The Arts Review​

Salome Jicia, INO Chorus and William Guanbo Su in Norma. Image, Ruth Medjber *** Premiering in 1831, the power of Bellini’s classic bel canto opera, Norma, is locked inside its classical references. Bellini’s neoclassicist tale of a druid priestess and her Roman lover who abandons her, and their children, echoing Medea. Felice Romani's libretto, with a plot that barely sustains its own weight, containing dramatic themes of potent tension. Polarities between faithfulness and

Gemma Allan and Darren Mone in The Argument of Us. Image, Al Craig *** Ten years together, one year on the rocks, seven weeks apart. In Colm Maher’s The Argument of Us, Rhys and Bishop dredge through their relationship hoping to find something worth remembering. Working through a modest plastic bag of small spirit bottles, determined to be truthful to the bitter end, that stalwart theatrical device, alcohol, lubricates their way to truth, or at least to what they claim they r

Éanna Hardwicke and Nicola Coughlan in The Playboy of the Western World. (c) Marc Brenner *** You could argue the history of theatre is one of lurching from crisis to crisis. Cinema, television and AI just some of the generational challenges faced over the decades. Currently there's a three pronged response in commercial theatre; star studded casts, mutually beneficial partnerships, and tapping into other audiences, be they of an already popular franchise, online or, ironical