Interview with Stephen Bourne at Film International

 

My interview with the historian and critic Stephen Bourne is up at Film International. You can read it here. 

Sight and Sound Review of Sinners (dir. Coogler, 2025)

 

My Sight and Sound review of Sinners is now online. You can read it here. 

Sight and Sound: Best Films of 2025 (Winter 2025-2026 issue)

The new issue of Sight and Sound is now available, including the best films of 2025 poll results. I wrote about Ryan Coogler's Sinners for the issue. Full details here and link to the poll here. 

Concert Review: Loveletter (Camille O'Sullivan) (Soho Theatre)

Camille O'Sullivan
(Photo: Barry McCall)

Some singers and musicians are studio creatures; the real ones are live performers. By that I don't mean the kind who turn the live arena into an extension of the studio or video - performing the same show every night, carefully choreographed down to every gesture. I mean those who bring spontaneity -  a sense of vulnerability, danger or even threat - to live performance, and who make the audience not just spectators, there to be awed and impressed, but fully engaged participants. 

An Edinburgh Fringe stalwart, Camille O'Sullivan belongs to the latter class. She makes records, and they're very good, but O'Sullivan live is on a whole other level as an experience. "My French mother says 'Can't you just be enigmatic?'," O'Sullivan tells the audience at Soho Theatre. "But when I get on stage this whole other creature, comes out." Mixing eccentric banter, chaotic segues, restless movement  and sensational vocals that can shift from punky rasp or guttural growl to tender whisper in an instant, O'Sullivan puts it all out there as a live artist - messily, thrillingly, gloriously.

Co-created with long time collaborator Feargal Murray, the show currently at Soho, Loveletter, is one that O'Sullivan has been performing for over a year. Ostensibly it's a tribute to two of O'Sullivan's greatest inspirations: Shane MacGowan and Sinéad O'Connor. O'Sullivan knew both of them personally, touring with the Pogues, an experience she described as "pure poetry and anarchy." 

That's a description that fits Loveletter, too. Accompanied by Murray on keys, and surrounded by some intriguing props  - mannequins topped with a cat and a dog’s head, a glowing heart and rabbit-shaped lamps ("lockdown purchases," O'Sullivan deadpans), she interweaves the songs with scattershot memories, confessions and affectionate chiding of "shy London cats" in the audience. 

O'Sullivan being O'Sullivan, Loveletter doesn't just comprise the song-writing of her two most beloved fellow Irish artists. She also includes work by other favourites:  Radiohead's "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" opens the evening; Brel's "Amsterdam" is delivered in a red light to match its a capella intensity, while Nick Cave's "Jubilee Street" is ripped through with fierce aplomb and O'Sullivan clambering into the audience. 

(Photo: Vitor Duarte)

One may feel that O'Connor's work, in particular, gets short shift in the set: surely "Troy" or "Mandinka" would make more sense in the context than than the takes on Bowie and Waits's work that are included, brilliant as they are. But the segue from "My Darling Boy" to "This is to Mother You" - both taken tenderly a cappella, O'Sullivan on her knees - is absolutely beautiful. O'Sullivan movingly turns the latter into a maternal benediction to O'Connor herself ("I will do what your own mother didn't do"), just as she makes "The Broad Majestic Shannon" a triumphant address to MacGowan: “Take my hand and dry your tears, Shane/Take my hand, forget your fears, Shane/There’s no pain, there’s no more sorrow/They’re all gone, gone in the years, Shane."

A reading of the final passages of Joyce's "The Dead" segues into "A Rainy Night in Soho", memories of Kirsty MacColl, and a uniquely beautiful "Fairytale of New York." By the time O'Sullivan has donned the cat mask and is getting the audience to "meow" in chorus, the "shy London cats" were liberated and ready for anything, including  a sweet sing-along to one of her signature pieces, Cave's "The Ship Song."

Loveletter is a night of profound artistry and crazy liberation. Walking back out into the Soho streets - a rainy night, wouldn't you know - the spirits were felt, brought to life with love by a great and singular artist. 

Loveletter is at Soho Theatre until 6 December. Further details here.  

Album Review: Catching the Light (Tim Benton)

A decade ago Tim Benton released Scenes From a Well-Spent Youth: Exploring the Songs of 1965-75 (2015)[review], a record on which the New Zealand-born, London-based singer revisited songs associated with his formative years. Working with the arranger and pianist Simon Wallace, Benton stripped songs such as "Goin' Back", "Laughter in the Rain”, “Out in the Country”, “Chelsea Morning”, “24 Hours From Tulsa”,  “Last Train to Clarkesville” and “It’s Too Late” back to piano and voice arrangements, his rich and compelling voice placing the emphasis firmly on the lyrics of each composition and making each number sound deeply personal.  

On his new album, Catching the Light, Benton turns his attention to some lesser-known song-writing: that of another Antipodean expat to England: Clive James. James' status as a bona fide National Treasure of a TV personality probably ended up obscuring the full range of his output,  and though his song-writing with composer/ singer Pete Atkin undoubtedly retains a cult following, it's not that well known today. Occasional covers have surfaced, but the great achievement of Benton's record - the first-ever full album's worth of reinterpretations - is to shine a fresh light on material that deserves much wider exposure.

‎Atkin and James met as Cambridge Footlights members, and bonded through a mutual love of a wide range of music: they went on to write around 200 songs together. In that context, the ten tracks presented on Catching the Light may seem a modest selection, but they give a solid indication of the range of topics James and Atkin took on; most importantly, the selections work well together here as a cohesive set.

‎While Atkin's vocals and instrumentation often gave the material a folk orientation, Benton, accompanied again by Wallace on piano, uses his stronger voice and Wallace's supple arrangements to take the songs in fresh, jazz-influenced directions. (Wallace has worked with Atkin in recent years.) The approach could seem Spartan but feels full, with plenty of texture and emotional colour. As befits a consummate wordsmith, James' lyrics are rich in imagery and reference, yet distilled; there's no waste, no fat, on them, and Benton's delivery assures that each word rings clear as a bell.

‎The opener, "Thirty Year Man", is told from the rueful perspective of a pianist "in a jazz quartet", confessing his sense of under-appreciation over three decades, and his mingled hostility and attraction towards the young singer who the group are currently accompanying. Benton's vocal bites into the lyrics ("Nobody here... yet!") conveying the narrator's bitterness, though the image of the "glistening" piano suggests an enduring  connection to the instrument.

‎The featured love songs are full of lived, relatable detail, from the aching poignancy of the observed once-shared space in "An Empty Table" to the stark break-up of "Between Us". Marrying specific imagery to a beautiful melody, "The Way You Are With Me" finds the duo at their most rhapsodic, while "Flowers and the Wine" digs into feelings of a former lover, dining with his ex and her new partner. "Perfect Moments" puts a twist on its gentle wistfulness with a killer final line.  

‎Indeed, at their most ambitious, James and Atkin's songs truly surprise, in particular "Canoe", a  stunning piece of writing that captures the drive for exploration as it takes in Polynesian voyagers and the ill-fated Apollo 13  moon mission. One of James-Atkin's most celebrated songs, "Beware of the Beautiful Stranger" presents an encounter between a ladies' man and a gypsy fortune-teller. It's given a marvellously full, dramatic and compelling treatment here. ‎‎Drawing on Keats, "Touch is a Memory" is a lovely closer, celebrating the titular sense over the others.

‎Catching the Light flows smoothly but not blandly. Benton never skirts  over the meaning of lyrics but fully inhabits them, and his voice and Wallace's playing achieve a beautiful synthesis throughout. The pair appear to have uncovered a treasure trove of material in James and Atkin's compositions, and this wonderful record leaves the listener eager for a Volume Two.

For further information on Catching the Light, link here.  

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Review of Park Avenue (Sight and Sound, December 2025)

 

My review of Gaby Dellal's new film Park Avenue is in the latest issue of Sight and Sound. More details about the issue here. 

Single Review: Last Orders Mersey Square (Barb Jungr)

Barb Jungr is such an inspired singer of the songs of others - bringing fresh energy and new perspectives to material both well and lesser-known - that her own accomplishments as a lyricist are sometimes under-celebrated. In fact, from her earliest Three Courgettes and Jungr and Parker days to her recent successful forays into musical theatre, Jungr has always written - usually in collaboration with other musicians or arrangers. Original compositions have appeared on many of her solo albums, including 2016's Shelter From the Storm, on which self-penned songs sat snugly alongside writing by Dylan, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Springsteen and Bowie. 

Reviewing that record at the time I wondered when Jungr might put "Last Orders Mersey Square" on an album. It's a song I first heard her perform during a gig at Crazy Coqs the previous year. Written with Simon Wallace for the 2012 Stockport to Memphis collection but ultimately not included on the album, the song went straight to the heart in live performance, but no official recorded version has ever been available.

Until now, that is  - it's released as a single this week on 31st October. Following  her second album combining Dylan and Cohen material, Hallelujah on Desolation Row, and her striking version of Jimmy Webb's great "MacArthur Park," this is Jungr's third release this year, and it's a beauty. Recorded at Wallace's studio, with him producing and playing all instruments, the track retains all of the emotion of my memory of the live performance. 

Memory is key to the song itself, in fact. Jungr describes the track as "a love letter to the Stockport I love, the Stockport of old mill towers, canals and famous rivers, of red brick terraces and looming moors." With elegant economy, Jungr's lyrics sketch memories of a youthful love affair in a northern town where "[y]ou could smell the hops across the valley when they brewed the beer" and where "in the pubs we smoked and kissed/We drank our youth like the morning mist." 

There's wry humour in the reminiscence - "For the long and lazy summer we were lovers with no plan/ In the end it rained the rain of ages on our caravan" - but mostly a deep affection and romance, the nostalgic imagery accentuated by the embracing warmth of Jungr's vocal and the tenderness of Wallace's piano-playing which sparkles and shimmers into a gorgeous chorus, where Jungr recalls the ringing of the 'closing time' bell mingling with the "strains of 'Layla' from the jukebox in the smoky air." 

The track conveys a poignant sense of time passing - of the sun setting, of Summer giving way to Autumn - and of youthful experience as fleeting but intense and savoured, the memory of a place indelibly interwoven with the memory of a person. What a treat to finally be able to return again and again to this wonderful song, one of Jungr's very best. 

"Last Orders Mersey Square" is available from 31 October. Link to pre-save here. 

Theatre Review: Mary Page Marlowe (Old Vic)

Scenes from an "ordinary" American woman's life are the thread of Tracy Letts' 2016 play Mary Page Marlowe. The novelty - or gimmick - of the piece is that snapshots of the protagonist's experiences are presented in a fragmented, non-chronological form and that the role of Mary is divided between five (in some productions six) actresses playing the character from ages 12 to 69. (A doll's good enough for a babyhood scene.)

The piece-it-together structure throws out and withholds narrative tidbits - a crime, affairs, alcohol dependency, an absent child - but overall the structure seems more interesting than what's done with it; don't expect the radical transitions of a Palindromes (2004) or an I'm Not There (2007). As a writer, Letts doesn't have the insight or the delicacy to pull off a play like this: he's more at home with bigger gestures and protagonists' spitting vitriol.  There are many plays that have made the details of daily life into something compelling, even monumental, but that's not achieved here, between thinly imagined supporting characters and dialogue that veers between inconsequentiality, belated, heavy-handed symbolism, and spelling out the themes. 

Despite putting the Old Vic stalls in the round again, Matthew Warchus, directing in his usual brisk, slick, proficient style, doesn't bring out much that's distinctive in the material. (Robert Howell's set and costume designs are just functional.) 

Even so, the cast come through to create vivid moments. Letts limits most of the supporting characters to one scene; for actors of the calibre of Hugh Quarshie (playing Mary's third and most satisfactory spouse) and Melanie La Barrie (as a sympathetic nurse), this production must be quite a nice rest. 

But the Marys maximise their opportunities. The sharing out of the role means that there are few chances for grandstanding, but Andrea Riseborough has the toughest emotional moments to play and she's compelling throughout, whether twitchily laying out a separation to Mary's children in the opening scene or sinking under the wreck Mary makes of her life at one stage. 

A minor Matilda: The Musical movie reunion is accomplished with the appearance of Riseborough's co-star from Warchus's film, Alisha Weir, as 12-year-old Mary; the scene is one of the play's weakest ones - it essentially only serves to indict Mary's unsupportive mother for the protagonist's later-life problems - but Weir is perfectly charming in her performance of  "Tammy."

Rosy McEwen also hits the right notes as the adulterous younger Mary, delicately trying to extricate herself from Ronan Raftery's persistent lover (also her boss). And playing Mary across three later-years scenes, it's wonderful - and a bit unexpected - to see Susan Sarandon on the British stage. In many ways, the role doesn't play to Sarandon's greatest strengths: one of the best actors at expressing blazing anger on screen has an essentially quiet, reflective role here. But Sarandon brings a beautiful, unstressed radiance to it; she seems totally at ease, connecting with the other actors in ways that fill out some of the writing's sketchiness. 

Mary Page Marlowe doesn't achieve the depths Letts seems to strive for. In the end, it's a modest work: a woman's life story as a shuffled, tentative impression. It isn't a play to go to with big expectations, but the accomplished cast  - plus a perfect song choice to bookend the evening - still send you out of Warchus's production feeling good. 

Mary Page Marlowe is booking at the Old Vic until 1 November. Further information here. 

In Form: A Report on the 14th International Retroperspektywy Theatre Festival (21- 31 August 2025, Łódź)

 

Under the title "Awakenings," last year's Retroperspektywy Festival (RPS) celebrated the 20th anniversary of the festival's founder, Teatr CHOREA, initially by looking backwards. The opening event, What's Demeter?, was a compendium show that revisited scenes and songs from some of the company's previous productions. 

Dzień Dobry, Pinky Mouse! during What's Demeter? (RPS, 2024)

The result was sensational: a 3 hour rollercoaster ride that highlighted the depth and range of CHOREA's work in music, drama, and movement across two decades, and which reunited artists associated with the group's past and present. The show was full of surprises and delights; audience-inclusive from the start, it culminated in a magical moment of interaction that danced audience and performers out of the auditorium together. 

Ragnarok during What's Demeter? (RPS, 2024)

Supplementing its customary mix of performances, concerts, workshops, discussions and exhibitions with some fresh elements, this year's just-concluded edition of RPS took "In Form" as its title - as a theme, as an inquiry, and as a challenge. In the words of the organisers: "What does it mean to be in sha­pe, in form, to­day - in a world of over-sti­mu­la­tion, ten­sion and trans­for­ma­tion? Ar­ti­sts from dif­fe­rent co­un­tries an­swer the qu­estion: what form does the­atre take to­day, in the face of cri­sis, so­cial chan­ges and tech­no­lo­gi­cal re­vo­lu­tion?" The festival programme provided responses - as well as further questions - of all kinds.

Ubu Roi

If a warm, embracing tone defined What's Demeter?, the opening show of this year's festival was - in keeping with the idea of challenge - a more confrontational proposition, though one that generated plenty of audience laughter throughout. Premiered in 1896 when the author was just 23, Alfred Jarry's absurdist precursor Ubu Roi at least partially demonstrated its enduring ability to provoke in Konrad Dworakowski's production (eccentrically designed by the director and Marika Wojciechowska), a collaboration between CHOREA and Grupa Coincidentia. 

Ubu Roi

Dworakowski's staging leant hard into the play's Rabelaisian vision and scatological humour - existence as a cycle of consumption and excretion - as well as its parodic elements of Shakespearean tragedy, and its Polish provenance and afterlife. (Translated in 1936 by Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, the play was adapted as an opera buffa by Krzysztof Penderecki in the early 1990s.) The production also found plenty of topical political resonances without semaphoring them - at least until Ukrainian and Palestinian flags were brandished by the cast at the curtain call. 

Ubu Roi

Jarry's play remains clearly a young man's work, and for those for whom a little caricature and absurdism goes a long way, the evening had its lags, failing to match the kind of magnetic synthesis of elements that Dworakowski previously achieved with his great stagings of Bruno Schulz material, Schulz: Skrawki and Schulz: Pętla. 

Ubu Roi

Still, there's no denying the distinctiveness of the production's puppetry-and-punk aesthetic, or the commitment of the company, from the counter-intuitively cast Paweł Chomczyk as a decidedly un-obese Ubu, to Dagmara Sowa as the grasping, acquisitive spouse, plus CHOREA stalwarts Joanna Chmielecka and Janusz Adam Biedrzycki as Byczysław and Król Wacław/Queen Rosamund respectively, and the Belarusian actor Siarhei Artsiomenka as Captain Bardior. 

 Divny Sad exhibition, Ana­sta­sia Ry­dle­vskaya

Work by Belarusian creatives was in fact an integral component of this year's festival. It was a poignant one, too, since several of the featured artists have settled in Poland after fleeing Lukashenko's Belarus, and reflect on the experience of exile in their work in contrasting but equally creative ways. 

Snake Charmer

Ana­sta­sia Ry­dle­vskaya, now based in Gdańsk, not only contributed the art exhibition “Di­vny Sad” (“Won­der­ful Gar­den”) to RPS, and designed masks for the Tylko dla dziewczyn (Just for Girls) events; she also delivered a terrific outdoor concert performance, mostly drawing on material from her third album, Snake Charmer (listen here).  

Snake Charmer

Quiet and modest in her demeanour during the festival's opening speeches, Ry­dle­vskaya proved a distinctively bold artist both in her vivid, striking paintings, often evoking instances of painful or productive me­ta­mor­pho­sis, and in her performance style, which combined playful energy and shamanic intensity, as it took place outside, under the (very appropriate) Black Moon of the festival's first Saturday night. 

DJ Papa Bo Selectah

Alongside Papa Bo Selectah, who delivered a dynamic DJ set, a third Belarusian artist mobilising music was Igor Shu­ga­le­ev, whose Ich he­iße Frau Trof­fea (My Name is Mrs. Trof­fea), a solo dance performance created with director Ser­gey Sha­bo­hin, proved an explosive highlight of the festival's first Sunday afternoon. 

Ich he­iße Frau Trof­fea 

Premiered at Teatr Nowy in Warsaw in 2022, Sha­bo­hin and Shu­ga­le­ev's piece fuses present-tense immediacy and historical awareness as it links Shu­ga­le­ev's experience of the Berlin rave scene to the mysterious "dance plague" that began in 1518, when one Frau Troffea began to dance frantically in the Strasbourg streets, apparently inspiring hundreds of other citizens to do the same over several days, resulting in many deaths. 

Ich he­iße Frau Trof­fea 

The overall structure of Ich he­iße Frau Trof­fea is that of a club night in microcosm. Shu­ga­le­ev enters wet-haired and nude, and proceeds to dress himself for the night's partying, as phone footage of Belarusian political protests and his own journey out of the country are projected on the screen behind. 

Ich he­iße Frau Trof­fea 

Across the following 30 minutes, Agniesz­ka Kryst's choreography then takes the performer from little more than a leg twitch into a violent crescendo of movements and contortions that are by turns disturbing and cathartic, and accompanied by pounding techno courtesy of Mi­ki­ta Bu­ba­sh­kin & Gray Mandorla Studio, and To­masz Jóź­win's high intensity strobe lighting.

Ich he­iße Frau Trof­fea 

With Troffea herself also visualised on the screen in one section in images that add a spectral silent cinema dimension to the show, the piece draws a throughline between the dance plague and contemporary rave culture, presenting both as manifestations of rebellion by marginalised social groups. 

Ich he­iße Frau Trof­fea 

Historically dubious as this connection might be, it proves powerful in performance, as the show reimagines Troffea's action not in terms of medical pathology but rather as an expression of a resisting, revolutionary spirit that still abides today as a challenge to oppression. 

Tomasz Rodowicz during Hoson Zes / Lśnij  

While Troffea twirled in the intimate confines of Fabryka Sztuki's Sala A_22 auditorium, this year's RPS was also characterised by, in the words of CHOREA's Artistic Director Tomasz Rodowicz, "a search for innovative forms in the performing arts that open up new ways of engaging with audiences." 

Pipe Up

This involved using some different spaces for events - from the neighbouring Fuzja complex where the Norwegian company Panta Rei Danseteater presented their delightful and quietly visionary family show Pipe Up at the former power plant, to the appearance of two trailers in the Fabryka Sztuki courtyard, one which became home to Te­atr Com­pa­gnia Sa­mo­var's Of­fi­ci­na Oce­ano­gra­fi­ca Sen­ti­men­ta­le, the other to Teatr Łątek Supraśl's Nosferatu - a Diary of the Plague. 

Night Piece N° 7

By far the most experimental of the festival's offerings was Night Piece N°7 by Stuttgart's O-Team theatre group. Fresh from a recent presentation in South Africa, the piece takes the form of an all-night self-described "meditation ritual" which aims to keep participants in a liminal state between sleeping and waking across 11 hours, blending ob­ject the­atre, installation, con­cert, per­for­man­ce and sta­ged exhi­bi­tion elements - all with the bonus of a shared breakfast in the morning. 

Happy Hour

Other visiting shows pushed formal boundaries in less extreme but nonetheless striking ways. The Czech director/designer Jan Mo­cek's Happy Hour developed into  a strangely compulsive relay of creation and destruction through the movement and (re-)stacking of 150 squeaky Styrofoam panels. These were transformed by the show's sometimes focused, somnambulant, distracted or disruptive trio (Tin­ka Avra­mo­va, Iri­na An­dre­eva, Ar­se­niy Mi­khay­lov) into various simulacra: a stack of books, a graveyard, a mountain, a monument.

Glory Game

Best of all, perhaps, was Te­atr Ko­mu­na War­sza­wa/Sticky Fingers Club's Glory Game, conceived and choreographed by Do­mi­nik Wię­cek. The show opened with its performers, Da­nie­la Ko­mę­de­ra, Do­mi­ni­ka Wiak, Mo­ni­ka Wit­kow­ska, Na­ta­lia Din­ges, Piotr Sta­nek, and Wię­cek, as dignified physical icons - noble and naked, a collective running back and forth in slow motion - before deconstructing that vision to reveal the often absurd aspects of competition and the contemporary mediatisation of sport. The piece's revelation of a sneaky, humourous side was delightful; the performers' physical control and expressiveness was breathtaking; and the concept felt fully realised, offering completely fresh, funny, exciting and subversive solutions to the staging of sport. 

A Ty jak to wi­dzisz?

The CHOREA Youth Group premiered a "demonstration" performance of A Ty jak to wi­dzisz? (And how do you see it?). Directed and choreographed­ by Ja­nusz Adam Bie­drzyc­ki and Anna Ma­szew­ska, this proved to be a lively, affectionate and often hilarious piece inspired by Do­ro­ta Kas­sja­no­wicz's book 30 zni­ka­ją­cych tram­po­lin (30 Disappearing Trampolines) which presents the titular object in multiple short scenes; these vary wildly in perspective, tone and genre. The show will return in a full production in November, and deserves to be widely seen.

 

Sta­ra ko­bie­ta wy­sia­du­je 

Meanwhile, the veteran stage actress Irena Jun received a loving reception and delivered a tour de force performance in Tadeusz Ró­że­wicz's 1968 play Sta­ra ko­bie­ta wy­sia­du­je (The Old Woman Broods), here distilled and reconceived as a monodrama but with its metaphor of a monstrous garbage dump to describe the crisis of today's civilization still sadly resonant. Ta­de­usz Wie­lec­ki complemented Jun's vocal dexterity and supple command of the text with music played live, while old video footage of the actress and Ró­że­wicz in conversation made for a poignant opening to the intimate and charged performance.

The Dzi­dzias

All of the concerts were of a high standard, and ranged from the sensuous sound of Karakal, fronted by the charismatic Turkey-born lyricist/vocalist Ayşe Abacı, through the punchy, progressive indie rock of The Dzi­dzias, to the off-kilter energy of the Ballady i Romanse concert by Ewa Żurakowska and Horsy. This set Adam Mickiewicz poems to thunderous drums and proggy arrangements, delivered with pleasingly uninhibited vocals, theatrical flair and encouraged singalongs by Żurakowska. 

Grze­gorz Wierus during Hoson Zes / Lśnij

As often - 2023's LIVET: Suite for the Earth will live long in the memories of those who were lucky enough to see it - the festival concluded with a concert as well. Hoson Zes / Lśnij was the debut of CHOREA's new Chór Spół­dziel­czy (Cooperative Choir), made up of a mix of novice and experienced singers. Conducted jointly by Grze­gorz Wierus and Elina Toneva the choir presented a deeply stirring performance of Ancient Greek music - a fitting finale for a festival in which dialogue between past and present cultural expressions stood out as a vital aspect. 

Hoson Zes / Lśnij

The above remarks focus on only a selection of highlights of RPS 2025. Thanks to the efforts of this year's main coordinator, Ola Shaya, and team, this edition of the festival felt particularly packed. It also sustained momentum, with careful attention paid to the themes and sequencing of each individual day, and with room for fun details - such as surprise cameos from Julia Jakubowska's wonderfully frenetic 80s-styled fitness instructor. 

Julia Jakubowska

Like many other attendees, I'm sure, I invariably leave RPS feeling changed "on a cellular level" (as certain Americans currently like to put it...): challenged and expanded intellectually and with a sense of inhabiting one's body more fully, purposefully and presently. At once playing to its strengths as a festival and broadening its horizons, 2025 found Retroperspektywy in exceptionally good form. 

Photos by Agnieszka Czytacka fotografia

Theatre Review: Till the Stars Come Down (Theatre Royal Haymarket)

It's great that one of the best productions of last year - Bijan Sheibani's staging of Beth Steel's Till the Stars Come Down - has made it across the river from the National Theatre to the (faintly) glittering West End. 

By turns rambunctiously comic and very moving, Steel's portrait of a Nottinghamshire family gathering to celebrate the wedding of the youngest daughter, Sylvia, to a Polish migrant, Marek, was a true popular success, and a refreshing one. It's not a sub-journalism real person / impersonation play and it's not a star vehicle. Rather it's a heartfelt, Chekhov-influenced ensemble piece about a family dealing with change, as well as a community portrait, and, subtly, a state-of-the-nation play with a distinctive cosmic undertone as well. 

I said most of what I had to say about the play in my review last year, but since the transfer comes with a few new elements, I wanted to record a few more impressions of it here. 

Firstly, the Haymarket production provides some on-stage seating on three sides - definitely the place to be if you want to duplicate the up-close NT Dorfman experience. The show is as intimate and audience-inclusive as it was at the NT, but the bigger space gives it a grander quality that does justice to its wider themes. Last year, too, the show premiered in wintertime. Now, there's a lovely immersive aspect to seeing, in the summer, a play set on a sweltering summer day. 

Some new additions to the cast bring different textures as well. Lorraine Ashbourne had a major comic triumph in the role of Aunty Carol at the NT - here, Dorothy Atkinson brings less bite to some of the banter but contributes a spoiling-for-a-fight quality to the part that feels just right.  As the middle sister, Maggie, whose experience of an illicit attraction connects her across the generations to the character of Carol, Aisling Loftus brings similar plaintive notes as Lisa McGrillis did to a character whose early confidence has been challenged by life's disappointments. 

A mild casting controversy attended the British actor Marc Wootton's appearance as the Polish groom at the NT. I thought  Wootton was brilliant in the role, and, while his replacement, Julian Kostov (of The White Lotus), does perfectly well here, Wootton's stronger physical presence is missed. (Kostov isn't Polish, either, he's Bulgarian, but apparently that's close enough to count.)

Among the actors returning to their roles, Sinéad Matthews remains a total wonder as the dreamy, anxious bride who belatedly learns to assert herself - everything Matthews does feels fresh, new-minted, surprising, and true. And Lucy Black digs ever deeper into the frustration, grief and fears of the oldest sister, Hazel, resentful of the changes in the community and reluctant to confront a marriage that's on the cusp of imploding. 

Fair-minded and generous in its perspective, Steel's play is really built, so that different details emerge as more poignant each  time - whether its the sisters reminiscing about a special last trip out with their now-deceased Mam, or Philip Whitchurch's Uncle Pete toasting to the former pit towns and making their names an incantation. 

The play's swing from social comedy to harrowing emotional intensity remains a big one, and despite Black's haunting display, the end still feels slightly truncated ("Is it over?" asked the young guy next to me) - though more meaningful when you know it's coming. Still, Till the Stars Come Down remains a triumph - a gloriously entertaining and exhilarating experience, and a rare example of new writing that lights up the West End. 

Till the Stars Come Down is booking until 27 September. More information here. 

Interview with Frederic Raphael (BFI online)

 

I interviewed Frederic Raphael for BFI on the occasion of the re-release of Darling. You can read the interview here. 

Piece on Michael Palin in A Private Function (BFI online)

On the occasion of Michael Palin's 82nd birthday I wrote about his performance in one my favourite comedies, A Private Function. You can read the piece here.

Review of It Used to Be Witches by Ryan Gilbey in Sight and Sound (June 2025)

I reviewed Ryan Gilbey's new book about queer cinema, It Used to Be Witches, in the June issue of Sight and Sound, which is just out now. 

More details on the issue here. 

10 Great British Films of 1975 (BFI online)

 

For BFI online I wrote about 10 British films turning 50 this year. You can read the piece here. 

Sight and Sound (April 2025): Woman in a Hat

For the latest issue of Sight and Sound, I wrote about Stanisław Różewicz's Woman in a Hat for the "Lost and Found" column. 

Sight and Sound (March 2025): Bushman Review

 

For the March 2025 issue of Sight and Sound I reviewed the new Blu-ray release of Bushman by David Schickele. 

Album Review: Hallelujah on Desolation Row, Barb Jungr And Her Trio (Absolute, 2025)

Always innovative, Barb Jungr's explorations of the songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen have been among her most acclaimed and recognised work. Having performed Dylan's songs for many years, Jungr first brought the music of the pair together on record a decade ago on Hard Rain (2014), and their songs have seldom left her live repertoire in the meantime  (check out this startling take on Cohen's "You Want It Darker", recorded at Crazy Coqs in 2022, for one). Now, following up the magnificent My Marquee album (2023), Jungr returns to their work again on her latest release, aided by long-time collaborators Simon Wallace on piano/keys, Davide Mantovani on bass, and Gary Hammond on percussion. The result is another richly compelling synthesis of the work of two songwriters of genius and one of the greatest contemporary vocalists that finds brand new colours in familiar (and some less familiar) songs. 

As the title suggests, Jungr starts with a song she's so far consciously avoided due to its over-exposure. From Jeff Buckley's transcendent version to its status as an X Factor audition staple, "Hallelujah" isn't necessarily a track you'd rush to hear revisited again. But Jungr's version makes it totally fresh - in her hands, it's a narrative that really builds, charting a love affair's various contours and finally becoming a deep expression of gratitude for all that was experienced. "There's a blaze of light in every word/It doesn't matter which you heard:/The holy or the broken Hallelujah," Jungr sings, incorporating one of the verses seldom used in other versions but one that's key to the meaning here. Many renditions have employed the song for superficial uplift; Jungr, in contrast, digs deep to its core of redemption, hope and perseverance.

Lesser Cohen songs also gain much from Jungr and the musicians' treatments. I've never thought much of "Slow" as a piece of writing, but the jazzy arrangement and Jungr's sultry, defiant vocal more than redeem the dips into doggerel. "Tonight Will Be Fine" is taken briskly and optimistically and "Tower of Song" - already on its way to becoming a standard - is wonderfully loose and insouciant here, in an arrangement that messes with the metre to great effect. 

When it comes to the Dylan songs, Jungr's choices are as surprising as what she makes of them. "The phraseology of this song is not Dylanesque," gripes Tony Attwood, of the Traveling Wilbury's collaboratively composed "Handle with Care," questioning "how much of Dylan there is in this." But Jungr's delightful rendition more than makes the case for its inclusion, creating something far fresher than previous versions by Jenny Lewis or Stephen Stills and Judy Collins managed. The most indisputably Dylanesque of Dylan epics, "Desolation Row" is piano-led here, also with some subtle and effective instrumental touches. Jungr's vocal is warm and gracious, ushering the listener hospitably into the dense tumble of imagery and characters in a way that's reminiscent of her take on another demanding piece, Jacques Brel's "The Cathedral." It's a totally immersive 9 minutes. 

A funky "Mississippi" and a radiant "New Morning" are also highlights. And "Kansas City" - drawn from The New Basement Tapes, of all places - might be my very favourite track here, as Jungr's delivery alternates taut, quietly seething  verses with gorgeously expressive, cathartic choruses conveying the narrator's increasing resolve. Jungr returns to Cohen for the finale. "You Got Me Singing" is stirring and gospel-tinged in this arrangement, and, with the lyrical reference to "the Hallelujah hymn," it brings the record beautifully full circle. 

Given the range of material covered across the 11 tracks - from early songs to later or newly discovered compositions - Hallelujah on Desolation Row is remarkably cohesive as a listening experience: a testament to the shared vision of Jungr and the musicians. It's also among the most successful of Jungr's albums in conveying some of the in-the-moment spontaneity of her live shows. It's a reminder, too, of how much remains to be mined, rediscovered and explored in these songs. "There's a blaze of light in every word"; Jungr and her collaborators ensure that we experience each and every one. 

Hallelujah on Desolation Row is available to buy or stream here.

Further reading: 

Barb Jungr - Singing into My Seventies [live review]

Barb Jungr - Nina Simone and Hard Rain [live review]