MYSTERIOUS: 6 - What They Never Told You

Somerset Maugham: a wily playwright of light dramas and weighty morals

A new revival of The Circle is a reminder of a dramatist who smuggled vital messages into broad crowdpleasers

The Guardian - UK · Apr 24, 2023

The week in classical: Innocence; Sakari Oramo/BBCSO; Explore Ensemble – review

A big week for Finnish music and musicians led by Kaija Saariaho’s powerful opera about a school shooting, and a thrilling Bartok performance

The Guardian - UK · Apr 22, 2023

Blue review – racial violence, love and loss in a lyrical and angry work of unflinching power

Jeanine Tesori’s opera, with its tragically familiar narrative of police brutality, is compellingly told in Tinuke Craig’s nuanced production for English National Opera.

The Guardian - UK · Apr 21, 2023

Sugar Coat review – a rocking coming-of-age story of trauma and healing

Headbanging frontwoman Dani Heron moves from schoolgirl sex, parties and music-making to teen pregnancy, miscarriage, rape and depression

The Guardian - UK · Apr 2, 2023

Cinderella review – Ashton’s classic fairytale with extra frills

Marianela Nuñez, Vadim Muntagirov and company shine – as do their costumes – in the Royal Ballet’s over-the-top new design of this intricate work

The Guardian - UK · Apr 2, 2023

The week in classical: The Dead City; Black Angels; Re:sound – review

ENO give a thoughtful account of Korngold’s uneven study of loss; Manchester Collective revel in an eerie George Crumb masterpiece; and Streetwise Opera tell a five-star tale of three cities

The Guardian - UK · Apr 1, 2023

Cinderella review – Royal Ballet fairytale is a shiny sugar-rush

Ashton’s three-act ballet combines escapism, clever classicism and panto, and this new version gets better as it goes along

The Guardian - UK · Mar 28, 2023

The Dead City review – study of grief, guilt and obsession unsettles and enraptures

Annilese Miskimmon’s new production of Korngold’s hallucinatory 1920 work sacrifices some of its disturbing power but musically it is magnificently alert to the mood-shifts and beauty of its sound-world

The Guardian - UK · Mar 26, 2023

Killing the Cat review – musical about science v God is purr-gatory

A talented cast can’t save this bizarre production about a holiday romance dogged by a conflict in ideology

The Guardian - UK · Mar 23, 2023

The Three Billy Goats Gruff review – captivates right to the final bleat

Musical for over-threes has belting solos, full-throttle yodelling and an operatic troll with a whiff of Lloyd Webber’s Phantom

The Guardian - UK · Mar 22, 2023