Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists at the National, or, I'm Sorry But the Premise Just Gets More and More Unbelievable

Note: This is a review of the only preview on Saturday 19th September 2026. The Press Night took tonight (Monday 21st September 2026).

The starting point of this play is that 74 years ago (1954) a woman saw her female friend Catarina killed at a demonstration while her soldier husband looked on and did nothing. In consequence the woman killed her husband in front of their children. She then bound her family with a tiresomely lengthy command to kill a fascist every year. So far, moderately reasonable. But we are then asked to believe that since then 73 fascists have been despatched, their corpses buried in the cork orchard by the time the play commences. I mean I know there have been successful serial killers, but seriously? It becomes even more unpersuasive when we're told that at some indeterminate point within the 74 years the original killer was arrested and tortured, and yet the annual killings have continued unchecked. So the police have failed to solve the original murder (of a soldier...in a dictatorship), failed to connect a suspect they have arrested to any of the other murders committed while she's still alive (still mostly in a dictatorship) and then failed to solve any of the other murders or in any way connect them to this family. Finally, we are asked to believe that the female member of the family who is turning 26 at the moment the play opens and is thus about to commit her first murder is the first killer in 74 years to express doubts about the whole enterprise. 

As the above details are gradually revealed I found the whole thing less and less convincing, but what crowns it is the failure of author (and director) Tiago Rodrigues to achieve anything approaching equal weight for the two sides of the argument (except by a 30 minute cheat at the end). I'm afraid I thought the doubter had the best of the argument throughout - and there's an especially revealing moment when her mother finally gives in and throws a chair, nearly always a sign that text and direction have hit a dead end. I'll also note that at the time I couldn't make out why 26 is the age at which a family member has to make the first killing - it dawned on me the morning after that that must have been the age of the matriarch at the time of the original murder but if that's clearly explained in the text I missed it.

Elektra/Persona at the National, or An Unpersuasive Mash-up

Note: This is a review of the matinee on Saturday 12th September 2026.

 I booked for this show purely because it was at the National and I now have a very long run of not missing a show there. When I learned it was to run two hours without an interval and I came to re-examine the creative team involved and saw how many of them had previous connections to shows I hadn't rated my heart rather sank. My enthusiasm for the afternoon ahead further diminished when I spotted photos of the ensemble in the programme holding a film camera. As it turned out, despite the lack of an interval, this is a show of two halves. The first (a version of Electra) has points of interest, but I did find myself thinking too often for the good of this show of Strauss's superior operatic version which I was able to revisit in Edinburgh a few weeks back. The second (Persona) is gimmicky and increasingly interminable.

Director and version creator Benedict Andrews presumably thinks there are close connections between the two works, but I was not convinced. The only concrete connection that I could spot is the fact that the actress who has suffered a breakdown at the start of Persona did so while performing as Electra. I suppose that there are vague thematic links about female identity and family relationships but to be blunt about it I did not think that either half did much to illuminate the other.

EIF 2026 - Angels in America at the King's, or, A Puzzling Reputation

Note: This is a review of the performance on Tuesday 18th August 2026.

 Let us start from first principles. I have never got on with the work of the much praised director Ivo van Hove (should you so wish you can find my previous reports on his work via this piece on his NT Network and click through to earlier experiences from there). This is so much the case that I've pretty much reached the point of just not booking for his shows any more. I made an exception for this show because the Usher Hall was dark for two nights in a row, playwright Tony Kushner has apparently described this as "his favourite version of the play", and I was curious to see if Ivo van Hove could find anything approaching the power in the work that Marianne Elliott's superb, moving 2017 staging at the National possessed. After a first half when positives and negatives were fairly evenly balanced, things deteriorated after the interval and by the end this had become something of an endurance test.

In the first half van Hove and regular collaborator Jan Versweyveld (Set & Lighting) seem to be approaching the play with a minimalist vision. The only thing on stage is a square box-like object front stage right on which sit a couple of turntables and what turns out to be a projector and beside which stand some speakers. There are two flats at the back, on to which various images are projected, and two rows of strip lights in blackish boxes running lengthways to the back of the stage. There is no attempt, in contrast to Elliott, to suggest physical illness - so when for example Prior lifts his top to show Louis his lesions, there are no lesions visible. This is a reasonable choice but, as we'll see, van Hove hasn't the discipline to stick to it. For most of the time the actors are positioned near the front of the stage. There is some effective work in terms of physical movement and interaction, though the quality of the ensemble is more variable than in the NT production.

EIF 2026 - Four Walls and a Roof at the Studio, or, An Interminable Lecture

Note: This is a review of the performance on Monday 17th August 2026. 

The best excuse that can be made for this gracing the EIF programme is that it fits this year's theme of "examining the ideas and impact of the USA" - unfortunately what it has to say about that theme is rarely illuminating.

Creators Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroue believe themselves to be triple threats. They have written the script, they perform it, and they direct themselves. If nothing else they would have benefited from a rigorous editor. The play uses Brecht's exile first from Germany and later from the United States as a jumping off point to examine various historical questions and current political topics. For example, did the House Un-American Activities Committee's anti-communist witch hunts make the US like Nazi Germany? Is Trumpian America fascist? There are also segments on current debates around antisemitism and the plight of the Palestinians. On none of the contemporary political topics does the piece find anything fresh to say.

EIF 2026 - [seagull], or, Lacking the Courage of Its Convictions

Note: This is a review of the performance on 10th August 2026. 

At the start of this show Masha and Medvedenko (unfortunately the freesheet fails to identify which roles are played by which cast members) get into a tub at the side of the stage, pour buckets of water over each other, and then step onto the stage proper. The stage directions, consulted online afterwards, simply state they enter "returning from a walk". Perhaps we're supposed to assume they have jumped in the lake (which is mentioned in those directions) fully clothed. But if that's the intention it was totally unclear to me why they should have done so. This is symptomatic of the major issue I had with this show. Too often it tipped over the line into stage business that made me raise an eyebrow, or stare about the stage in puzzlement trying to work out what the intention was.

Part of what is driving this is a lack of trust on the part of director Stijn Van Opstal in his own set up. The play is, largely, performed in Flemish sign language - though there are some spoken elements late on. As we get deeper into the play it is more selective about how much is put in the supertitles - until in the last Act we get nothing (but there are other problems here we'll come on to). But for much of the time I felt (and a glance through an online copy of Chekhov's original afterwards seemed to confirm this) we got the vast majority of the text translated for us. I mention this because the captions are described as "creative" in the freesheet. Thinking about it afterwards my recollection is that the Globe used the same term for its Globe to Globe season of foreign language Shakespeare which included, I think, a sign language show. In the small number of shows in that Globe season that I saw that text was much reduced compared to this, and it really therefore depended on the performers working to connect with the audience to transcend the language barrier. Here, I ultimately felt that Van Opstal lacked confidence in the ability of the show to transcend that barrier.

EIF 2026 - Mazzoli's The Galloping Cure, or, In the Shadow of Past Glory

 Back in 2019 the EIF brought Mazzoli's opera Breaking the Waves to Edinburgh. I found that work a powerful dramatic experience and have been keenly looking forward to this new commission. Although this new opera starts strongly I'm afraid I found it increasingly unpersuasive as a drama. 

In this case Karen Russell (story) and Royce Vavrek (libretto) place us in small town America where for reasons that never become entirely clear all the inhabitants are unwell, and local doctor Theresa Hart (Daniela Mack) is overwhelmed. I assumed that the authors wanted to hint at associations with Trumpified America and at post-Covid distrust of medical professionals but the treatment remains perhaps just a shade too generic to really hit home. Into this situation arrives Lucky Mack (Justin Austin) a very recognisable American huckster. He has a merry-go-round, rides on which seem to miraculously cure all the townsfolks' ailments. Clearly from the pre-publicity, though I'm much more doubtful that the work establishes this without that pre-publicity, this is intended to speak to the opioid crisis. There's also I think a broader comment intended on our dependence on isolating technologies through the HomeHorse of Act Two. Finally we have the subsidiary plot of Hart's difficult relationship with her teenage daughter Noy (finely performed by Gabrielle Turgeon) and struggle to care for her baby grand-daughter Rose.

EIF 2026 - Tansy Davies's Passion of Mary Magdalene at the Queen's Hall, or, An Undramatic, Unmoving Passion

 I didn't arrive at this show with high hopes. Back in April I listened to the Radio 3 broadcast of the world premiere performance of this work in London and, had I heard the broadcast before I booked my EIF tickets, I doubt I would have booked for this show. However, I bore in mind the fact that hearing a work live can be a very different experience to hearing a recording, and I hope I tried to approach the performance with an open mind. Sadly it did not change my views.

The work is unquestionably performed to a very high standard by an ensemble consisting of the Dunedin Consort, with two soloists - Marcus Farnsworth (Christus) and Anna Dennis (Mary Magdalene) - the whole directed by John Butt. The many exposed instrumental lines are all very well taken (though the instrumental writing did not, to my ear, have enough in it to sustain the length of work), and the chorus are strong both as a collective whole and in the many smaller solo parts. Similarly, both Farnsworth and Dennis do their best to make the work live. Dennis in particular has two extended sequences of highly virtuosic solo and performs them outstandingly.

Favourite Lenses: Why I keep coming back to the Sigma 45mm

Barbican light and shadow

For my first post in over seven years, I'm taking a bit of a new direction. One of the reasons I've spent less time writing here, is that I've been spending more time working on my photography. This is a post about that, hopefully the first of many.

Probably ninety percent of the time when I go out with my camera, the lens I have fixed to it is a 50mm, or something close to it. It's one of the main reasons I use a camera most of the time and not a phone. Most phones use a wide angle lens. A 50mm, and other normal lenses, offer a much tighter field of view. You can't fit everything in, and so you have to frame more carefully. It's also said that it's close to the field of view of the human eye. That's probably why it's been such a popular choice with photographers over the years. For that reason I have quite the collection of them.

I love the Sigma 45mm lens, even among my collection of 50mm lenses it's one of my absolute favourites. The eagle eyed will notice that 45 is not 50, but it's fairly close and only a little bit wider. It's small and I always like small lenses. Always with cameras and lenses I've tended to prioritise compact size so that it doesn't get too in the way or become too heavy when carried around all day. When coupled with my Sony A7C camera, it makes for a nicely inconspicuous package.

The Sigma 45mm is part of their contemporary i series of lenses which are available for both Sony e-mount cameras and L mount cameras. It features an all metal construction, and the feel in hand of the manual controls really is something. I know it isn't, but the focus ring is well enough damped that it almost feels like it's mechanically coupled and physically moving the glass elements even though I know it isn't. This compares extremely favourably to the somewhat loose rings on many modern lenses and from a tactile perspective it almost feels like I'm using one of my vintage manual lenses. Of course, none of that directly affects image quality, but I do think there's something in whether equipment sparks joy: the more pleasure the more you use it and the better the results. It's another one of the reasons I take so few photos on my phone.

Ariodante at the Royal, or, Mijnssen At War With the Work

Note: This is a review of the matinee performance on Sunday 14th December 2025. 

After seeing this director's unpersuasive production of Parsifal at Glyndebourne last summer I wasn't optimistic about her Royal Opera debut. As this long afternoon wore on I got increasingly fed up till by Act Three of a work I treasure I just wanted it to get on and finish.

The problems with Jetske Mijnssen's production are substantial. To begin with she has decided to mess around with the plot and the text in three ways. Dalinda (usually a servant) is here turned into Princess Ginevra's sister. When I first caught on a subtitle early in Act One, and not having read the programme, a reference to the King of Scotland as Dalinda's father I thought it must be a typo but I was wrong. This is a bizarre, problematic and poorly executed decision. Bizarre because elsewhere in Act One Mijnssen seems keen to try and find a class angle to the work - but she's removed the most obvious such angle from the original - the relationship between the servant Dalinda and Count Polinesso. It's problematic because a key strand of the plot is the King's anxiety about the succession - but the security of that succession becomes much less of an issue if there are two daughters. It's poorly executed partly in consequence of the generally weak movement and through characterisation of the production as a whole, but also in small ways. The most obvious of these is despite the alteration of the subtitle text already mentioned this isn't consistently followed through and elsewhere Dalinda will keep addressing her sister as "Principessa" when clearly it ought to be "Ginevra". Mijnssen's next intervention is to make the King seriously ill (those familiar with the work will know that he is usually still alive when the curtain falls, not so here). Putting him in a wheelchair and then a hospital bed just puts additional barriers in the way of effective personnel management for no dramatic gain. The other problem is the number of times he's allowed to fall on the floor - so that one gets distracted as the show goes on wondering if it's about to happen again (this is one of a number of instances that suggest that the domestic staff, sizeable in number, ought to be fired). Mijnssen's third change to the plot is not to allow Ariodante and Ginevra to be united at the end in defiance of text and music. This is because Mijnssen like too many contemporary directors is desperate to make A Point. In this case about the emancipation of women which seems for directors these days to mean that you cannot both be an independent woman and have a happy relationship. The text doesn't require there to be an immediate marriage at the end, and there are plenty of more subtle ways in which a more talented director could convey the fragility of this relationship. Mijnssen sadly hits us ineffectively over the head with her Point. This also reflects the director's general lack of confidence in the audience - there are a whole series of obvious bits of direction that suggest that she thinks the audience can't read the subtitles or are too unintelligent to follow the drama - the one that immediately comes to mind is the King cradling a sheet like his daughter for fear we will not otherwise understand that's who he's singing about.

Hamlet at the National, or, But He Hasn't Fired!

 Act 3 Scene 4 is a fairly crucial moment in this play. For any readers who may need their memory refreshing this is the scene where Hamlet kills Polonius in the presence of his mother Gertrude. Or, rather, this is the scene in which, as a general rule, Hamlet kills Polonius. Not so in Robert Hastie's confused new production for the National. In this version Hamlet makes a gun-like imitation with one hand, from behind him three shots are fired, and Polonius stumbles out and fairly rapidly dies. I was so baffled by this that I began to doubt whether I'd seen what I thought I'd seen and had to double check with an usher on my way out. The only explanation that I could come up with is that we are supposed to believe that the ghost of the king is behind the curtain from which the shots come, and that his supernatural powers are somehow sufficient to allow him to manifest as a result of his son's presence and fire real bullets. But it took me some thinking afterwards to achieve this rationalisation - in the moment in this production it is simply incomprehensible. And it causes huge problems for the rest of the show. Because it seems clear to me that a key driver of Ophelia's madness is not simply the death of her father but the fact that the man she's in love with has killed him. Similarly Laertes's animus against Hamlet is driven by the fact that Hamlet has killed his father. But we in the audience can see perfectly well that this isn't what has happened. More to the point it should be equally apparent to Gertrude who is watching at the time. It makes it really very difficult to take seriously either Ophelia or Laertes's motivations in the remainder of the second half, which significantly undermines the drama.

Nor, sadly, is this Hastie's only misstep. He sets the play in a single grand hall space (designed by Ben Stones) - walls and the floor are occasionally moved - but this does little to create effectively distinctive environments. We seem vaguely in modern day Denmark, judging by the painted flag, the guns and Claudius's water bottle but this undermines chunks of the text - particularly the apparent ability of Polonius to order his daughter around the way he does (there are other issues with the direction of Ophelia that we'll come on to). Hastie seems to have very little idea what he wants to do with the play - he keeps in a lot of stuff that other versions I've seen have cut - and this is not to the benefit of Shakespeare exposing the fact that the drama often drags. Hastie's readings such as they are lack consistency - he seems to change his mind about whether there has really been a ghost, and whether Hamlet is mad or feigning which get increasingly badly in the way of dramatically convincing characterisations. There's very few moments when the director manages to bring an element out afresh - it's telling that the two which stuck in my mind a few hours afterwards - an exchange between Hamlet and Rosencrantz (I think), and Horatio's care for Hamlet - are both minor relationships.

Staggered Booking at the Edinburgh International Festival Redux, or, You Cannot Be Serious

 On the 3rd November I received an e-mail sent to all the various levels of Edinburgh International Festival Members. At this time of year I don't tend to pay too much attention to these - they're usually just announcing events in Edinburgh that I won't be able to attend, or reminding me about things that happened at the previous Festival. Not so this one. To my surprise and almost immediately my very considerable annoyance this one informed me that: "We're excited to announce that a selection of performances for the 2026 Festival will go on sale next month to members of the public." This reverses the Festival's normal practice of opening booking for the complete programme at the same time by membership tier, a practice that applies across every other comparable Festival I regularly attend (and indeed to handling of booking for regular orchestral and opera seasons across the UK). 

The Festival has been here before, such that I still almost cannot believe I've had to write this post. Back in 2014 then Festival Director Fergus Linehan proposed to announce the concerts/recitals programme and open booking for it in advance of the rest of the programme. We, and we suspect many other regulars, made strong representations against this proposal and the Festival reversed course. At the time we had thought that was the end of the matter. In the following year, 2015, it became clear this was not so. The Festival tried a variant on the idea, this time opening booking for 2016's flagship opera (Bellini's Norma) in advance of all the rest of the programme. We wrote at length about why this was in many ways an even more problematic decision than either the concerts/recital idea or the staggered booking, also for the 2015 Festival, for Antigone (staged play). Again we suspect we were not alone in our views because after the Norma episode staggered booking was abandoned.

EIF 2025 - Orpheus and Eurydice, or, Spectacle over Emotional Depth?

 As on other occasions, I'll start with some caveats. This is one of those works I've never really got on with. I've seen it staged at least twice, an unsuccessful version heavy on dance during the McMaster era, and a production at the Royal Opera with John Eliot Gardiner's forces bought in. I have an idea that the EIF has done it in concert since then, though I can't recall if I attended. So I wasn't terribly enthused when this year's programme was announced and this was the main staged opera. However, it is certainly worth seeing. The individual elements - music, dance, circus aerials are all superbly done. I was less convinced that they cohered into a completely successful whole (though the performance earned a partial standing ovation from others).

The conceit of Yaron Lifschitz's production is that Orpheus (Iestyn Davies) has been confined to an asylum following Eurydice's (Samantha Clarke) death. It is never entirely clear whether any of the drama that follows is taking place anywhere outside Orpheus's mind. The final scene strongly suggests that Orpheus has never left the asylum but I felt to really hit home this needed to be more clearly established through the rest of the drama. I do think the interpretation is a valid, and potentially enormously powerful one. I also think it's a powerful idea to subvert the apparently happy ending and it seems to me the text is ambiguous enough to sustain such subversion. But because of broader production issues it didn't hit me emotionally to the extent that it had the potential to do.