Sideways Glance Outwards

“Enough already,” I can hear you shouting, “What’s with the navel-gazing?” Well, yes, quite. The final days of the calendar year may be prim...

Sideways Glance Backwards

Well that, as they say, was the year that was. The tolling of midnight on Thursday will signal the end of my first calendar year of reviewin...

Review: 1984, Battersea Arts Centre

Written for Culture Wars The future, according to George Orwell, is best encapsulated by “a boot stamping on a human face forever.” Should t...

Review: The Stefan Golaszewski Plays, Bush Theatre

Written for Culture Wars Stefan Golaszewski is the sort of man who hopes to fall in love on public transport, who soaks in the city dreamily...

Review: The Fahrenheit Twins, Barbican

Written for Culture Wars Stationed on a remote arctic island, celebrated anthropologists Boris and Una Fahrenheit are knee-deep in research ...

Ever tried.

On a roundabout journey through the dusty corners of the internet, I stumbled across the following youtube clip. In many ways, its just anot...

Review: Hall, Hornsey Town Hall

Written for Culture Wars Looming over you, Hornsey Town Hall pierces a dark and gloomy dusk sky. For the most part its windows are unlit. Fr...

Theatre's Presumptions

Given that I got up at a ridiculous hour this morning to rejig this piece for the Guardian, I thought I post the new version here for those...

Review: The Spanish Tragedy, Arcola Theatre

Written for Time Out An eye for an eye may make the whole world blind, but fuzziness of vision is not an affliction suffered by director Mit...

Review: Rust, Pleasance Theatre

Written for Culture Wars A silhouetted pipeline projectile vomits waste into the sea. Ships and submarines are coated in a layer of their ow...

Liveness: On Vanity and In Vain

As you might have noticed, I’ve been thinking a lot about liveness of late. You might also have spotted that I attach a great deal of impor...

Review: They Only Come At Night: Visions, Barbican Centre

Written for Culture Wars Horror is a funny genre. In order to succeed – that is, to afright – it must almost transcend its chosen medium. It...

Review: Made In Russia, Chelsea Theatre

Written for Culture Wars This is it. Tonight, from the modest stage of the Chelsea Theatre, Andrei Andrianov and Oleg Soulimenko will smash ...

Review: Live Long and Prosper, Chelsea Theatre

Written for Culture Wars Knees buckling beneath him, Spock crumples towards death. His hand slides down the glass panel in front of him. Loo...

Review: Constellations, Royal Court

As settings go, the multiverse is a damn sight more ambitious than most. Over the course of its 65 minutes, Nick Payne’s Constellations zaps...

Review: A Small Town Anywhere, Battersea Arts Centre

Written for Culture Wars From my pulpit, I am engaged in a slur campaign. For no reason other than his political allegiances, I have written...

Review: The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Vaudeville Theatre

Written for Culture Wars Aside from the poetic magnetism of its central figure, Jim Cartwright’s 1992 play has little going for it. The enti...

Review: Room Temperature Romance, Barbican Pit Theatre

Written for Culture Wars Examining those momentary nothings that, taken together, make up a lifelong friendship, Levantes Dance Theatre misj...

Review: Raoul, The Barbican

Written for Culture Wars Raoul is not a one man show. If it seems that way it is because its cast of hundreds happen to share a single body...

Review: Constellations, Royal Court

As settings go, the multiverse is a damn sight more ambitious than most. Over the course of its 65 minutes, Nick Payne’s Constellations ach...

Review: The Factory's Hamlet, Arch 635

Written for Culture Wars Even for the most well-drilled company, Hamlet is no mean feat. Exalted to the point of petrifying, bursting at th...