2025 saw a recovery in the number of shows that I saw, rising to 157 (from 135 in 2024) and – accounting for mixed programmes - they contained 216 separate works (rising from 176 in 2024). Although … [Read more...] about The best dozen dance shows of 2025 – a legacy of memories from Graham Watts’ year in dance
roundups
12 of the best in 2024 – fascinating memories from my year in dance
Graham Watts looks back at a year in dance and the 135 performances he saw in 2024. He picks out a dozen of the best. I slipped back a little in 2024, seeing only 135 shows, although they contained … [Read more...] about 12 of the best in 2024 – fascinating memories from my year in dance
Critics round-up: Peter Schaufuss’ Tchaikovsky Trilogy
This promises to be the most fun critics round-up yet. Rarely have reviews been so unanimously foul. Being that there was so little to save, the critics left their stars in the drawer, and polished … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Peter Schaufuss’ Tchaikovsky Trilogy
Critics round-up: Royal Ballet’s “Birthday Offering”, “A Month in the Country” and “Noces”
Monica Mason's last pickings from the Royal Ballet repertoire before leaving her post as the company's director included two works by the Royal Ballet’s founder choreographer, Frederick Ashton … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Royal Ballet’s “Birthday Offering”, “A Month in the Country” and “Noces”
Critics Round-Up: An ‘imaginatively crafted delight’ or a ‘thin ballet’? Royal Ballet’s Alice
We know that the Royal Ballet's dancers are exceptional, we've seen that the designs and lighting are magical, but the jury is still out on whether Christopher Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in … [Read more...] about Critics Round-Up: An ‘imaginatively crafted delight’ or a ‘thin ballet’? Royal Ballet’s Alice
Critics Round-up: Royal Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty
In 2006 Monica Mason decided to go back to the beginning with the Royal Ballet's signature ballet, The Sleeping Beauty: consign the 2003 Makarova disaster ("dramatically shapeless and emotionally … [Read more...] about Critics Round-up: Royal Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty
Critics Round-up: Royal Ballet’s Limen/Marguerite and Armand/Requiem
It seems that the Royal Ballet can't go wrong. The company has been on a winning streak, which is continuing, justly, into Monica Mason's final season as director. This triple bill succeeds in … [Read more...] about Critics Round-up: Royal Ballet’s Limen/Marguerite and Armand/Requiem
Critics Round-up: New York City Ballet’s Ocean’s Kingdom
The review headlines ran "That Sinking Feeling", "Soggy Ocean Kingdom", "All Wet" - you get the idea. But this was Sir Paul McCartney's début in the world of ballet, the company was the great Yew … [Read more...] about Critics Round-up: New York City Ballet’s Ocean’s Kingdom
Critics Round-up: the Royal Opera’s Faust
Gounod's Faust is, on the one hand, a gift for directors and performers - as Geoff Brown says in The Times, "It’s a Cecil B De Mille film directed by Bob Fosse, and Hell on Earth in more ways than … [Read more...] about Critics Round-up: the Royal Opera’s Faust
Critics Round-up: Royal Ballet in Jewels
This production opens Monica Mason's last season as director of the Royal Ballet. To recall the company as it was 10 years ago, after the dreadful year in which Ross Stretton’s directorship had … [Read more...] about Critics Round-up: Royal Ballet in Jewels
Critics round-up: Mariinsky at Covent Garden, La Bayadère
Strangely, most critics didn't attend the Mariinsky's signature ballet La Bayadère, the sixth and last of their 2011 London season. Well, it was mid-August and the beaches were calling. … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Mariinsky at Covent Garden, La Bayadère
Critics round-up: Mariinsky at Covent Garden, Anna Karenina
The fifth offering from the Mariinsky divided the critics. Most had reserves over Alexei Ratmansky's storytelling, but even Kenneth MacMillan's Manon received a hammering on its first outing. The … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Mariinsky at Covent Garden, Anna Karenina
Critics round-up: Mariinsky at Covent Garden, Scotch Symphony / Ballet Imperial / In The Night
The fourth Mariinsky programme to grace the Royal Opera stage was another triple bill: Scotch Symphony and Ballet Imperial by George Balanchine, and In The Night by Jerome Robbins. Although this was … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Mariinsky at Covent Garden, Scotch Symphony / Ballet Imperial / In The Night
Critics round-up: Mariinsky at Covent Garden, Don Quixote
The third ballet programme brought to London by the Marrinsky Ballet was Don Quixote, the perennial crowd-pleaser with which the Bolshoi scored such a success a year ago. Strangely only two days of … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Mariinsky at Covent Garden, Don Quixote
Critics round-up: Mariinsky at Covent Garden, Homage to Fokine
The second of six programmes brought to London by the Mariinsky was a triple bill of Mikhail Fokine's choreography: Chopiniana, The Firebird and Scheherazade. The Times explained the programming: In … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Mariinsky at Covent Garden, Homage to Fokine
Critics round-up: Romeo & Juliet… Osipova, Vasiliev, Lendorf & Ashton
Her Osipova's Juliet starts out as a hyper teenager, whirling on brilliantly fast feet. There's an immediate abandon to her dancing, movement sweeping through her small frame. As an actress, she … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Romeo & Juliet… Osipova, Vasiliev, Lendorf & Ashton
Critics round-up: Tyne Daly in ‘Master Class’ – “remarkable”
Tyne Daly plays that greatest of divas, Maria Calla, in Terrence McNalls Mast Class at New York's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Her much anticipated performance has been well … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Tyne Daly in ‘Master Class’ – “remarkable”
Critics round-up: Sylvie Guillem at Sadler’s Wells – “Dancers have a cruelly curt use-by date. They’re better fresh. Or are they?”
She's done it again, and everyone's delighted that Guillem still has the possibility to enchant, astonish and all those other adjectives that the press have been hurling around in the last 24 hours. … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Sylvie Guillem at Sadler’s Wells – “Dancers have a cruelly curt use-by date. They’re better fresh. Or are they?”
Critics round-up: Richard III with Kevin Spacey
Well the critics loved much, if not all, of the Bridge Project's much anticipated swan song production of Richard III with Kevin Spacey. The production is now at London's Old Vic theatre before going … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Richard III with Kevin Spacey
Critics round-up: Shrek The Musical opens in London
Shrek The Musical has opened in London's West End and seems to have generally won over the nation's critics. It's New York run wasn't a runaway success and producers must have been a little nervous on … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Shrek The Musical opens in London
Critics round-up: Strictly Gershwin with the English National Ballet at London’s Royal Albert Hall
Difficult-to-please Clement Crisp gives a four-star crit for the English National Ballet's dance show "Strictly Gershwin": For this show is jolly, welcoming, coasting along on tunes that everyone … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Strictly Gershwin with the English National Ballet at London’s Royal Albert Hall
Simon Keenlyside is “singing on the top of his form” or has a “tendency to shout tonelessly”?
Simon Keenlyside's British début as Macbeth at The Royal Opera House has both bemused and wowed the critics. After the live relay we can all have our say, but here is a smattering of divided opinion … [Read more...] about Simon Keenlyside is “singing on the top of his form” or has a “tendency to shout tonelessly”?
Critics round-up: Royal Ballet Triple Bill – Scènes de ballet – Voluntaries – Rite of Spring
"Whether you regard the triple bill as an evening of highlights or an insubstantial pageant depends on the programme," - says the Daily Express, before going on to review the Royal Ballet's latest … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Royal Ballet Triple Bill – Scènes de ballet – Voluntaries – Rite of Spring
Critics round-up: American Ballet Theatre – The Bright Stream
His two-act comedy ballet “The Bright Stream,” new with the Bolshoi in 2003 and danced by that company at the Metropolitan Opera House in 2005, joined Ballet Theater’s repertory this January and is … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: American Ballet Theatre – The Bright Stream
Critics round-up: Ballo della regina (Balanchine) – Live Fire Exercise (Wayne McGregor) – Danse à grande vitesse (Christopher Wheeldon)
The Royal Ballet's new triple bill brings two new pieces: Balanchine's Ballo della Regina, and a new creation by Wayne McGregor called Live Fire Exercise. The critics were almost all in agreement … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Ballo della regina (Balanchine) – Live Fire Exercise (Wayne McGregor) – Danse à grande vitesse (Christopher Wheeldon)
Critics round-up: Manon’s Leanne Benjamin and Steven McRae
Edward Watson's pulling out left the first night to newcomer Steven McRae but he had a very experienced Manon in Leanne Benjamin. This is how they were seen by the critics. LEANNE BENJAMIN - "one of … [Read more...] about Critics round-up: Manon’s Leanne Benjamin and Steven McRae
“Ideas batter me like hailstones. Who am I?” – Frankenstein at the National Theatre
Frankenstein, the play, directed by Danny Boyle, is just the latest in an almost innumerable sequence of stage, television and film versions of Shelley’s book. Ever since it was published, almost 200 … [Read more...] about “Ideas batter me like hailstones. Who am I?” – Frankenstein at the National Theatre
Anna Nicole’s breasts loom largely on the Royal Opera House stage – “I’ll eat my six-gallon hat if it’s not a stonking great hit.”
"The sad but true story of Anna Nicole Smith, a two-bit, surgically enhanced American stripper, nude model and C-list celebrity who married an 89-year-old billionaire and ended up, at the age of 39, … [Read more...] about Anna Nicole’s breasts loom largely on the Royal Opera House stage – “I’ll eat my six-gallon hat if it’s not a stonking great hit.”
The worst and the worst of the Spider-man reviews: a round-up of the first “official” reviews
Critics have taken things into their own hands and attended (unofficially) what was to have been the opening night of Spider-man: Turn off the Dark instead of the currently announced 15 March opening. … [Read more...] about The worst and the worst of the Spider-man reviews: a round-up of the first “official” reviews