There was a beckoning green light when I arrived at Gatsby’s Mayfair mansion on Wednesday for The Great Gatsby Immersive London. The night was tender, the drinks flowed, the conversation was titillating, and there was just the right glitter and glitz you’d expect from one of Gatsby’s infamous lawn parties. Please note: due to Covid-19…
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.
Amélie the Musical review
Merci Amélie the Musical for bringing some much-needed sunshine to a bleak and midwintery London. The petite French girl that we fell in love with in the 2001 film is treading the boards at The Other Palace in a production that’s a billet doux to Paris and is as enchanting as it is heartwarming. (Please note:…
Oxford Lieder Festival – Magic, Myths and Mortals
It’s that melodic time of year again, when Oxford goes into full musical throttle in celebration of classical music and poetry. For two weeks, the city falls under the spell of the Oxford Lieder Festival, which this year transports us to Tales of Beyond – Magic, Myths and Mortals in the tuneful company of some…
Fleabag Review (and in cinemas)
Phoebe Waller-Bridge is the Girl with the Golden Pen. She tickled us with her sassy baddie, Villanelle, from ‘Killing Eve,’ and is currently co-writing the screenplay for the new Bond film, ‘No Time to Die.’ Last night, she thrilled the audience with the return of her one-woman show, Fleabag, at the Wyndham theatre, which she wrote…
Shake It Up! Festival celebrates Shakespeare’s Shoreditch
Grab your ruffs, London! The site of Shakespeare’s first London playhouse, The Theatre, is soon to become a permanent exhibition space. Ahead of its opening in March 2020, the Theatre Courtyard Gallery is hosting Shake it Up! A Shakespeare Festival for Shoreditch. The series of events celebrating the Bard and Elizabethan culture will run across…
Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre pops up at Blenheim Palace
Be still my beating heart! Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, last seen in its playful glory in early seventeenth century Bankside, has come to life in a theatrical pop-up in the glorious gardens of Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. And what a sight it is to behold. Complete with bustling Elizabethan village with medieval minstrels and ‘ye olde…
Fantasio at Garsington Opera
Manolo Blahnik, who has taken up a well-heeled residence at the Wallace Collection in London, would feel right at home on the Garsington Opera stage this summer. That’s because its version of Offenbach’s Fantasio offers a powdering of Marie Antoinette (the Sofia Coppola version) with some flamboyant Commedia dell’Arte thrown in. And whilst poor old…
Review: Andrew Scott in Present Laughter (in cinemas now)
If you could transplant the hearts face emoji onto humans, then the crowd at the Old Vic last night would have radiated red, pulsating love for Noel Coward’s Present Laughter. That’s because Andrew Scott was in the house, having recently traded in his cassocks from Fleabag, for a much more jazzy, art-deco inspired wardrobe in…
The Starry Messenger | Review | Diary of a Londoness
Matthew Broderick is all grown-up. He’s greyer, a tad stockier, and he looks a little tired, but he’s still the same boy we all fell in love with in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. And until August, he’s bringing a little of New York City and some otherworldly charm to London’s Wyndham Theatre in its latest…
Review: Ain’t Misbehavin’ at Southwark Playhouse
When I saw Tyrone Huntley in Leave to Remain at the Lyric Hammersmith earlier this year, I knew a star was in the ascendant, although the Evening Standard already knew that when they awarded him the ES Theatre Award. He’s now sprinted from stage into the director’s seat in a razzle-dazzle production of Ain’t Misbehavin’…