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'Yarico' at the Eel Brook Theatre, 25th February 2015
The 18th century comic opera Inkle and Yarico is an important piece of theatre. First staged in 1787, it tells the tragic tale of Yarico, an Amerindian girl who saves the life of Inkle, a marooned...
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'What the F*ck Is Love?' at the Roundhouse, 26th February 2015
Well, it's a combination of neurotransmitters, sex hormones and neuropeptides. When you spot an appropriate mate your subconscious zings, activating dopamine pathways in the brain. Vasopressin...
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'Hellscreen' at Vault Festival 2015, 27th February 2015
"As I enter this place, I am conscious of the present moment. I am responsible for my own actions. I make my own decisions. Anything I choose to do, I do so freely." Having to sign a disclaimer like...
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'Still Alice' (2014) directed by Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmoreland
Hey you! Yes, you! You want to be miserable? Really really miserable? Then boy do I have the film for you. Still Alice is a precision targeted assault on tear ducts everywhere, with the secondary...
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'The Collector' at The Space, 4th March 2015
The Collector is grim, creepy as all hell and a total downer. It's upsettingly good. Based on the novel of the same name by John Fowles, the play takes us gently by the hand and leads us down into the...
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'Rasta Thomas' Romeo and Juliet' at The Peacock Theatre, 04 March 2015
Ten minutes into Romeo and Juliet the music stopped, the dancers disappeared and a contrite looking man walked on stage. He explained that the performance would be restarted as the projections weren't...
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'LikeMe Labs / Alisa Leimane' at Arebyte Gallery, 5th March 2015
The text in the picture above, found tucked away on a bookshelf in the corner of LikeMe Labs neatly summarises my feelings. This show is a peculiar experience, acting largely as a springboard for the...
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'Jurassic Park' at The Vault Festival 2015, 6th March 2015
Jurassic Park? On stage? In London? From the moment I saw the posters I knew I had to be there. Adapting Steven Spielberg's iconic dinosaur adventure for the stage is, to say the least, an ambitious...
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'The Gunman' (2015) directed by Pierre Morel
It’s easy to imagine Sean Penn watching Liam Neeson’s transformation from character actor to action hero with envious eyes. Penn, primarily known for intensely played socially conscious roles, has...
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'Run All Night' (2015) directed by Jaume Collet-Serra
"Man, you’d think that gangsters would have learned not to mess with Liam Neeson’s kids by now.Run All Night finds the actor walking an increasingly well-trodden path: playing a middle-aged man with “a...
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'Lardo' at the Old Red Lion Theatre, 7th March 2015
"Lardo: Contains smoking, swearing, flashing lights and extreme wrestling mayhem."That promising sign proved to be an accurate summary of things to come. Upon entering the performance space above the...
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'Chappie' (2015) directed by Neill Blomkamp
That a film with the pitch 'an autonomous police robot equipped with an experimental learning AI is stolen by South African 'zef' rap band Die Antwoord who raise it to be their gangsta robo-son' was...
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'Mozart's Die Entführung (The Abduction)' at Robert Kime, 10th March 2015
Pop-Up Opera's 2014 production of Cosi Fan Tuttemarked the first time I genuinely, wholeheartedly enjoyed opera. It's not like I wasn't trying during the humongous ENO productions I attended, but the...
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'Game' at the Almeida Theatre, 9th March 2015
In 1968 researchers John Darley and Bibb Latane first scientifically demonstrated what is now known as 'the bystander effect'. Their interest was aroused by the much publicised 1964 murder of Kitty...
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'Let It Be' at the Garrick Theatre, 11th March 2015
First things first: there is a bedrock of quality that Let It Be cannot sink below. Purely by dint of playing extremely close facsimiles of Beatles songs this is a broadly entertaining way to spend an...
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'Wink' at Theatre503, 12th March 2015
We crucify ourselves upon technology. Throughout Phoebe Eclair-Powell's excellent Wink, a techno-religious awe gradually builds as we sit in front of a set that's reminiscent of a gigantic MacBook....
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Squarepusher at the Barbican Centre, 18th March 2015
Jesus fucking Christ. Where to begin? I've been a lot of bizarre concerts and heard a lot of weird music. But Squarepusher at the Barbican was (by some distance) the craziest, most aggressive...
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'Hiraeth' at the Soho Theatre, 19th March 2015
Before moving to the big city I grew up in a farmhouse in Wales. This makes Hiraeth, about a girl who grew up on a farmhouse in Wales before moving to the big city, very easy to empathise with. The...
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'Trainspotting' at the King's Head Theatre, 20th March 2015
By attending Harry Gibson's adaptation of Trainspotting, you risk being hit by fake turds, having liquid spat over you, being shoved about, dragged onto stage to dance, your "stupid trainers" being...
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'Altman' (2014) directed by Ron Mann
'Altmanesque' turns out to be a tricky thing to pin down. Throughout Altman, Ron Mann's biographical documentary about the late director, stars of his films pop up to give their two cents on what it...
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