family relationships
Ruth Ozeki: The Book of Form and Emptiness review - where the objects speakFriday, 05 November 2021
“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.” Ruth Ozeki’s latest novel takes its name from a Buddhist heart sutra that meditates on reality and questions of human existence. It’s a big question for a big book. A Zen priest as well as a teacher, writer,... Read more... |
Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of), Criterion Theatre review - bursting with wit, verve, and loveThursday, 04 November 2021
“We haven’t started yet!” Hannah-Jarrett Scott, dressed in Doc Martens under a 19th-century shift, reassures us as she attempts to dislodge a yellow rubber glove from a chandelier in the middle of the set of Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of).... Read more... |
'Night, Mother, Hampstead Theatre review - despair in sotto-voceTuesday, 02 November 2021
‘Night, Mother remains a play of piercing pessimism, something that’s not necessarily the same as tragedy, though the two often run congruently. The inexorability of the development of Marsha Norman’s 1983 Pulitzer Prize winner certainly recalls the... Read more... |
Album: Tori Amos - Ocean to Ocean, reviewWednesday, 27 October 2021
A “sonic photograph” is how Tori Amos describes her sixteenth album, recorded at her home in Cornwall during the spring and summer of Britain’s third lockdown, when, travel, her usual mode of coping with “troubling things”, was not an option. Living... Read more... |
Rice, Orange Tree Theatre review - whip-smart, but unsure where it standsTuesday, 19 October 2021
“Careful, there’s a hole in the floor.” The warning’s an unusual one, passed along conscientiously by the stewards at the door of the tiny Orange Tree Theatre.The hole in question is long and angular and will soon be filled with water, stretching... Read more... |
The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Lyric Hammersmith review - matchless revival of a contemporary classicMonday, 18 October 2021
“You can’t kick a cow in Leenane without some bastard holding a grudge for 20 years,” sighs Pato Dooley (Adam Best) prophetically; he has already started making his escape from that particular Galway village, doing lonely stints on London building... Read more... |
First Person: Rachel O'Riordan on the enduring power of a sad, funny, and extraordinary playWednesday, 13 October 2021
The Beauty Queen of Leenane is a vicious, sad and extraordinary play.On the surface, Martin McDonagh's play, first seen 25 years ago and revived now in a collaboration between Chichester Festival Theatre and my home base, the Lyric Hammersmith... Read more... |
Marcin Wicha: Things I Didn’t Throw Out review - the stories told by stacks of stuffTuesday, 12 October 2021
Marcin Wicha’s mother Joanna never talked about her death. A Jewish counsellor based in an office built on top of the rubble of the Warsaw Ghetto, her days were consumed by work and her passion for shopping. Only once did she refer to her passing,... Read more... |
Jonathan Franzen: Crossroads review - can goodness ever be its own reward?Monday, 11 October 2021
It’s Christmas 1971 in New Prospect, a suburb of Chicago, and pastor Russ Hildebrandt has plans for time alone with Frances, an attractive young widow who’s just moved back into town.Important facts become quickly apparent: Russ resents his long-... Read more... |
What If If Only, Royal Court review - short if not sweetTuesday, 05 October 2021
Few sights speak so eloquently of loss, of an especially cruel and painful loss, as one glass of wine, half-full, alone on a table. A man speaks to a partner who isn’t there, wishes her back, but knows that she has gone. Then another woman... Read more... |
Shining City, Theatre Royal Stratford East review - occasional sluggishness alongside a true star turnMonday, 27 September 2021
When Brendan Coyle, playing a modestly magnetic widower and sales rep called John in this revival of Conor McPherson's 2004 play Shining City, first appears on stage, he looks thoroughly bewildered. His eyes dart back and forth as he initially... Read more... |
The Lodger, Coronet Theatre review - underdeveloped family dramaTuesday, 21 September 2021
The Coronet Theatre is a beautiful space – it’s a listed Victorian building, and the bar’s like something out of a film about Oscar Wilde. Unfortunately, Robert Holman’s The Lodger, a new play about family and trauma, doesn’t live up to its... Read more... |
