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The Play What I Wrote – Birmingham Rep Click here for tickets 'Thom' has written a play, an epic set in the French Revolution called ‘A Tight Squeeze for the Scarlet Pimple’. 'Dennis', on the other hand, wants to continue with their double act. He believes that if they perform a tribute to Morecambe and Wise, Thom’s confidence will be restored and the double act will go on. But first Dennis needs to persuade a guest star to appear in the play what Thom wrote... This sensationally funny homage to Morecambe and Wise by Hamish McColl and Sean Foley and, of course, Eddie Braben is now available On Demand via Birmingham Rep. And, just for two weeks, the ‘secret’ guest star is Tom Hiddleston. Now until Apr 4 £10 To Steve with Love - Liz Callaway Click here for tickets Liz Callaway was one of Stephen Sondheim’s favourite singers. For good reason, she’s one of mine too. Now, with her new show To Steve with Love, she pays homage to the writer who changed the course of her life. Honoring the life and songs of the most influential composer/lyricist of the modern musical, the Emmy winner and Tony Award® nominee celebrates the master with a carefully curated evening of the words and music of Stephen Joshua Sondheim. This lovely show will be livestreamed on Mar 26 at 7pm ET for those lucky enough to be in a North American East Coast timezone. For the rest of us, our only chance to see it will be 11pm UK time because 54/Below shows are streamed live only and are not available afterwards. Circumstance – Sydney Festival Click here for tickets Awarded the prestigious Australia Council Award for Dance in 2021, Sydney-based choreographer, filmmaker and installation artist Sue Healey is acclaimed for her growing body of work that examines the human body situated in a variety of natural and man-made environments via the moving image. Conceived during the first lockdown, Circumstance is a socially distanced and site-specific work, filmed at Paddington Reservoir and Bombo Quarry, at Sydney’s southern beaches, where we move from an enclosed intimate setting to a Terrence Malik style natural expanse. Having previously screened at international film festivals during 2021 Circumstance has been included in the AT HOME program in 2022, for its resonance and relevance which still rings true as the globe continues to dip in and out of lockdowns. This contemplative work reminds us how precarious and fragile lived reality is. The landscape, especially the Bombo Quarry location with its deep history - clearly visible in the extraordinary rock formations shaped by the passing of time - is a startling canvas for performances by an ensemble of dancers from Sydney Dance Company’s pre-professional 2020 cohort and the maze of corridors and arches in the old water reservoir in Paddington - featuring artists Allie Graham and Billy Keohavong, is an apt metaphor for lockdowns. Holbein: Capturing Character – Morgan Library Click here to watch When I arrive in New York, I head straight for my favourite places. One, as regular readers know, is the Frick Museum to see the Vermeers. The other is the Morgan Library to see the Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts and whatever exhibition they have on there. The current one is about Hans Holbein the Younger. He was among the most skilled, versatile, and inventive artists of the early 1500s. He created captivating portraits of courtiers, merchants, scholars, and statesmen in Basel, Switzerland, and later in England, and served as a court painter to Henry VIII. Enriched by inscriptions, insignia, and evocative attributes, his portraits comprise eloquent visual statements of personal identity and illuminate the Renaissance culture of erudition, self-fashioning, luxury, and wit. Holbein:Capturing Character is the first major exhibition dedicated to the artist in the United States. Spanning Holbein’s entire career, it starts with his early years in Basel, where Holbein was active in the book trade and created iconic portraits of the great humanist scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam. Holbein stayed in England in 1526–1528 and moved here permanently in 1532, quickly becoming the most sought-after artist among the nobles, courtiers, and foreign merchants of the Hanseatic League. In addition to showcasing Holbein’s renowned drawn and painted likenesses of these sitters, the exhibition highlights the artist’s activities as a designer of prints, printed books, personal devices (emblems accompanied by mottos), and jewels. Fortunately, for those of us unable to get to this exhibition in person, the Morgan Library has made a film about it. This varied presentation reveals the artist’s wide-ranging contributions to the practice of personal definition in the Renaissance. Works by Holbein’s contemporaries, such as Jan Gossaert and Quentin Metsys, and a display of intricate period jewelry and book bindings offer further insights into the representation of individual identity, and highlight the visual splendor of the art and culture of the time. Monty Alexander at Birdland Click here for tickets On Thursday, one of my favourite ever jazz pianists, the phenomenal Monty Alexander, is appearing live at Birdland Jazz Club in Manhattan and his appearance is being livestreamed. Unfortunately, though, it’s only available ‘live’, that is, at the time of his concert which, for those of us who live in the UK, 1.30am. It’s almost worth staying awake long enough to watch it because Monty Alexander is just that good, but I do wish presenters would understand that not everybody in the world lives in New York City. Nearly sixty years after he moved to the United States from Kingston, Jamaica, Grammy nominated pianist Monty Alexander continues to shine as an American classic, touring the world and delighting a global audiences drawn to his vibrant personality and soulful message. With a repertoire spanning a broad range of jazz, Jamaican music, blues, gospel, bebop, calypso, and reggae, Monty has been documented on more than 75 recordings and cited as the fifth greatest jazz pianist ever in The Fifty Greatest Jazz Piano Players of All Time (Hal Leonard Publishing). Mar 25 at 9.30pm ET - 1.30am GMT. Man Cave – Page 73 Productions Click here for tickets This is the world premiere of John Caswell Jr.'s satirical-supernatural-political horror show in which four Mexican-American women seek safety in the basement of a right-wing Congressman. Imaculada has gathered her friends in the fortress-like mansion belonging to her absent employer, a wealthy Republican Congressman living high on a hill in Sedona, Arizona. Together they convert his luxurious basement man cave into their own spiritual war room and protective sanctuary from the violence of men, both real and supernatural. It is directed by Taylor Reynolds and stars Annie Henk, Claudia Acosta, Jacqueline Guillén, and Socorro Santiago. Until Apr 2 $20 After you’ve bought a ticket for the show you want to watch (Europeans better stick to the 2pm matinee) your unique password and link to watch the stream of that performance will be emailed 10 minutes prior to the performance start time. Pocket Review Cock – Ambassadors Theatre Times change. Well, obviously. But sometimes it takes a good play to remind us. Mike Bartlett’s Cock opened in 2009 and I remember being, if not shocked, certainly titilated by both the title and the subect matter. It is about John who discovers that sex and love have more to do with identity than gender. In a long term relationship with a man, John has fallen in love with a woman and has to make a choice, thereby having first to work out who he is and what he wants. These are issues which, since Cock’s premiere, have been endlessly discussed, in public and in private, and are now part of the fabric of civilised discourse. It is no longer shocking or even surprising to have friends or family members who have discovered in themselves an ambivance to their sexuality so Cock in its present production at the Ambassadors Theatre has to work harder for our attention than it did in 2009 at the Royal Court. Fortunately, the director is the always surprising Marianne Elliott who has found in the play more nuance and raw spots than were dreamed of in the original. It is still somewhat contrived. It is hard to believe that a man threatened with the end of his relationship would offer to make dinner for his lover’s lover in a dinner party scene that wouldn’t be amiss in an Alan Ayckbourn comedy, and then invite his father to join the party. But somehow Bartlett’s authorial insights, Elliott’s directorial dexterity and strong performances from Taron Egerton as the man who can’t make a life-altering decision, and Jonathan Bailey and Jade Anouka as his two competing lovers, make it work.
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
March 2024
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