Deep in the rolling hills of Surrey is Grange Park Opera, set in the grounds of West Horsley Place, a magical location where you will find a crinkle-crankle wall, a woodland glade, an ancient orchard with a 300 year-old mulberry tree and a Theatre in the Woods ringing with first class opera. An evening with…
London Arts and Culture
London Arts and Culture Blog: If culture vulturing is your thing, this is where you'll want to be. Grab a hot seat for the best art and exhibition, opera and classical music, dance and theatre in London. I sometimes head out of of the capital for out-of-town events.
Review: Sheridan Smith in Shirley Valentine
Last updated on February 19th, 2023Shirley Valentine probably needs no introduction. She’s 37 years old in the making, having begun her life as a play at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool in 1986. She then hit stardom in that film with the enchanting Pauline Collins in 1989. Shirley Valentine’s latest incarnation, though, is with Sheridan…
Review: Eureka Day at The Old Vic, London
Helen Hunt made a hilarious UK stage debut at the Old Vic Theatre in Eureka Day this week, a sharp comedy which comes with a trigger warning: it will make you laugh out loud – a lot. Eureka Day was written by Californian playwright, Jonathan Spector. It’s set in pre-pandemic USA in hip Berkeley, a…
Mini Review: Serse at Opera Holland Park
It’s not every day you get to experience opera in a magical setting which includes the dishevelled remains of a Blitzed-out house with the sound of peacocks wafting in and out, the distant peal of a cricket match, dogs barking and even the odd bird flying past you. And I was in good company too,…
Review: The Excursions of Mr Brouček
Last updated on June 26th, 2023David Pountney is a genius. The British-Polish director has transformed one of the repertoire’s most difficult and eccentric operas into a madcap, merry work of art, bursting with colour, humour and silliness. I was both intrigued by and slightly dreading The Excursions of Mr Brouček at Grange Park Opera. I…
Review: David Harbour and Bill Pullman in Mad House
Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who’s the maddest, baddest of them all? This is the five-million dollar question you’ll be asking yourself when you leave the Ambassador’s Theatre after an evening with Mad House, a play by American playwright Theresa Rebeck which packs a very mighty punch and will leave you a little bruised and…
Mini Review: The Tallis Scholars at St-Martin-in-the-Fields
Hail to the Tallis Scholars, the world’s finest choir of Renaissance music who were in London last night for their first concert in the magnificent St-Martin-in-the-Fields. It was a glorious programme of Antoine Brumel’s 12-part Earthquake Mass, interweaved with sun-centered by American composer David Lang. Lang is one of America’s most-performed composers and his formidable…
Review: My Fair Lady – London Coliseum
My Fair Lady has galloped into the London Coliseum this May, and it’s a bloomin’ loverly production. It’s the first major West End revival of the show for 21 years and comes to us via The Lincoln Center Theater and Broadway. It’s brilliantly directed by Bartlett Sher with rising star Amara Okereke as Eliza Doolittle…
Where is Ten Percent filmed? | Les London Locations
Last updated on September 27th, 2023Sacré bleu, the French hit series Call my Agent (Dix Pour Cent) has had a British, or should I say a London makeover, and it’s made its recent debut over on Amazon Prime. The series follows the trials, tribulations and love affairs of the talent agency Nightingale Hart. It includes…
Review: Jodie Comer in Prima Facie
Last updated on January 23rd, 2023I have just witnessed Jodie Comer performing a feat which even nine lives Villanelle wouldn’t be able to pull off: a one-hundred-minute solo performance on stage in Prima Facie at the Harold Pinter theatre, without an interval and hardly pausing for breath. She even manages to get drenched, dry off,…