Reviews
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Friday, 14 November 2025
We are bowled over!
Music Reissues Weekly: The Outer Limits - Just One More Chance
Sunday, 31 August 2025
The Outer Limits were from Leeds. Active over 1965 to 1968, the soul-tinged mod-poppers didn’t chart but their two regular singles are now pricey collector’s items. There was also, before the orthodox 45s, a track on a Leeds University charity fund-raising single.
Willis-Sørensen, Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra,...
Saturday, 30 August 2025
This week Vladimir Putin tried to murder my hosts in Ukraine. He failed. In more hopeful days, I spoke at a seminar organised by the British Council’...
Interview, Riverside Studios review - old media...
Saturday, 30 August 2025
The cult film that director Theo van Gogh left behind when he was killed in 2004, Interview, has already been remade twice; now it’s back as a stage...
Little Trouble Girls review - masterful debut...
Friday, 29 August 2025
Taking its title from a Sonic Youth track whose lyrics describe someone who seems good on the outside but is bad inside, this debut feature from the...
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Young Mothers review - the Dardennes explore teenage motherhood in compelling drama
Life after birth: five young mothers in Liège struggle to provide for their babies |
BBC Proms: The Marriage of Figaro, Glyndebourne Festival review - merriment and menace
Strong Proms transfer for a robust and affecting show |
Fat Ham, RSC, Stratford review - it's Hamlet Jim, but not as we know it
An entertaining, positive and contemporary blast! |
King & Conqueror, BBC One review - not many kicks in 1066
Turgid medieval drama leaves viewers in the dark |
Juniper Blood, Donmar Warehouse review - where ideas and ideals rule the roost
Mike Bartlett’s new state-of-the-agricultural-nation play is beautifully performed |
BBC Proms: Faust, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Nelsons review - grace, then grandeur
A great fiddler lightens a dense orchestral palette |
Elizabeth Alker: Everything We Do is Music review - Prokofiev goes pop
A compelling journey into a surprising musical kinship |
Album: Benedicte Maurseth - Mirra
Haunting, intense evocation of Norway’s uplands and its wildlife |
BBC Proms: Jansen, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Mäkelä review - confirming a phenomenon
Second Prom of a great orchestra and chief conductor in waiting never puts a foot wrong |
The Gathered Leaves, Park Theatre review - dated script lifted by nuanced characterisation
The actors skilfully evoke the claustrophobia of family members trying to fake togetherness |
As You Like It: A Radical Retelling, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - breathtakingly audacious, deeply shocking
A cunning ruse leaves audiences facing their own privilege and complicity in Cliff Cardinal's bold theatrical creation |
Oslo Stories Trilogy: Sex review - sexual identity slips, hurts and heals
A quietly visionary series concludes with two chimney sweeps' awkward sexual liberation |
BBC Proms: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Mäkelä review - defiantly introverted Mahler 5 gives food for thought
Chief Conductor in Waiting has supple, nuanced chemistry with a great orchestra |
Hostage, Netflix review - entente not-too-cordiale
Suranne Jones and Julie Delpy cross swords in confused political drama |
Music Reissues Weekly: The Beatles - What's The New, Mary Jane
John Lennon’s queasy, see-sawing oddity becomes the subject of a whole album |
Dunedin Consort, Butt / D’Angelo, Muñoz, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - tedious Handel, directionless song recital
Ho-hum 'comic' cantata, and a song recital needing more than a beautiful voice |
The Maccabees, Barrowland, Glasgow review - indie band return with both emotion and quality
The five-piece's reunion showed their music has stood the test of time. |
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Refuse / Terry's / Sugar
A Ukrainian bin man, an unseen used car dealer and every daddy's dream twink in three contrasting Fringe shows |
Faustus in Africa!, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - deeply flawed
Bringing the Faust legend to comment on colonialism produces bewildering results |
Houghton / We Out Here festivals review - an ultra-marathon of community vibes
Two different but overlapping flavours of subculture full of vigour |
Sorry, Baby review - the healing power of friendship in the aftermath of sexual assault
Eva Victor writes, directs and stars in their endearing debut feature |
BBC Proms: Liu, Philharmonia, Rouvali review - fine-tuned Tchaikovsky epic
Sounds perfectly finessed in a colourful cornucopia |
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Imprints / Courier
A slippery show about memory and a rug-pulling Deliveroo comedy in the latest from the Edinburgh Fringe |
BBC Proms: Suor Angelica, LSO, Pappano review - earthly passion, heavenly grief
A Sister to remember blesses Puccini's convent tragedy |
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