MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
Latest editorial
Choral Christmas cracker from Tenebrae
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
Tenebrae
King’s Place, London
TENEBRAE’S end-of-year celebration was a very well-mannered Yuletide party, featuring many of artistic director Nigel Short’s favourite Christmas choral works, some of them quite rarely heard.
Opening in semi-darkness with the 4th century plainchant Rorate Coeli, Tenebrae’s choristers — seven women and eight men — burst into life with Peter Wishart’s extrovert setting of the 15th century text Alleluya! as the lights suddenly blazed.
A lively evening might have been expected at that point, but the opening salvo turned out, quite deliberately, to be the loudest and most exuberant choral work of the first half.
Similar stories
JONAH RASKIN compares the tepid fare of the Netflix series Black Doves with a gritty Polish alternative
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys, with minor reservations, the Northern Ballet’s revival of its 1992 classic