overnight reviews

The Goldman Case review - blistering French political drama

★★★★ THE GOLDMAN CASE Blistering French political drama

The true story of the 1976 trial of a French revolutionary is turned into a gripping courtroom saga

It’s a bold move to give a UK cinema release to this fierce courtroom drama about a French left-wing intellectual who was assassinated in1979. Pierre Goldman isn’t exactly a well-known figure on this side of the Channel, but perhaps the distributors hope that after the recent box-office success of Anatomy of A Fall and Saint Omer, there’s a whetted appetite for another forensic examination of the French legal system.

Zoë Coombs Marr, Soho Theatre review - stock checks and spreadsheets

★★★ ZOE COOMBS MARR, SOHO THEATRE Stock checks and spreadsheets

Australian comic's autobiographical show

You have to admire the ambition of a show called Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life, the latest from Zoë Coombs Marr, which she performed at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe and is now in its Soho Theatre residency. It’s an hour that takes on some big themes – sexuality, mental health, the state of comedy – while digging down into her life as she reaches 40, and has done something of a stock check.

The Truth About Harry Beck, London Transport Museum Cubic Theatre review - mapping the life of the London Underground map's creator

 THE TRUTH ABOUT HARRY BECK Nostalgic comedy about the man who originated an everyday design classic

An English eccentric quietly re-invents our view of the capital

Iconic is a word the meaning of which is moving from the religious world into popular culture – win a reality TV show dressed as a teapot, and you can be sure that your 15 minutes of fame will be labelled iconic across social media. Not quite what Andrei Rublev had in mind 600 years ago.

The Lightest Element, Hampstead Theatre review - engrossing, but fragmentary

★★★ THE LIGHTEST ELEMENT, HAMPSTEAD THEATRE Engrossing, but fragmentary

Slender new play about political and gender prejudice in 1950s American science

British theatre has a proud heritage of science plays. From 1990s classics such as Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia (1993) and Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen (1998) to more recent examples such as Lucy Kirkwood’s Mosquitoes (2017) and Marek Horn’s Octopolis (2023), the trick lies in balancing intellectual material about often complex scientific subjects with dramatic flair.

Resurgence, London City Ballet, Sadler’s Wells review - the phoenix rises yet again

★★★ RESURGENCE, LONDON CITY BALLET, SADLER'S WELLS The phoenix rises yet again

A new 14-strong company reviving a much-loved name is taking ballet to smaller theatres

You need to be fairly long in the tooth to feel nostalgia for the heyday of London City Ballet. The group was set up in 1978 by the late Harold King to tour a large and varied classical repertoire at home and abroad. Princess Diana, its patron, befriended the company, supporting its work both publicly and privately.

Here comes the flood: Bob Dylan's 1974 Live Recordings

★★★ HERE COMES THE FLOOD: BOB DYLANS'S 1974 LIVE RECORDINGS Night after night: Sony's latest gargantuan release from the vaults

Night after night: Sony's latest gargantuan release from the vaults

Lighters at the ready, because here comes the flood. Drawn from 16-track tape, 1/4in reels and lo-fi sound board cassettes that are now a half century old, the 27 CDs of 431 performances, 417 of them previously unreleased, of Dylan and The Band’s 1974 arena tour of the US, is a set that challenges the listeners’ staying power perhaps more than it celebrates an epochal tour.

Donohoe, Roscoe, Stoller Hall, Manchester review - two great pianists celebrate 50 years

The special chemistry of two-piano duet, with virtuosity, humour and depth

A little piece of musical history was made last night at Manchester Chamber Concerts Society’s season-opening concert. Two of the greatest pianists of their generation, who met at the Royal Northern College of Music, celebrated the 50th anniversary of their first collaboration there. 

Wang, Lapwood, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - grace and power from two keyboard heroines

★★★★ WANG, LAPWOOD, LSO, PAPPANO, BARBICAN Two keyboard heroines

Full-strength fun on an evening of spectacle and swagger

It takes stiff competition to outshine Yuja Wang, who last night at the Barbican complemented her spangled silver sheath with a disconcerting pair of shades. But the super-heroine pianist, who played Rachmaninov’s First Piano Concerto, turned out to contribute the (comparatively) restrained and low-key element of a London Symphony Orchestra programme that culminated in a wall-shaking performance of Saint-Saëns’ "Organ" Symphony, with Anna Lapwood at the manuals.

My Favourite Cake review - woman, love, and freedom

★★★★★ MY FAVOURITE CAKE Woman, love, and freedom

A 70-year-old widow liberates herself in authoritarian Iran

The taxi cab has become a recurring motif in modern Iranian cinema, perhaps because it approximates to a kind of dissident bubble within the authoritarian state, a public space where individuals can have private and often subversive conversations.

In his 2015 docufiction Taxi Tehran, the outlawed director Jafar Panahi pretended to be a cab driver, taking inspiration from the late great Abbas Kiarostami’s 10 (2002), in which Mania Akbari, who may have actually been the film’s true begetter, seems to be a taxi driver even if she’s not.

Beethoven Sonata Cycle 1, Boris Giltburg, Wigmore Hall review - running the gamut

★★★★ BEETHOVEN SONATA CYCLE 1, BORIS GILTBURG, WiGMORE HALL Running the gamut

From the official first to the toughest – quite a launch for a series this pianist knows well

A happy, lucid and bright pianist, a forbidding Everest among piano sonatas: would Boris Giltburg follow a bewitching, ceaselessly engaging first half by rising to the challenge of Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” - a title he suggests, in his series of first-rate online essays about the sonatas, might be replaced more appropriately with “Titanic”?