Latest news with #Barbican
Telegraph
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Fred and Ginger's shoes prove too big to fill in this flat Top Hat
The American director and choreographer Kathleen Marshall won an Olivier award and eternal gratitude for her superb, uplifting staging of Anything Goes at the Barbican across the pandemic-tainted summers of 2021-2022. She turns her attention now to another darling of the Depression era: Top Hat, with a roll-call of classics by Irving Berlin to match those of Cole Porter last time. It was a triumph on screen for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in 1935, playing an American star in London and a hotel-guest initially resistant to his tap-dancing charms, albeit the souped-up stage musical version only arrived in 2011. Alas, while it's a treat to hear those glorious standards, somewhere along the line – whether in the chemistry between the leads (triple Astaire Award-winning American dancer-actor Phillip Attmore and Lucy St Louis, a Briton), or the general handling of the material itself – the anticipated wow-factor has gone missing. One stumbling-block is that the storyline is thinner than in Anything Goes. There you have a London-bound ocean-liner spilling over with crew, passengers and rom-com intrigue. Top Hat again involves a transatlantic element, wisecracks and a form of assumed identity, but its complications arise from a corny misunderstanding. Visiting London to perform, Jerry Travers gets carried away tap-dancing while chatting to his producer – Horace Hardwick – and becomes smitten with the hotel guest downstairs, model Dale Tremont, after she complains about the noise. She mistakes him for Horace – who is married – enabling an oddball courtship, rival overtures from a prissy Italian fashion designer and eventual expressions of surprise from Horace's disdainful wife Madge. It's much ado about nothing, really. You can mark it down as desirable escapism to a more innocent time except that its old-fashioned male-female relations invite more pushback today than even at its first Olivier-winning showing in the West End in 2012. 'Let's just say that a man is incomplete until he's married – after that he's finished,' jokes Clive Carter's hen-pecked Horace, wearily, and there's a lot more where that came from. Sally Ann Triplett as his battle-axe spouse is so scathing that even their droll reconciliatory duet (Outside of That, I Love You) can't quite banish the sour taste. More pressingly, there's a strangely withheld quality to Attmore and St Louis, stepping into the daunting shoes of Astaire and Rogers. Some of their dance-moves seem like welcome acts of homage – whether it's the hands-in-pockets synchronicity of Isn't This a Lovely Day … or the big supported backbend in Cheek to Cheek. But though both have lovely voices and a loose-limbed grace, and Attmore is a top-notch tap-machine, there's a lot of surface finesse, not much spark beneath. For their part, at their finest – achieving nifty rotations and linked-armed hoofing – the ensemble deliver the requisite clickety-clack pleasures of thundering tap-work on a challengingly compact if beautiful art-deco stage. Yet instead of fully raising the roof on its own terms, the show too often it feels like it's merely doffing its hat to its superior silver screen forbear. Until Sept 6. Tickets:
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Top Hat review – ravishing musical taps immaculately off the silver screen
It looks like there may be trouble ahead in the first tripping moments of this silver screen musical adaptation. Several performers slip and fall during the ensemble opening number – Puttin' on the Ritz. The show is stopped, the stage mopped up (its wetness apparently caused by unexpected condensation), and then the show really does proceed to put on the ritz. Adapted by Matthew White and Howard Jacques, its drama of mistaken identity faithfully follows the 1935 movie starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers but it has more Irving Berlin tunes, each more divine than the last. Phillip Attmore plays Jerry Travers, the avowed bachelor and Broadway star whose head is turned by the independently minded fashion model Dale Tremont (Lucy St Louis). She, in turn, mistakes him for the older, married Horace Hardwick (Clive Carter) and the whole thing plays out like an American Restoration drama but with added tap dance and swing. It is ravishingly directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall, who was behind the winning 2021 revival of Cole Porter's Anything Goes at the Barbican theatre in London. The twinkly eyed Attmore brings sublime tap all the way through but especially in the titular Top Hat, White Tie and Tails, complete with an immaculate dancing ensemble. There is incredibly silky singing from St Louis in songs such as Wild About You and Better Luck Next Time, and the central couple have a natural chemistry on stage. Meanwhile, Horace and his wife Madge (Sally Ann Triplett, very amusing) bring anti-marital comedy, some of it predictable but entertaining nonetheless. Horace's British valet, Bates (James Clyde), who refers to himself in the royal 'we', is a dryly comic highlight, as is Italian fashion designer Alberto Beddini, hammily played by Alex Gibson-Giorgio. It is a show that is extremely easy on the eye with gorgeous ostrich-feathered costumes (designed by Yvonne Milnes and Peter McKintosh) and a revolving art deco set (also designed by McKintosh) which gestures to the elegant opulence of the film. Some of the costumes honour the film too, especially Dale's silk and feather dress during her duet with Jerry in Cheek to Cheek. Choreography goes from natty, bouncing tap to smooth, floaty numbers, and the latter have a swirling, romantic quality while the ensemble give the illusion of a far larger chorus line. Like Crazy for You, which played at the same theatre in 2022, this show seems raring for a London transfer. It stretches on for too long, and is not quite as spectacular as that musical, but the whole thing oozes style and wit. Heaven. At Chichester Festival theatre until 6 September
Time Out
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Brutalist cinema is coming back to London's iconic Barbican this summer – and the line-up rocks
If you couldn't get tickets to The Odyssey in IMAX, the Barbican has something to take your mind off the disappointment. The City of London landmark's Sculpture Court is hosting another season of outdoor cinema in August – and this unique setting will be witnessing a unique array of movies and filmmakers. On the slate are films by auteurs like David Lynch, Wes Anderson, Claire Denis, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Gina Prince-Bythewood and Koji Hashimoto. The season opens on Wednesday August 20 with David Lynch's Dune and runs for 11 days, closing on Sunday August 31 with cult musical Little Shop of Horrors. Look out for a rare screening of Caribbean dancehall drama Babymother, a film considered to be the first Black British musical, and Prince-Bythewood's influential 2000 romance Love & Basketball. Here's the line-up in full: - Dune (1984) Wed 20 Aug, 8.45pm - Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)Thu 21 Aug, 8.30pm - Love & Basketball (2000) Fri 22 Aug, 8.30pm - The Return of Godzilla (1984) Sat 23 Aug, 8.30pm - Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) Sun 24 Aug, 8.30pm - Babymother (1998) Tue 26 Aug, 8.30pm - Grave of the Fireflies (1988) Wed 27 Aug, 8.30pm - Fire of Love (2022) Thu 28 Aug, 8.30pm - Beau Travail (1998) Fri 29 Aug, 8.30pm - Björk's Cornucopia (2025) Sat 30 Aug, 8.30pm - Little Shop of Horrors (1986) Sun 31 Aug, 8.30pm Tickets are on sale now from the Barbican site, with standard seats priced £18 or £14.40 for Barbican a whole host of outdoor cinemas in (and around) London this summer, from Everyman's canal-side screen in King's Cross to . Head to our list for all the options.
Telegraph
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Salome, LSO: This take on Wilde is truly sensational
Great operas in concert have now become a regular feature of the LSO's seasons at the Barbican, but none can have made quite as much noise as this searing performance of Richard Strauss's Salome under conductor Antonio Pappano. The overwhelming sonorities of Strauss's score, so outrageous when they were first performed in 1905 – and still terrifying today – pulverised us into submission. At times it seemed that all the voices could do was surf along on the top of this torrential instrumental sound, only sometimes coming up for air. But at the crucial moments they cut through, thanks to a world-class cast. The grisly story derives from Oscar Wilde's one-act play, which Strauss saw in 1902: Salome, the stepdaughter of Herod, forms a sensual obsession with Jochanaan (John the Baptist) and asks Herod, who is in thrall to her, to receive his head on a silver platter. The holy Jochanaan has rejected her in life; now she only wants to kiss his lips in death. There's something compelling about not having any staging – no Dance of the Seven Veils for Salome; no black cistern in which Jochanaan lurks (unless you count the Barbican's backstage, from which he sang); no head of Jochanaan for Salome to embrace. It enabled our imaginations to roam freely. Pappano conducted Strauss's Elektra as his final, new production at Covent Garden, and so Salome was perhaps a natural choice for an opera at the end of his first season with the LSO. He also had support from the Royal Opera's director of casting, Peter Katona, who ensured an experienced, A-list lineup: some used scores, others had no need in shorter roles they knew well. As Salome, Asmik Grigorian was phenomenal, capturing perfectly the role's dissonance between girlish charm and brutal eroticism; her voice mixed purity with power in a way that demolished any idea that wayward vibrato is necessary to express passion, and her E-major arpeggio as she asked for Jokanaan's head chilled the blood. Matching her in defiance, but with a stentorian command that overrode the orchestra, Michael Volle's Jochanaan tremendously portrayed religious fanaticism. Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke struggled to make the fussy, manic writing for Herod register, but Violetta Urmana as his wife Herodias soared in support of her daughter. John Findon as Narraboth and Niamh O'Sullivan as the Page were both sharp-edged and clear, while the two fluent Nazarenes and ensemble of five Jews crowded onto the already teemingly full stage, struggling to make their presence felt. Pappano had one basic decision to make in this performance: whether to suppress the orchestra as if they were buried in a theatre pit, or to unleash them with their full sonic potential on the open stage. He chose the latter, accepting all the issues of balance that created, but delved deep into the score, in control of every detail; and the result was both astonishingly accurate and emotionally draining.
Time Out
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
The RSC has just announced its winter season at the Barbican
Like the Ross and Rachel of major British theatre institutions, the RSC and the Barbican are obviously made for each other but have a complicated relationship. The Barbican was the Stratford-upon-Avon-based theatre company's permanent London home until the RSC flounced out a couple of decades back, declaring it wanted to spend time with other theatres. In recent times, however, they've settled into a seasonal situationship with the RSC typically taking over the Barbican's theatre for the winter months - with its most memorable recent show being blockbuster Studio Ghibli adaptation My Neighbour Totoro (now in the West End). The RSC still sees other London theatres: its Ncuti Gatwa-starring newie Born w ith Teeth premieres at Wyndham's Theatre this summer and its Simon Russell-Beale-fronted Stratford production of Titus Andronicus is headed for Hampstead Theatre. But it's been announced today that its seasonal stand at the Barbican is back on with two shows – one Shakespeare, one not – taking us through the late autumn and early winter months. First up it's the London premiere of Ella Hickson's Wendy & Peter Pan (Oct 22-Nov 21), which was a big seasonal hit in Stratford in 2013 and again in 2015 but never previously made it to London. It's a fresh spin on JM Barrie's Peter Pan that firmly puts Wendy front and centre as the main character, though all yer old faves are in there – Toby Stephens will make his first stage appearance in yonks to star as Captain Hook. Next up, a newer production of a much older play: Prasanna Puwanarajah's music-heavy take on Twelfth Night (Dec 8-Jan 17 2026) got fine Stratford reviews at the start of this year and will head to the Barbican for the end of it with its lead cast of Freema Agyeman (Olivia), Sam West (Malvolio) and Michael Grady-Hall (Feste) intact.
