The Arts Review​

Amber Norelai (Sharp Ears) in INO's The Cunning Little Vixen. Image, Ruth Medjber *** From Aesop’s Fables to Watership Down , anthropomorphic allegories continue to enjoy universal appeal. A big word to describe little stories in which animals display human characteristics. Usually with a moral, and frequently with a dark side. If Beatrix Potter, Wind in the Willows and Walt Disney sanitised nature’s blood torn bodies, Leoš Janáček ’s 1924 opera The Cunning Little Vixen r

Ross Gaynor and Ian Toner in Simon Stephens' A Slow Fire. Image, Irem Akay New Critical Voices: encouraging a diversity of critical viewpoints through real time opportunities for aspiring critics. **** We tell ourselves stories in order to live, Joan Didion declares in the famous opening line of The White Album. How do we make sense of tragedy and chaos? Storytelling, Didion answers. We look for the sermon in suicide. We impose narrative upon disorder and uncertainty. In his

Amara Okereke and Phillip Attmore in Top Hat:The Musical. Image uncredited New Critical Voices: encouraging a diversity of critical viewpoints through real time opportunities for aspiring critics. ***** Cheeky and charming, Top Hat:The Musical is a classic love-letter to 1930’s Hollywood. Based on Irving Berlin’s iconic 1935 film of the same name, Matthew White and Howard Jacques faithfully re-imagine the love story played famously by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers for the t