Dimness before dawn: Noah Mosley’s Aurora
If Aylin Bozok is directing anything at Grimeborn, I always try to go. I’ve been absolutely blown away by her past productions: her powerfully considered, exquisitely poised approach is always…
Hurtling into blankness: Entanglement! An Entropic Tale at Tête à Tête
Opera and physics: as a combination, what could possibly go wrong? As I briefly scanned one of the many programme notes generously supplied for the brave audience of Entanglement! An…
Stab in the dark: Edward Lambert’s The Cloak and Dagger Affair, Tête à Tête
Taking as its inspiration Lorca’s 1928 play Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín, Edward Lambert’s The Cloak and Dagger Affair is a curious portrait of a very…
Breaking app with the boyfriend: Vicky and Albert, Tête à Tête
“And in a world where everyone else is in possession of at least once significant other, I couldn’t be more alone.” Elfyn Jones’ timely little one-woman opera Vicky and Albert…
Revolution going nowhere: The Prometheus Revolution at Grimeborn
Prometheus stole fire from the gods in order to ensure human progress, and met with a grisly eternal punishment as a reward: Zeus’ eagle devouring his liver daily. Keith Burstein’s…
Shivers up and down the spine: David Sawer’s The Skating Rink at Garsington
In a small seaside town in Spain, on a grubby campsite near the beach, lust and murder – opera’s two key ingredients – are fomenting under the sweltering sun, pulling…
Pastel-perfect hell: To See The Invisible at the Aldeburgh Festival
In 1963, Robert Silverberg published To See The Invisible Man, a dystopian short story in which an individual is punished for “the crime of coldness” by a judicially enforced loneliness, a…
Truly, madly, eclectically: Whole Punch, Waste Paper Opera
As you walk into the Rosemary Branch, it feels like any other smart North London pub, with a mouthwatering menu at eyewatering prices served in an atmosphere of mannered, steely…
To battle with Earl Grey: Crooked Wood, Gillian Plowman
Crooked Wood began life as a TV play, Number 27, by Michael Palin (broadcast by the BBC in 1988). It’s basically the ultimate antidote to David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross:…
Packing all the Punch: The Old Curiosity Shop, Pat Whymark & Julian Harries
Onto a small stage, a jagged piece of wall with a gothic window to one side, and a raised, curtained platform on the other, walks Charles Dickens. He tells us…