41 h. ago Review: The Script proves no stage is needed for them at Cardiff Castle

One thing stood out more than anything at the castle for me after seeing the Script for the first time

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60 h. ago A Moon for the Misbegotten review – even Ruth Wilson can’t redeem this long night

Almeida theatre, LondonRebecca Frecknall’s usually bold directorial hand seems stilled in a glacially paced revival co-starring Michael Shannon and David ThrelfallRebecca Frecknall has given some surprising spins to the American canon with her refreshing and untraditional revivals. The surprise in the director’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s final play is that it is served up straight.Frecknall has stepped back to let the play do the speaking but this faithfulness lays bare the datedness of the drama, which creaks with age at times. The production itself seems imbalanced too: glacial in pace, it stretches across three hours, not gathering enough intensity and chugging anti-climactically to its end. Continue reading...

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4 d. ago Kiefer/Van Gogh review – Anselm puts the nightmare into Vincent’s sunflower visions

Royal Academy, LondonThe Dutch artist looks like a prophet of the Holocaust when viewed through the 80-year-old German painter’s dark lens in this startling show, which makes you see how Van Gogh might have painted modern horrorsVincent van Gogh was born in 1853, in the middle of the comparatively peaceful 19th century. If he hadn’t shot himself in a cornfield at the age of 37, and had made it to his 60s, he could have witnessed all that end in the 1914-18 war. If he’d lived to 80, he would have read in his newspaper, at an Arles cafe table, of the election of Adolf Hitler as German chancellor, and in 1945, at 92, watched newsreel footage of the emaciated survivors of Belsen.Odd thoughts, but they are stoked by the Royal Academy’s strange and startling exhibition. This is an intimate encounter between the great living German history painter, to mark his 80th year, and his hero Van Gogh. It juxtaposes his responses to the latter, from teenage drawings to recent gold-spattered wheatfi...

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1 week ago CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV: You have to admire the understaffed police solving this brutal gang killing

The head of Operation Columbia, the hunt for seven men suspected of the gang-related killing of a 23-year-old delivery worker, Bellamy could call on 45 detectives and forensics specialists.

Events

2 w. ago Brotherless Night by VV Ganeshananthan audiobook review – love and conflict in Sri Lanka

The civil war transforms a young trainee doctor’s life as she copes with her feelings for a Tamil Tiger in last year’s Women’s prizewinning novelBrotherless Night opens with 16-year-old Sashi Kulenthiren, who hopes to be a doctor like her eldest brother, making tea when the kettle slips out of her hand, causing her to pour boiling water on herself. When a neighbour, K, hears her screams, he rushes over to help, cracking raw eggs over the scalds to soothe the pain. “So I began as K’s patient though he ended as mine,” Sashi reflects.Set in 1980s Sri Lanka, VV Ganeshananthan’s coming-of-age novel – which won the 2024 Women’s prize for fiction – is an epic and hard-hitting tale of family and survival as it documents life during the civil war between Tamil separatists and the Sinhalese majority that lasted three decades. Before fighting breaks out, Sashi’s most pressing problem is whether she will pass her exams at school. But soon violence and kidnapping become the norm, communities are...

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2 w. ago Robbie Williams flies in on a rocket and brings out star guest in stunning Manchester Co

Death-defying stage dives, big anthems, and plenty of showbiz sparkle as Robbie Williams put on quite the show in Manchester's Co-op Live

Events

3 w. ago Review Round Up: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bridge Theatre (2025)

Review Round Up: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bridge Theatre (2025)  Love London Love Culture

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3 w. ago A Midsummer Night’s Dream review – Nicholas Hytner’s revels return with bawdy, uninhibited mischief

Bridge theatre, LondonThe immersive setup brings the audience into the midst of the play’s shapeshifting unreality among a comedy-gold cast of magical charactersShenanigans reign in this neck of the woods. Boogying back to the Bridge after six years, Nicholas Hytner’s rollicking production of Shakespeare’s great comedy feasts on bawdy mischief and aerial antics. Radiating charisma, Emmanuel Akwafo’s uninhibited Bottom instructs his ragtag group of am-dram players to rehearse “most obscenely and courageously”. Hytner’s production, with somewhat more rigour and expertise, takes note.Bunny Christie’s luscious set of beds, leaves and trapdoors has us at once rising from the murky depths of the forest and floating among the clouds of sleep. Half the audience mill amid the foggy underland, skilfully shuffled by stage management, while the rest of us sit up among the fairies. The immersive setup complements the play’s shapeshifting unreality; in this world, we become another set of magical...

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3 w. ago A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Bridge Theatre review: I can't remember enjoying a Dream more

This acrobatic, erotic, playfully queered version of Shakespeare’s comedy is even better than it was in 2019

Politics

3 w. ago Review: I went to see Stranger Things actor play his TikTok megahit ... now I understand what the fuss was all about

It's easy to be cynical about an actor turned singer. But Djo is the real deal.

Events

3 w. ago PATRICK MARMION reviews Fiddler On The Roof's first night at the Barbican Theatre: Topol made the film sing, but this Fiddler dances to its own tune

The show is surely still best known from the 1971 film starring Chaim Topol as the hard-working, God-fearing milkman Tevye with five feisty daughters to marry off.

Culture

3 w. ago Nightmare of how Putin would flatten Britain: Ports and airfields bombarded, oil rigs and satellites sabotaged and waves of cyber attacks feared if Russia pounces

In a 144-page document, revealed yesterday, defence chiefs outlined the five terrifying 'methods of attack' Britain should brace itself for if it was forced into a major conflict with the likes of Russia.

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3 w. ago REVIEW: Kesha leads sweaty Manchester show with gimp masks, pig men and a United crop top

The loud and unapologetic show did not disappoint

Politics

last month Explosive plot twists make this noirish cold case thriller sizzle: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV

Are you a fan of Gary Oldman in Slow Horses? You'll like Dept Q. Love the cold cases on Unforgotten? Give Dept Q a try. Enjoy Rebus? You'll be at home with Dept Q.

Events