15 Heroines, Jermyn Street Theatre online review - putting the women back into Greek myth

★★★★ 15 HEROINES, JERMYN STREET THEATRE ONLINE Putting the women back into Greek myth

Scorching adaptation of Ovid is a welcome theatrical respite from lockdown

Women have an awful time of it in the Greek myths. Raped, abandoned, blamed for murdering people, blamed for not murdering people – you name it, it’s happened to an Ancient Greek woman, and they didn’t even get to talk about it themselves. Ovid picked up on this discrepancy, and, in a rare flash of wokeness, wrote The Heroines, 18 letter-poems from the neglected women of the myths.

The Thread, Sadler's Wells Digital Stage review - Greek folk and contemporary unite

★★★★ THE THREAD, SADLER'S WELLS DIGITAL STAGE Greek folk and contemporary unite

Russell Maliphant breathes fresh life into Hellenic tradition

The latest Sadler’s Wells digital offering is 2019’s The Thread, a luminous collaboration between choreographer Russell Maliphant and Oscar-winning composer Vangelis (Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner) for the Athens-based production company Lavris.

Medea, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Barbican review - lacerating contemporary tragedy

★★★★★ MEDEA, INTERNATIONAAL THEATER AMSTERDAM, BARBICAN Lacerating tragedy

Simon Stone's homage to Euripides is faultless, while Marieke Heebink tears at the soul

Hallucinatory theatre has struck quite a few times in the Barbican's international seasons. On an epic scale we’ve had the Shakespeare compendiums Kings of War and Roman Tragedies from Toneelgroep Amsterdam, newly merged with the city's Stadsschouwburg to form this present company.

Ariadne auf Naxos, Longborough Festival review - appetising energy and wit

★★★★★ ARIADNE AUF NAXOS, LONGBOROUGH FESTIVAL Strauss's chamber masterpiece brilliantly staged, finely played and sung

Strauss's chamber masterpiece brilliantly staged, finely played and sung

Much as I love Strauss’s Ariadne in its final form, I have a sneaking nostalgia for the original version (attached to Hofmannsthal’s adaptation of Molière’s Le bourgeois gentilhomme), which had Zerbinetta and her companions popping up after the final love duet and gently letting out some of its gas.

The New Royal Academy and Tacita Dean, Landscape review - a brave beginning to a new era

★★★★ THE NEW ROYAL ACADEMY AND TACITA DEAN, LANDSCAPE Brave beginning to new era

From an institution known for excellent exhibitions to a hub of learning and debate

This weekend the Royal Academy (R.A) celebrates its 250th anniversary with the opening of 6 Burlington Gardens (main picture), duly refurbished for the occasion. When it was dirty the Palladian facade felt coldly overbearing, but cleaning it has highlighted the bands of sandstone and brown marble columns that lend warmth to the Portland stone. Originally built in the garden of Burlington House as the HQ for the University of London, this Victorian edifice turns out to be rather handsome. 

Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece, British Museum review - magnificence of form across the millennia

★★★★★ RODIN AND THE ART OF ANCIENT GREECE, BRITISH MUSEUM Magnificence of form across the millennia

A game-changing exhibition illuminates the great sculptor and his links to antiquity

In bronze, marble, stone and plaster, as far as the eye can see, powerful figures and fragments – divine and human, mythological and real; athletes, soldiers and horses alongside otherworldly creatures like Centaurs – stride out. They pose, re-pose, twist, turn and captivate as that 19th century sculptor of genius, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), encountered and absorbed, with such sensual pleasure, the art of antiquity.

Troy: Fall of a City, BBC One review - soapification of the Trojan War

★★ TROY: FALL OF A CITY, BBC ONE Soapification of the Trojan War

Classical myth reborn as low-voltage melodrama

The plan to bring drama back to Saturday nights on BBC One enjoyed mixed success with Hard Sun, but now threatens to slide over a cliff with this trip back to the Homeric era. In the era of Game of Thrones and now Britannia, you can see why somebody fancied having a go at the swords-sandals-and-sorcery of the Trojan War. The question is, how?

From Life, Royal Academy review - perplexingly aimless

★★ FROM LIFE, ROYAL ACADEMY A lacklustre account of a defining practice in western art

A lacklustre account of a defining practice in western art

Dedicated to a foundation stone of western artistic training, this exhibition attempts a celebratory note as the Royal Academy approaches its 250th anniversary. But if the printed guide handed to visitors offers a detailed overview of working from life, the exhibition itself is a far flimsier construction that never really establishes the purpose of a practice that it simultaneously wants us to believe is thriving today.

Oedipe, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - Enescu's masterpiece glorious and complete

★★★★ OEDIPE, LPO, JUROWSKI, RFH The LPO's Principal Conductor probes a complex and unique idiom with total command

The London Philharmonic's Principal Conductor probes a complex idiom commandingly

It’s official: Romanian master George Enescu’s four-act Greek epic lives and breathes as a work of transcendent genius. It took last year’s Royal Opera production to lead us further along the path established by the magnificent EMI studio recording with José van Dam as protagonist.

The Mentor, Vaudeville Theatre review - having fun with artistic integrity

★★★ THE MENTOR, VAUDEVILLE THEATRE F Murray Abraham crackles as a temperamental playwright

F Murray Abraham crackles as a temperamental playwright

German writer Daniel Kehlmann’s light-touch 90-minute comedy is a chic satire on the slippery business of making art – and especially on the difficulty of assessing it. Whose judgement matters, after all?