Reviews
Jonathan Geddes
According to legend, Glasgow can be a tough place for a support band a crowd do not warm to. Therefore brotherly duo Faux Real were perhaps taking a risk when they elected to bound into the audience during the first number in their Wet Leg support slot. It was greeted with mostly puzzlement from early attendees, but when they repeated the trick 30 minutes later - finding space and sprinting towards each other before jumping into the air with high kicks - the reaction was much more enthusiastic. The pair had mixed up synth-heavy pop of varying quality with relentless, hard working Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Hail the spirit of the dance. And of acting. And of driving and flying. At a time when new writing is clearly in decline, and the most successful shows are adaptations or revivals of the classics, the National Theatre returns to one of its big hits from a year ago, thrillingly recast. Unsurprisingly, it’s an adaptation of a popular book of yesteryear: Kendall Feaver’s version of Ballet Shoes, Noel Streatfeild’s classic 1936 coming-of-age novel about three adopted sisters who go to drama school. Set in a fossil-filled crumbling house in Cromwell Road, the plot is about the absent-minded Read more ...
David Nice
Even top conductors can have difficulty with Elgar’s late romantic suppleness. Vasily Petrenko of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Santtu-Mattias Rouvali of the Philharmonia have made a heavy meal out of the “Concert Overture” (= symphonic poem) In the South (Alassio). Not Edward Gardner with his London Philharmonic players, strings on top, glowing form, woodwind hyper-sensitive, in a perfectly paced journey of a soul.Elgar took his melancholic as well as his boisterous side on holiday in Italy. Gardner’s trajectory was one of restlessness and unease eventually erupting in a vision of Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
She’s still best remembered for her portrayal of Carrie Mathison in Homeland, but Claire Danes is an actor with plenty of moves up her sleeve. In this eight-part drama penned by Gabe Rotter, she plays author Aggie Wiggs, renowned for her book Sick Puppy but now crippled by writer’s block. This is in the aftermath of her break-up with wife Shelley (Natalie Morales), following the death of their young son Cooper in a road accident, leaving Aggie living in splendid isolation in a mini-mansion in leafy Oyster Bay, Long Island. Indeed, this locale is so upscale that it has tempted real estate Read more ...
David Nice
Bah-humbuggers like me are happy to pass over seasonal fare, maybe excepting a Messiah or Christmas Oratorio, and look ahead to the birds that sing in the spring. That was the theme for this light-of-touch rattlebag, with versatile top quality on display from all performers.Maybe parts of it smacked of a tantalising taster menu. Violinist Braimah Kanneh-Mason came on at the start, advertised only through the first of Fantasia mover and shaker Tom Fetherstonhaugh’s short speeches, to twitter with leader Millie Ashton in the opening Allegro of Vivaldi’s “Spring” Concerto - so fresh and buoyant Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
If you’re old enough to remember LPs and the lost art of reading sleeve notes (let alone writing them), this one’s for you. The titular session man is the fabled keyboard player Nicky Hopkins, whose teeming creativity and dancing digits left their indelible mark across an extraordinary swathe of records from the golden age of rock’n’roll.Among Hopkins’ most recognisable feats are his Jerry Lee Lewis-style romp through the Beatles’ "Revolution", contributions to several tracks on John Lennon’s Imagine including "Jealous Guy", rollicking ivory-tickling on George Harrison’s "Give Me Love", his Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Seemingly shot in a snow globe containing haunted mountains and a neo-noirish Alpine ‘burg, The Ice Tower is the most expressionistic but relatable of the French-Bosnian director Lucile Hadžihalilović’s eerie oneiric fables involving endangered motherless children.It’s also the prettiest and the queasiest, a glittering alt-Gothic showcase for Marion Cotillard as a toxic lynx-eyed movie diva. The long-damaged Cristina van der Berg, who as a girl was objectified and unhappily groomed for stardom, preys on the smitten adolescent orphan Jeanne (stealthy newcomer Clara Pacini) while acting – and Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Mrs Bluebird” is one of the great singles. Released in May 1968, it is airy yet lush. The filigreed harmony vocals are like velvet, the rhythm is insistent but soft. Overall, there is a sense of distance; that what’s heard is not quite within reach. When a guitar solo comes, it is sharp but muted. This is archetypal American harmony pop – but with a distinct freeze-dried character.It was the top side of the third single by Eternity’s Children, and made 69 in Billboard’s singles chart. It got to 54 in the Cash Box ranking. A UK release of “Mrs Bluebird” suggested there was chance this Read more ...
Guy Oddy
It’s not often that a band manages to get a Birmingham crowd dancing from the front of the stage to the back of the hall. However, Lambrini Girls achieved this feat on Saturday evening – from the very first bars of their set until they finally exited the stage after an encore of the lairy “Big Dick Energy”.It’s not even as if Phoebe Lunny and Selin Macieira-Boşgelmez have had a great deal of time to build their audience either. Lambrini Girls only formed in 2019 but they’ve certainly grabbed the zeitgeist by the short and curlies in that time and in doing so have attracted a seriously diverse Read more ...
Sarah Kent
A lone slice of cherry pie sits on a plate inside a glass case (pictured below), waiting to be released from its solitary confinement and guzzled by a hungry diner. There it is again, in an eye-watering display of sickly offerings (main picture). This time, four slices are lined up alongside their chocolate, pecan and lemon meringue counterparts. The display goes on and on, for as far as the eye can see.At first glance, Wayne Thiebaud’s pictures of cakes, pies, hot dogs, ice creams and gob stoppers look like euphoric celebrations of abundance; but gazing at this glut of comfort food soon Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Out of the hundreds of gigs, surprises and collaborations that make up the EFG London Jazz Festival (LJF), this review focuses on four concerts fusing jazz with world music. They are the Korean extravaganza of Dionysus Robot (pictured) at the Queen Elizabeth Hall; British-Bahraini trumpeter Yazz Ahmed’s melding of jazz, Middle Eastern elements and Bahraini history at Ronnie Scott’s; a late-career turn from Ethio-jazz giant Mulatu Astatke at the subterranean Here at Outernet; and the festival’s closing weekend ‘takeover’ by the Aga Khan Master Musicians at the Royal Festival Hall.Won Il, Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Don't be fooled by the shambling geniality which first defines Bryan Cranston's Joe Keller at the start of the Belgian director Ivo van Hove's scorching revival of All My Sons. By the time we get to the interval-free finish, some 2-1/4 hours later, this seemingly affable chap will be as done in as the tree we see topped in the production's wordless prologue. As Joe goes down for the count, so too does the America of which he forms an all-too-ruthless part. Written in 1947, Arthur Miller's breakout play depicts a nation given over to deception and rapacity that responds only to one God - Read more ...