EWAN CAMERON picks out two fascinating music shows, fusing the Korean, and the Celtic, with the modern
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A curious case of the stage and sound designs outperforming the actors
MISDIRECTED: (L to R) Safiyya Ingar and Debbie Chazen
[Nobby Clark]
BENJAMIN POTHIER suggests that Palaeolithic cave paintings in Spain point to the ceremonial use of hallucinogenic flora
The bard confirms that the right has a humour bypass, and replays the English Revolution on period instruments
MARIA DUARTE and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Sunny Dancer, Tony, Songs of Forgotten Trees, and The End of Oak Street
JOHN GREEN relishes a powerful and moving drama that explores the lived realities of west London’s Punjabi community
MARTIN HALL welcomes a plea for greater compassion between believer and non-believer via the framework of philosophical enquiry
The Child in the Snow
Wilton’s Music Hall, London
THERE are some unquestionably chilly moments in this Piers Torday adaptation of The Old Nurse’s Story, a ghostly Christmas tale that relates the spooky experiences of a 12-year-old orphan, Hester, who is sent to live with an ancient aunt in a creaky old house on a lonely moorland estate.
Yet the telling of the story’s rather complicated plot is so cumbersome that it fails to make a successful transition to the stage.
With much of the dialogue taking the form of explanatory notes, it often feels as if we’re being told what’s happening rather than seeing it unfold in front of our eyes.
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Family issues and dragon-fuelled history amount to a vacuous spectacle that ill-fits the theatre, muses SIMON PARSONS
GEORGE FOGARTY is dazzled by a breathtakingly skillful puppet version of Shakespeare’s greatest love poem
PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying
GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship