St Trinian's' Is A Playful And Anarchic Celebration of Girl Power: Review

We live in an era brimming with musical adaptations of teen classics, from Heathers to Bring It On, and Leeds University’s Music Theatre Society has decided that the next ideal source for jaunty school uniform choreography and songs celebrating teenage angst is 2007 cult classic St Trinian’s. The filmed version of The Girls of St Trinian’s, which was available to stream online as part of the Edinburgh Fringe, is a simplified yet faithful adaptation of the original’s plot, surrounding an underfunded...
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