By Anna Picard [The Independent, 30 October 2005]
Like the package holidays that serve as its backdrop, John Lunn’s operatic thriller Tangier Tattoo is aimed at 18 to 30 year olds. “Which 18 to 30 year olds?” I hear you ask. Let’s set that question aside for now. First, a disclaimer. Having cordoned off its target audience by age, Tangier Tattoo is effectively critic-proofed. It follows, therefore, that whatever I might dislike about it can be dismissed as a by-product of my relative wrinkliness; though while we’re on the subject of lost youth, it seems fair to point out that I was 30 more recently than Glyndebourne’s creative team, not to mention Derek Laud of Big Brother, who was, with his younger housemate Eugene Sully, shipped down to Sussex to lend last Saturday’s premiere some tabloid pizzazz.