555: Verlaine en prison: a tender and troubled portrait of poetic profundity at the Arcola Theatre

‘The long sobs of the violins of autumn wound my heart with a monotonous languor.’  The first lines of Paul Verlaine’s ‘Chanson d’automne’ exemplify the poignant melancholy of Verlaine’s poetry…

The Unravelling Fantasia of Miss H: a powerful operatic tribute to Mary Frances Heaton

She stood up one Sunday in St George’s church, the parish church of Doncaster, and interrupted the sermon, accusing the preacher of being “a whited sepulchre, a thief, a villain,…

Ethel Smyth’s The Boatswain’s Mate at the Arcola Theatre

Two days, two boatswains’ mates: the first, genuine navy lad Bill Bobstay, sailing the seas aboard Captain Corcoran’s H.M.S. Pinafore; the second, ex-soldier Ned Travers, partner-in-intrigue to former boatswain Harry…