Extraordinary Alien. Review by Julia Pascal. Does a stand-up need to have a narrative or does a discursive monologue, laced with self-deprecation, stand up? Debra Tammer’s Extraordinary Alien (on its way to the Edinburgh Festival) promises much with its marketing image.
Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam. Review by Graham Buchan. The work of a largely forgotten and unusual Victorian artist is on show at the Royal Academy. Richard Dadd (1817-1886), a product of the Academy, was held in very high regard at the start of his career and then suffered a major psychotic episode (in which he killed his father) and spent the remaining forty-three years of his life in mental institutions.
Truth to Power Café. Review by Barbara Lewis. Jeremy Goldstein is celebrating the 20th anniversary of his company London Artists Projects, whose missions include taking his “Truth to Power Café” across the world.
Swan Lake. Review by Julia Pascal. What can be done with the plot of Swan Lake? Should this 19th century classic be interpreted freshly for the 21st? That is the question suggested by the State Ballet of Georgia.
On the Beach. Review by Alan Price. One of the extras on this On the Beach blu ray is Kim Newman outlining apocalyptic cinema. Newman describes On the Beach as the first film to portray a dignified end of the world: people quietly going to their doom as a nuclear war sends radiation their way.
Macbeth. Review by Barbara Lewis. The vocation of the HandleBards touring theatre company is to share a love of Shakespeare through sheer entertainment in settings that range from the classroom to country estates on summer’s evenings. That means comic relief prevails over tragic significance even when the chosen drama is The Scottish Play.
Leon Spilliaert. Review by Barbara Lewis. Insomniac and largely self-taught artist Leon Spilliaert is the master of absence, silence and solitude. His best-known evocations of emptiness are coastal scenes in his native Ostend informed by nocturnal wandering through the deserted port.
Allegra. Review by Julia Pascal. This seemingly frothy play with music is a vehicle for Dame Maureen Lipman. She plays Allegra, a woman with a pathological desire to burst into song. Allegra is motivated to brighten the mood of those around her, even at the most inappropriate moments.
Romeo and Juliet. Review by Barbara Lewis. Even in times when women are cast as Shakespeare’s Lear and Prospero, it’s a bold move to do the same with Romeo – the byword for the romantic male lover. It’s the tactic of Greenwich Theatre’s artistic director James Haddrell, who has also dared to compete for audience attention with the World Cup and heatwave weather in what is billed as fresh, summer Shakespeare.
The Nova Exhibition. Review by Graham Buchan. On entering this exhibition visitors are invited to sit on a wooden bench and watch a 5-minute video of revellers at the Nova Music Festival. On the screen are dancers, quite possibly off their heads, arms in the air and smiling from ear to ear.
Poetry review – INTIMATE ARCHITECTURE: Jennifer Johnson admires Tess Jolly’s adroit use of language in poems that explore memory and imagination
Nuts in May. Review by Alan Price. Hard to think of many comedy films set on a campsite. There may be some interesting European cinema out there, but I’ve not come across it. We have to return to 1976 and Mike Leigh’s hilarious TV play Nuts in May all about a camping trip that goes horribly wrong.
By Alan Price • added recently on London Grip, comedy, film • Tags: Alan Price, comedy, film