Canadian-born Mel Cooper came to the UK to study at Oxford and stayed, captivated by the culture and history of the welcoming and tolerant society of Britain.
He founded the magazine Opera Now. He was a consultant to the Japanese broadcaster NHK, a broadcaster on British Satellite Broadcasting and a member of the team that started Classic FM on which he broadcast shows like Classic America and Authentic Performance. After working with the Genesis Foundation on helping to fund arts projects, he continues to write, review and lecture on music and literature.
There are many things about this production of Doctor Dolittle that are delightful and I was in the company of many children when I saw it, children w...
Rufus Norris makes this both a “Scottish” play and a contemporary one, setting his interpretation of Macbeth in a kind of Afghanistan/Syria/Middle Eas...
The Christmas show in Oxford this year is a return of the touring company of Jersey Boys. If you like the music Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons the...
One of the most difficult and least-performed of Shakespeare’s plays and one that is now thought to have been a partial collaboration with Thomas Midd...
This is the perfect Christmas treat for young and old. The production is visually striking, evoking brilliantly the bustle of 19th century London, the...
My first description of Nativity! The Musical, if I had to give a fifteen second elevator pitch, would be to say this: Monty Python meets St Trinian’s...
The material is not to everyone’s taste, so stay away if you hated the film. But interestingly, this was not an exact clone of the movie (though prett...
At one level I have nothing but good to report about the play Shakespeare in Love, adapted for the stage by Lee Hall from the screenplay by Marc Norma...
This is the kind of musical that restores my faith in light entertainment. It turns out to be a thoughtful story about the influence that pop music ha...
Troilus and Cressida is a late and difficult Shakespeare play that is considered by many to be extremely problematic. The new RSC production goes some...
