Reviews
Veronica Lee
Sarah Millican is at an age where she is pausing to reflect and in Late Bloomer, her most recent show – shown as a special on Channel 4 and Netflix outside the UK and Ireland – she ruminates on what the teenage Sarah would have thought of middle-aged Sarah.The former was shy and bullied, the latter is super confident and a hugely successful comic. How did she get from there to here?To set the scene, Millican divides children into two categories: late bloomers and eager beavers, and she has a handy list that explains the differences so we can see where we are along the spectrum. Among her Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The opening track is Hoyt Axton’s “Evangelina.” After first appearing on the 1976 album Fearless it was re-recorded and issued as a flop UK single in July 1980. The new version had also been an OK-selling US single in 1980. The reason this deeply atmospheric, velvety, yearning country marvel had UK sales potential after it came out on minor-league British imprint Young Blood was due to radio play: radio play on the BBC’s Radio 2.“Evangelina” illustrates exactly what Wednesday Morning 6AM - Radio Hits From The Small Hours 1970-1983 is about: the musical continuum defined by a maverick aspect Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Time is a terrifying force in Romeo & Juliet, and Robert Icke's headlong production never lets playgoers forget that fact. Returning to a tragedy he first directed for Headlong touring company 14 years ago, Icke reprises many of the conceits deployed first time round, this time wedded to a starry company headed by Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe that, in the first act at least, gives pride of place to his supporting players.Some may resist the apparent tricksiness of devices that include repetitions or reprises of scenes, as often as not accompanied by searing flashes of light separating out Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Science on stage is quite the thing at the moment with a revival of Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen opening at Hampstead Theatre next week and Lifeline, a British musical, injected into Southwark Playhouse for a six-week residency.It’ll be interesting to track the difference between the reactions of audiences and the critics as too many journalists dismiss anything beyond a bunsen burner or a percentage calculation as a matter reserved for boffins. Being proudly ignorant of such subjects appears to be on the person spec for a job at the BBC, but the explosion of science-based podcasts and YouTube Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
If ever there was a piece that epitomised the view that villains are infinitely more fun than heroes, it would be Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s epistolary novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses and its subsequent adaptations. The amorality at play is positively delicious, not least when the culprits feast on each other. But how does that appeal work, as entertainment, at a time when real-life morality is under more constant, and more rigid scrutiny? Will Christopher Hampton’s celebrated stage adaptation become darker, more powerful, or simply leave a bad taste? I’m not suggesting that this latest Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
There was something incongruous about seeing Basement Jaxx in a venue best known for regularly playing host to the likes of Scotland’s national orchestra and the roots and trad music of the Celtic Connections festival. Admittedly a chunk of seating had been removed to create a dancefloor down the front, but a sweaty club it is not, and waiting for the arrival of one of the UK’s preeminent dance acts while gazing around at rows of seats still felt strange. Perhaps it was simply an acknowledgment of the passing of time, given Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe have been doing this for over Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
The baldness of the titles the writer-director Stefan Golaszewski gives his TV series — Him & Her, Mum, Marriage and now Babies — is a misleading guide to the subtlety of their contents. These are, admittedly, Marmite dramas; but for those who love them, they are also finely crafted forays into the everyday existence of most humans today.Marmite actually features in Babies, in a scene midway through its six hour-long episodes in which Stephen (Paapa Essiedu) is munching one of the many slices of toast he gets through, this one smeared with Marmite. Which his wife Lisa (Siobhàn Cullen) Read more ...
theartsdesk
We are bowled over! We knew that theartsdesk.com had plenty of supporters out there – we’ve always had a loyal readership of arts lovers and professionals alike – but the response to our appeal to help us relaunch and reboot has been something else.Our fundraiser is rolling towards hitting the halfway mark, and it’s already raised enough to repair our ageing site and ensure its survival. But just as important to all of us have been the messages of love and support from our readership. It’s not just the morale boost of being praised either – though let’s be honest, the warm glow is pretty Read more ...
Sarah Kent
“Welcome” reads a sign hidden behind a metal screen whose spider-web of bars is designed to keep out unwelcome visitors (pictured below: Welcome: Carib, 2005). Through the grille one can see an exhibition of paintings to which, despite the apparently friendly invitation, access is emphatically denied. The Country Club is similarly protected by a high, chicken wire fence through which the tennis court and club house are tantalisingly visible (pictured below: Country Club: Chicken Wire, 2008). In these paintings, Hurvin Anderson treats both subjects with exquisite wit. The offending wire Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
The new version of Ibsen’s classic by Anya Reiss at the Almeida prompted me to wonder at times whether wrenching a play out of its era and transposing it to a contemporary setting is worth doing.The Almeida has fielded a strong cast for this updating, directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins, in a set by Hyemi Shin that cleverly uses the theatre’s unadorned brick walls as a contemporary design feature, along with a giant square skylight overhead like a James Turrell light sculpture. The place reeks of an empty kind of affluence – partly because the Helmers have just moved in and haven’t finished Read more ...
Robert Beale
A concert by the National Youth Orchestra is like no other. For one thing, there are 160 of them – you simply don’t get the kind of power and intensity they can create from a normal-sized orchestra. For another, they play with an enthusiasm and eagerness that even the most committed and devoted professionals would find hard to emulate. They want to share their music: they want you to feel it as they do. And the skill levels are right up there with the best of them, too.It’s a fact that in theatre or dance those whose bodies are still approaching maturity are necessarily unable to Read more ...
Saskia Baron
When Jim Jarmusch won the Golden Lion at last year’s Venice film festival, it came as something of a surprise. The best film award had been widely expected to go to the emotionally demanding The Voice of Hind Rajab, not to the mannered ensemble piece that is Father Mother Sister Brother. Perhaps the jury, led by Alexander Payne, a fellow American auteur, felt that it was time to honour another veteran indie film-maker, or that it was just too politically fraught to award a docudrama set in Gaza.Either way, the Venice prize cued a cascade of positive reviews from critics, which judging by the Read more ...