Reviews
Marianka Swain
Disillusioned with our modern world? Why not journey back into an idyllic past, when trains were benign, anthropomorphic creatures rather than sources of commuter angst, red petticoats held life-saving powers, and it was perfectly all right for children to accept sweets from a stranger.That’s not to say Mike Kenny’s crisp adaptation of Edith Nesbit’s 1906 novel is devoid of contemporary resonance; the tale of a refugee writer persecuted for daring to question the ruling regime is almost uncomfortably topical. This Edwardian story also carries a timely defence of the Welfare State, with an Read more ...
Guy Oddy
All-seater, up-market concert halls can be a bit intimidating to bands when they are used to more intimate venues. Silences can feel awkward and stage talk can dry up or be reduced to perfunctory “thank you”s. So it almost proved this evening when First Aid Kit strode onto the stage of Birmingham’s Symphony Hall.Kicking off with “The Lion’s Roar”, the title track from their profile-raising second album and quickly moving onto “Stay Gold”, the title track of their new disc, the Söderberg sisters barely acknowledged those that had come to see them and initially received muted applause for their Read more ...
graham.rickson
Bach: St John Passion Berliner Philharmoniker, Members of the Rudfunkchors Berlin, Soloists/Sir Simon Rattle, with staging by Peter Sellars (Berliner Philharmoniker)You'd happily settle for an audio recording of Sir Simon Rattle's version of Bach's St John Passion, but director Peter Sellars' input makes its presentation as a DVD essential. Daniel Finkernagel and Alexander Lück's stylish, unfussy video direction is only mentioned in small print on the booklet's last page – a pity, as their work adds hugely to this issue's success. Sellars' ritualistic, spare conception is undeniably Read more ...
fisun.guner
From an apparently simple idea stems a very confusing exhibition. Here’s the idea: taking the seminal black square painted by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich as its starting point – in fact, a rectangle, with the small and undated Black Quadrilateral the first of three Malevich paintings – we are invited, over the span of a century and across a number of continents, to explore the evolution of geometric abstraction and its relation to “ideas of utopia”. So far so good. Or maybe not. Perhaps the time frame hints at the problem: the way it jumps, without pause, from those modernist isms Read more ...
Peter Quantrill
For his second programme this week with the London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle conducted variations on a programme he’s been doing for years. So what’s the theme? Invention and hysteria, you might say. Berg’s Marie in Wozzeck and Stravinsky’s virgin in The Rite of Spring both meet gory if wordless ends. Ligeti’s Chief of Police in Le grand macabre reverses roles and deals death to anyone in her path. Or at least threatens it. So much for hysteria. Invention? In 1909 Webern ripped up the textbook of orchestral colour and wrote his own with the Orchestral Pieces Op.6, just as Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Among the many pleasures of Whiplash, the low-budget indie film that is now up for five Oscar nominations (Best Picture included) and by rights deserved more, is a final sequence so breathlessly exciting that if this were a stage show, the ending would induce an instant ovation. As it is, the final manic drumming display from music student Miles Teller, and the corresponding interplay between Teller and his drill sergeant of a professor (JK Simmons) who is the young artist's destructive nemesis and his saviour as well, builds to such a furious climax that you wonder what director Damien Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The latest sitcom from the United States is very much in the American mould of smart dialogue, pacy timing and some astute human observation layered with a hint of schmaltz. It concerns two thirtysomethings, Annie and Jake, who have been together for six years. In the pilot episode last night, she was expecting him to pop the question while they were on a romantic holiday, while he has planned to go on bended knee when they return home.The opening is a beautifully choreographed piece of economic but laugh-laden exposition – students of the form could learn much from this episode – as it all Read more ...
Helen K Parker
Ever wondered what would happen if a bunch of architects, prop-makers, fine artists, musicians and animators got together and decided to make a computer game? Well, if you’ve played any of the games created by State of Play, particularly Lume, then you’ll know the answer to that. You’ll also be as chuffed as I am that they have released a sequel to the aforementioned, and it’s every bit as exquisite as the first.Lumino City is a gigantic hodgepodge of reconstituted buildings, railways, train carriages, storage containers, boats and water wheels that precariously stretches into the clouds. Our Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Mike Bartlett is the most prolific and talented British playwright to emerge in the past decade. Not only has he created large-scale epics in a variety of styles — from the science-fiction fable Earthquakes in London to the Shakespearean King Charles III — but he has also delivered a series of short plays — My Child, Contractions and An Intervention — in which he hones down the story into sharp shards of powerful emotion. Running at about 55 minutes, Bull is one of these.The situation is simple: as the blurb on the back cover of the play text says, “Two jobs. Three candidates.” The awkward Read more ...
Matt Wolf
The Brits are back in the Oscar race big-time, with Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, and Rosamund Pike among the first-time Academy Award hopefuls who will be duking it out in the leading categories. But amidst the 2015 Oscar nomination hoo-ha, which includes a third consecutive nomination for Bradley Cooper (this time for American Sniper) and a career-defining 19th nod for the wondrous Meryl Streep (Into the Woods), spare a thought for those who didn't make the cut, Mr Turner's star and writer-director, Timothy Spall and Mike Leigh chief among them. Oh, and Ava Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Having gathered an excellent cadre of dancers and forged them over years into a fine company (The Talent), the BalletBoyz Michael Nunn and William Trevitt – two of the most astute artists in dance – must have known they needed to go further, to tackle something bigger than the 20-minute abstract pieces that are the staple of contemporary mixed bills. Young Men, which premièred last night at Sadler’s Wells is that something bigger, a full evening's work with defined thematic concerns and some semblance even of narrative. It has been some years in the making, growing out of workshops with Read more ...
Nick Hasted
First there’s an “Allahu Akbar”, then an American tank’s rumble and clank. It’s an ominous and wearying start, the sound of Islam and invasion intermingled in the Iraq War, a violent conflict that today simply expands. When director Clint Eastwood lets us see, too, we’re by the treads of the tank, then within seconds we’re on a rooftop with Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper), who spots a woman in a hijab with her child. They have a grenade, and he lines them in his crosshairs. Cut.American Sniper is a leanly muscular film, reviving Eastwood’s best qualities as a director after several worthy duds. Read more ...