ANGUS REID questions whether a human scriptwriter is behind the multiple plagiarisms of Disney’s much-lauded and vacuous extension of the Alien franchise
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Just another unhinged celebrity
PETER MASON appreciates the songs and spectacle but misses attention-grabbing intrigue in Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation of the US movie
Ramin Karimloo and Anoushka Lucas in A Face in the Crowd
[Ellie Kurttz] 
ANDREW FILMER welcomes the reopening of Glasgow’s landmark theatre after a seven-year transformation
CHRIS SEARLE encourages you to go hear a landmark performance, and introduces some of the musicians
WILL PODMORE welcomes a timely and clear-eyed account of both Nato and Britain’s fatal role in the process that led to war in Ukraine
IAN SINCLAIR reviews new releases from The Beaches, CMAT and Kathleen Edwards
RICHARD MURGATROYD is intrigued by a study that asks why the ability to diagnose outstrips the ability to cure
A Face in the Crowd
Young Vic, London
THERE’S not a great deal wrong with this musical adaptation of the 1957 US film of the same name: the two leads are excellent, the music and lyrics by Elvis Costello are a cut above the ordinary and the sets and costumes are at times dazzling.
What it lacks, though, is a storyline that offers any attention-grabbing intrigue.
From the off it’s clear what will happen to the two main characters, Marcia Jeffries (Anoushka Lucas), an ambitious small-town radio broadcaster, and Lonesome Rhodes (Ramin Karimloo), a semi-hobo songwriter and storyteller whom she discovers languishing in the county jail.
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