Even in times when rehash is more common than originality, the risk with a revival of Burt Bacharach’s late 1960s musical Promises, Promises, in turn based on Billy Wilder’s 1960 film The Apartment, is that it feels doubly derivative.
performance
Adaptations of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol began around 30 years after his death and proliferated during the 1930s and 40s with a wealth of radio productions, notably one featuring Orson Welles and sponsored by Campbell’s Soup.
For the non-initiate, The Beastie Boys were a group of white New Yorkers who made the leap from punk rock to hip hop. The result was the number 1 hit Licensed to Ill and an opening up to the white suburbs of a previously black musical phenomenon.
This was the UK premiere for the Compagnie Marie Chouinard from Quebec. She started with Soft virtuosity, still humid, on the edge – a title that means nothing in English but perhaps has more resonance in French. Happily the work was far more exciting than the title.
A new stage show by poet Martin Figura turns out to be both entertaining and thought-provoking
A dance-drama about the troubled lives of Caitlin & Dylan Thomas
Michael Bartholomew-Biggs draws together his impressions of a novel multi-media show that combines poetry music and film.
Northern Ireland’s permanent representation in Brussels periodically brings to the capital of Europe a sample of Northern Irish culture in a spirit of cross-cultural exchange that risks being disrupted in the event of a Brexit.
Thomas Ovans enjoys an evening at the theatre which recalls a golden age of cinema.
Embracing art’s ability to transcend national divisions, a young pan-European ensemble delivered Tchaikovsky at his most triumphantly Russian, as part of a vivacious and compelling beginning to its new season, known as the Hulencourt Art Project, which runs until May next year.
. Kate Saffin & Heather Wastie commemorate the lives of women recruited to work on Britain’s canals during World War 2
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • history, performance, theatre, travel, year 2017 • Tags: history, Kate Saffin & Heather Wastie, performance, theatre, travel