Simon Thompson

Writer/director Thomas Sieben’s Home Sweet Home is an impressively made, yet strangely empty movie, that tries to cram in so many narrative strands that it ends up diminishing a simple and effective three act structure in the process. Although Sieben’s sheer ambition in filming this movie in the way that he did is something to be commended, pesky details like a fleshed out supporting cast and slow, carefully crafted tension are pushed aside harder than someone hawking multiple copies of John Romero’s Daikatana.

The world premiere Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler stage adaptation will be on the road until 4 June 2025

By Simon Thompson , 11 October 2024 We've come to expect a concert like this every year from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra: one conducted

The final elements of an ambitious package of legislative proposals aimed at delivering stronger and more consistent AML/CFT rules at the EU level have now been agreed upon by co-legislators. Regulation (EU) 2024/1620 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 May 2024 establishing the Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism and amending Regulations (EU) No 1093/2010, (EU) No 1094/2010 and (EU) No 1095/2010, replaces all previous national rules and entered into force on 26 June 2024. Unlike previous legislation, however, it does not only propose more stringent regulations, but actually broadens the spectrum of affected industries to new sectors.

By Simon Thompson , 01 November 2024 At 136 years old, Nordic Music Days must surely qualify as one of the longest-running contemporary music festivals in the western world.

The orchestra’s contribution to the Nordic Music Days festival fell short with an overstretched centrepiece

By Simon Thompson , 14 November 2024 Typical Andrew Manze ! There can't be many conductors who have such an omnivorous and voracious musical

A typically omnivorous programme from Manze and the SCO in which principal flautist André Cebrián dazzles in a Mozart concerto. But it was all nearly upstaged by a solo lament for the Valencia floods.

Director Elizabeth Newman has solved a problem like Maria with an overwhelming sense of love for the material

Few films this year showcase intricate detail and epic scale like director Jon M. Chu's Wicked does.