Review

The Phantom of the Opera @ The Hippodrome

The Hippodrome has a new chandelier, it appears, as we take our seats the watch the first night of The Phantom of the Opera. To anyone who knows the show, this chandelier is no revamp on the Hippodrome’s part, but merely one part of the ambition of this show. As the Overture shocks into play,...

Review

The Mikado @ Symphony Hall

Public executions, suicide attempts, weddings, pop culture references and a joke about the recent events concerning Oscar Pistorius. No, you’re not reading an account of Frankie Boyle’s latest appearance on TV panel shows, but a few highlights of today’s performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera The Mikado. Set in the fictional Japanese city of Titipu,...

Review

New Art West Midlands @ The Barber Institute of Fine Arts

The ‘New Art West Midlands’ programme is a platform for graduates from the West Midlands’s five art schools to launch a career in art. As is to be expected from the ‘New Art’ tag, the pieces on display at the three galleries around the city are extremely contemporary, giving the usually classical Barber Institute the...

Review

‘Kindertransport’ @ The Crescent Theatre

Kindertransport, historically speaking, was the evacuation of thousands of Jewish children to the UK in the foreshadow to the Second World War. Kindertransport, the play, depicts the life of one such evacuee, Eva (Karen Leadbetter), her experience after being evacuated to Manchester, and the consequences of her evacuation in later life, as her own daughter,...

Review

The Foundry @ The Old REP

‘It’s not going to be our normal venue’, an official from the Birmingham Repertory Company tells us as the evening begins. ‘But we felt it was appropriate to starts our Foundry Evenings here as we’re in residence for a few months.’ The Old REP, with a history of experimental theatre and serving an art, not...

Review

CBSO Presents: A Night at the Oscars @ Symphony Hall

‘With the Oscars only a week away, this is something of a trip down memory lane,’ explains conductor Carl Davis, as the 20th Century Fox Fanfare fades away. The mood tonight is easy-going: the night’s performance of film scores, being the ‘popular’ end of classical music, has attracted a wider variety of people, the audience...