Hello everyone!Long time no see. I, to all intents and purposes, became a veritable web hermit after stopping this blog, taking a self-imposed exile from Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook and ev…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 09:20PMThe time has finally come for me to hang up my reviewing boots. It's been a blast but life moves on and with just over 750 reviews, and their accompanying shows behind me, I've decided to gi…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 09:53PMThere's little love lost between Rossini's "La Cenerentola" and me. Undeniably packed with great tunes, the overture is a cracker, but it's a painfully mundane take on Cinderella, not exactl…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 11:18PMMelly Still was presumably hired to make-over Janacek's "The Cunning Little Vixen" after her gorgeous "Rusalka" of a couple of seasons ago. Alas, a similar approach has not reaped such …
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 11:54AMTrying to make classical theatre relevant is both easy and very hard. Easy in that texts such as Sophocles's "Antigone" have a timeless quality that has sustained them for several thousand y…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 06:40PMDanny DeVito isn't your typical piece of celebrity casting. In "The Sunshine Boys" he delivers a whirlwind of fiercely acted energy. A performance that ranks amongst the best in London, DeVi…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 10:14PMBased on the manner in which the English National Opera marketed "Caligula" (Exhibit A: the poster above) it will come as no surprise to anyone that it really is a grisly bit of theatre. Beg…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 10:46PMTo find the Royal Ballet performing Balanchine during my couple of weeks in London didn't exactly fill me with joy (the NYCB producing close to wall to wall Balanchine). "La Sylphide" on the…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 02:23PMTo describe the latest West End "What The Butler Saw" as disappointing is a bit unfair but that was certainly the feeling I had as I left the theatre. Joe Orton's spicey 60s farce has much t…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 04:56PMVerdi's "Falstaff" is one of the funniest operas ever written and Michael Carsen has honed in on this very fact in his new production for the Royal Opera. It's hard to complain when you're h…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 05:26PMJonathan Kent's quite impeccable new production of Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeny Todd" seems to take its tone from Michael Ball's assumption of the title role: lean, muscular and efficient. Ope…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 06:24PMJay-Z and Kanye West in concert together... the mere presence of two such superstars in combination more or less ensured that "Watch The Thone" was going to be disgustingly good fun. It was …
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 06:54PMI love culturally diverse takes on Shakespeare. Dutch Tragedies and Japanese Comedies have been some of the highlights of my theatregoing life. "Two Roses for Richard III" by Companhia …
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 09:10PMOne table, one puppet, three puppeteers: pure magic. I didn't really have any expectations of "The Table" by Blind Summit Theatre, but even if I did, it would have blown them out of the wate…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 06:03PMOh dear. After last night's "Traviata" I lived in hope that Jurgen Flimm might find something fascinating in Mozart's "La clemenza di Tito". It was not to be, Flimm's production is a terribl…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 12:56PMAfter two nights of aging productions, next up was "La Traviata" in a new production by Jean-Francois Sivadier from earlier this season. As massively different from those traditional staging…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 06:25PMFresh from the moth balls of the previous evening's "Salome", night two of my brief Vienna trip was "Il Barbiere di Sivilia" in a production that is, if you can believe it, even older. Some …
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 06:19PMThe Vienna State Opera could easily claim to have the most diverse line-up of productions in its repertory anywhere in the world. You can be watching regietheatre at its most extreme one nig…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 02:14PMHmmmm. I'd like to say "Babel" is great, a big community project with its heart in the right place, but I'm afraid it isn't. In fact it isn't even good, "Babel" is absolutely terrible. Site-…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 10:40AMWhen John Hodge's "Collaborators" walked away with Best Play at the Oliviers it immediately sprung onto my list of must sees. Bizarrely almost everyone I had spoken to viewed it as a good no…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 07:03PMI've missed the English National Opera. For all their ups and downs they produce the sort of opera that virtually isn't seen in New York. Opera as living breathing theatre, not some sacred c…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 07:28PM"La Fille Mal Gardee" is a ballet that manages to surprise me every time I see it. I wear enormous rose tinted goggles regarding my trips to it as a child and yet it still reliably bowls me …
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 04:41PMBack in the UK and straight back to the National Theatre. "Misterman", a one-man show written and directed by Enda Walsh and starring Cillian Murphy, was actually briefly seen in New York la…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 05:49PMI'm going to be away for almost the entirety of the New York City Ballet's (NYCB) summer season this year but I thought I'd catch a single bill before I went. An all-Robbins bill w…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 07:14PMThe cast of "The Best Man" by Gore Vidal is an ideas driven piece with characters artfully constructed to score philosophical points. Though the odd moment transcends the device ridden struc…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 05:51PMWhen asked what my favourite opera is, I usually respond with vague platitudes about not having favourites, loving them all, etc. etc. That's pretty much true but if I had to pick one, which…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 09:02PMThe Tony nominations came out and I realised that I'd seen surprisingly few of them, how on earth was I to moan about the inevitable results when I haven't seen everything! The fact that mor…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 05:34PMIf I had a life checklist, hearing Barry Manilow sing "Mandy" live would have been on it. He went one better in his current tour, which I was very lucky enough to catch at Radio City Music H…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 06:24PMA couple of years ago, I happened to stumble upon "Leap of Faith" during its original run in LA. The show was then overlong, sentimental and totally unambitious. It has now dragged itself to…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 03:40PMIn a long season of 25 odd operas, the incredible dearth of 20th Century (or dare we ask even 21st Century works) at the Metropolitan Opera has been rather dispiriting ("Satyagraha" the only…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 02:30PMThe ring has come full circle and what an amazing ride it has been. I'd be lying if I said I liked everything about the Metropolitan Opera's new Ring Cycle, the production, cast and particul…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 04:59PM