The Life I Lead, Park Theatre review - pleasant enough but lacks bite

Solo play looks back blandly at the celebrated screen dad in 'Mary Poppins'

I am deeply jealous of Miles Jupp's dressing gown in The Life I Lead, the solo play at the Park Theatre. It's a silky-grey patterned number of exquisitely comfortable proportions, and just the sort of thing a chap should wear to tell the story of his life via some genial patter over an hour or two.

Blood Knot, Orange Tree Theatre review - defining apartheid-era drama delivers afresh

★★★ BLOOD KNOT, ORANGE TREE THEATRE Defining apartheid-era drama delivers afresh

Athol Fugard's seminal 1961 play hasn't lost its potency

London's impromptu mini-season devoted to the work of Athol Fugard picks up real steam with Blood Knot, Matthew Xia's transfixing take on one of the benchmark titles of the apartheid era and beyond.

Reissue CDs Weekly: Where The Girls Are Volume Ten

WHERE THE GIRLS ARE VOLUME TEN Female-centric Sixties pop compilation series bows out

The template-setting series of female-centric Sixties pop compilations bows out

The US music trade weekly Cashbox chose a picture of the then-hot Diana Ross & the Supremes and Temptations joint enterprise for the cover of its 14 December 1968 issue. On page 28, under the header “Best Bets”, a review of the “It’s the Loving Season” single by The Vareeations (pictured above) said “Standout female lead makes an especially fine showing on this blues-pop ballad side.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Guildhall School review - earthy, energetic Britten

★★★★ A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, GUILDHALL SCHOOL Earthy, energetic Britten

An energetic cast of quality voices meshes happily with bracing instrumental magic

It speaks vivid volumes for the superb health of our music colleges that the Guildhall School tackles every aspect of Britten's long and layered Shakespeare adaptation with total confidence.

Marianne Faithfull, BBC Four review - more than a vagabond life

★★★★ MARIANNE FAITHFULL, BBC FOUR An intimate portrait of the mythic singer

An intimate female-directed portrait of the mythic singer

French actor and director Sandrine Bonnaire’s warm, langorous film portrait of la Faithfull may not the first – that accolade goes to Michael Collins’s feature-length Dreaming my Dreams (2000), featuring Mick, Keith, Anita and John Dunbar – but it does feel like a refreshingly deep-focus, specifically female take on her life and mythos, intimate yet kept at a decorous ar

Reissue CDs Weekly: Eric Dolphy

REISSUE CDS WEEKLY: ERIC DOLPHY 'Musical Prophet': diligent reconfiguration of the 1963 recordings with Alan Douglas

'Musical Prophet': diligent reconfiguration of the 1963 recordings with Alan Douglas

The tapes from which Musical Prophet: The Expanded 1963 New York Studio Sessions is sourced were found in a suitcase Eric Dolphy had given to musical polymath Hale Smith and his wife Juanita before setting off on a European tour in 1964. What was handed over by the prodigious multi-instrumentalist for safekeeping has never before been fully explored by an archive release. Dolphy did not return from that tour.

Reissue CDs Weekly: Manchester - A City United In Music

REISSUE CDS WEEKLY: MANCHESTER - A CITY UNITED IN MUSIC Thought-provoking compendium dedicated to the northern musical powerhouse

Thought-provoking compendium dedicated to the northern musical powerhouse

Full marks for shoehorning-in the names of city’s two major football teams into the title of Manchester - A City United In Music. But this spiffy double-CD compendium roams further than the boundaries of the titular metropolis. Leigh, Salford, Stockport, Timperley and Warrington are in the mix too. “Manchester-area” or “Manchester-region” wouldn’t be such snappy designations but the point is made – Manchester is suffused in music.