Passing, Park Theatre review - where do we go from here?

★★★ PASSING, PARK THEATRE A British-Indian family celebrate their first Diwali

A British-Indian family celebrate their first Diwali, with mixed results

“It’s nothing like Christmas,” Rachel (Amy-Leigh Hickman) hisses at her brother David (Kishore Walker). She’s trying to wrangle her family into their first ever Diwali celebration, but everything’s going wrong. Her dad Yash (Bhasker Patel) is getting on far too well with her boyfriend Matt (Jack Flammiger). And to top it off, mum Ruth (Catherine Cusack) has found everything but the most important item on Rachel’s meticulous shopping list: the matches.

Degun, Scottish Ensemble, Queen's Hall, Edinburgh review - fusion of east and west, ancient and modern

★★★★ DEGUN, SCOTTISH ENSEMBLE Fusion of east and west, ancient and modern

Strings and sitar soar in imaginative collaboration

In a fusion of musical traditions both eastern and western, old and new, Scottish Ensemble were joined by virtuoso sitarist and composer Jasdeep Singh Degun for an evocative performance of Degun’s own work plus reimagined music by Terry Riley and Hildegard von Bingen at Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall.

The Father and the Assassin, National Theatre review - Gandhi's killer given an outstanding star turn

★★★★ THE FATHER AND THE ASSASSIN, NATIONAL THEATRE Gandhi's killer given an outstanding star turn

Indhu Rubasingham's sweeping production returns to the National

From the moment that the blood-stained Nathuram Godse rises out of the floor of the National Theatre's Olivier stage and demands ‘What are you staring at?

Urooj Ashfaq, Soho Theatre review - assured UK debut by Mumbai stand-up

Divorce, dating and teenage diaries

It's takes a confident comic performing only her second show in English – her second language – to joke near the top of the hour: “I didn't know I wasn't as funny in English.” Urooj Ashfaq also told us she would get upset if the audience didn't like her – but she shouldn't worry. Her confidence proved to be justified.

Album: Peter Culshaw - Music from the Temple of Light

The well-travelled writer/composer’s set of contemporary sacred music fuses East and West

Music from the Temple of Light has for its cover image a minimalist 17th century representation of Tantra. In this instance, a deep blue field bordering on black, scored by a golden yellow square, an arrow hanging down from the square’s centre, and a break in that arrow opening up near its tip.

It’s an absorbent and contemplative representation of forces rarely seen and beyond our control, and there’s a strong golden thread of the contemplative and of forces from beyond embedded in the album’s music, and its sacred edge.

All That Breathes review - intensely moving nature documentary

★★★★★ ALL THAT BREATHES Nature red in tooth and claw; a sublime portrait of urban wild-life

Nature red in tooth and claw; a sublime portrait of urban wild-life

This extraordinarily moving film made history when it became the first documentary to win the top non-fiction awards at both Sundance and Cannes. All that Breathes is the second film directed by Shaunak Sen, shot in Delhi in 2019/2020 during the violence that followed the Citizenship Amendment Act that discriminated against Muslim migrants.

First Persons: co-music directors Jasdeep Singh Degun and Laurence Cummings on their new Opera North 'Orpheus'

JASDEEP SINGH DEGUN & LAURENCE CUMMINGS The music directors on their Leeds 'Orpheus'

Premiering tonight in Leeds, a project that's so much more than lip-service to diversity

We believe that with Orpheus, we are creating something which will invite audiences to rethink what opera can and should be. Inspired by Monteverdi’s 1607 work L’Orfeo, it grew out of Opera North’s long-standing relationship with South Asian Arts-uk, a Leeds-based centre of excellence for South Asian music and dance.

Silence, Donmar Warehouse review - documenting disaster

★★★★ SILENCE, DONMAR WAREHOUSE A moving and compelling dramatisation

Dramatisation of Kavita Puri’s Partition Voices is moving and compelling

Partition equals trauma. It cannot have escaped anyone’s attention that the British Empire’s solution to intractable problems in three of its most important colonies and mandates – namely Ireland, India and Palestine – was the divisive device of drawing boundaries which created local catastrophes.