Briefly…Trelawny of the Wells
Following on so swiftly from the stonking revival of A Chorus Line at the Palladium here comes another show business piece about the joys, disappointments, and heartaches of life upon the wicked stage. In the Donmar revival…
Philharmonia Orchestra, Gabetta, Ashkenazy, Royal Festival Hall (Review)
Death comes in many guises but in this ingeniously devised Philharmonia concert he most definitely did not have the last laugh. That was for Shostakovich and a curiously ticking time bomb of percussion which first surfaced in…
A Conversation With RENÉE FLEMING
Not many singers could entitle a recital album The Beautiful Voice and ensure that in every sense it lived up to its name. Renée Fleming’s now iconic album is shortly to have a successor and in this…
A Chorus Line, London Palladium (Review)
Even singular sensations grow older – yet A Chorus Line, which coined the phrase, seems ageless, so sure is it of its place in musical theatre history, so locked now into our theatrical consciousness. It is, no…
Briefly…Six Pictures of Lee Miller/ Lift
A weekend to restore one’s faith in the current evolution of music theatre. Jason Carr and Edward Kemp’s Six Pictures of Lee Miller (RADA) could hardly inhabit a more different place in the ever-changing universe of musicals…
Charpentier “Medea”, English National Opera, London Coliseum (Review)
Hell hath no fury… and in Medea’s case comes so precipitously that even her children must be taken from the room whenever her demons threaten an unscheduled appearance. That is but one of many telling details that…
Kerry Ellis/ Will Stuart at the Pheasantry
So, ok, we know all about Kerry Ellis’s rocky power belt, the vocal laser that carried Elphaba into the stratosphere and dug down and dirty with Meatloaf and bared all, vocally and emotionally speaking, with Queen’s “No-One…
The week in brief
I’m thinking of making this a regular feature – a quick resume of my movements during and impressions of the week just past: I checked briefly into the BBC – and the popular Radio 4 programme “Last…
A Conversation With DAVID McVICAR & SARAH CONNOLLY: Charpentier’s ‘Medea’
Backstage at English National Opera, David McVicar & Sarah Connolly discuss Charpentier’s Medea. It is Wednesday 6 February and just prior to the afternoon stage rehearsal at the London Coliseum I sit down with David McVicar and Sarah…