Reviews
Kieron Tyler
Magma: Köhntarkösz, Köhntarkösz Anteria, Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré“They were a Seventies phenomenon,” said snooker ace Steve Davies of Magma. “But they were a bit too far out there for most people, even if you liked progressive music. I didn't dare put them on the communal record player at sixth-form because they would have been booed off. Maybe it's because they were French.”Magma – the band Davies declared his “true obsession” – are still going strong under the guidance of their visionary drummer Christian Vander. John Lydon was another fan. The vinyl-only reissue of three of their albums, 1974’s Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
“A link in the chain of beauty” – that’s how the choreographer August Bournonville, in the 1840s, wanted every dancer in the Royal Danish Ballet to regard their art. And, remarkably, the chain of beauty we now call the Bournonville style has remained unbroken ever since. For complex reasons of politics and geography, as well as national personality, no doubt, while Romantic ballet in the rest of Europe fell under the spell of flashier Russian developments, the aesthetic Bournonville cultivated in Copenhagen remained impervious, in a little bubble of its own.Happily for us, today’s company has Read more ...
Jasper Rees
It is 30 years since Shoah. In the filmography of the Holocaust Claude Lanzmann's document is the towering monolith. At nine-and-a-half hours, it consists of no archive footage at all, just interviews with witnesses unburdening themselves of memories. Of all those conversations, there was one in particular which Lanzmann held back. After the three and a half hours of The Last of the Unjust, it is clear why.Benjamin Murmelstein was a Viennese rabbi who in 1944 became the third and last Elder of Theresienstadt. Also known by its Czech name of Terezín, this was the so-called “model ghetto” with Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
The Simón Bolívar orchestra is the musical answer to the question “Would you like to supersize that?” A youth orchestra in bulk, if no longer in name, the ensemble has made a signature of its heft, making repertoire work on its own terms rather than adjusting itself to fit. On Thursday night, full-fat Beethoven and Wagner that threatened to overspill in the generosity of their gestures, so how would the orchestra fare with Mahler’s mighty Fifth Symphony?If I say that the Simón Bolívar Orchestra are not an ensemble you really want to hear two nights running that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Read more ...
graham.rickson
Janáček: Glagolitic Mass, The Eternal Gospel Prague Philharmonic Choir, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra/Tomáš Netopil (Supraphon)Lack of faith has never been an impediment to composing effective, moving religious music. Britten and Vaughan Williams managed it. As did Janáček, whose eccentric, vibrant Glagolitic Mass should leave you reeling. As it does in this performance: the young Czech conductor Tomáš Netopil nails the work's exultant positivity and doesn't undersell the eccentricities. Janáček smoothed out many of the Mass's rough edges before publication; Netopil's performance aims Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Woods and forests were given a fresh impetus as a psychic terrain for the cinema by Lothlórien, Fangorn, and the other sylvan spaces so ethereally or threateningly rendered in The Lord of the Rings films and, to a lesser extent, by the Mirkwood of the second Hobbit movie. All distorted black boles, labyrinths of tangled branches, knobbly roots, and conically sun-strafed clearings, they were movie woods to rival the great Gothic forest of Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924) and the magical Athenian wood Warner Bros. crafted at Burbank for Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle’s A Read more ...
David Nice
Youth may have vanished from the title, and its first flush is gone from the cheeks of most of the young persons. Now they’re in their prime, a magnificent sight – and the sound, too, is that of a world-class orchestra with a voice. Which we heard at its most distinctive, deep and muscular, from the strings in the opening signals of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. So what went wrong with the music from Wagner’s Ring in their first 2015 Southbank concert’s second half?Ultimately the blame must rest with Gustavo Dudamel – when good, great, but horrid when he gets the wrong end of the stick, as I’ve Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Some depressing statistics for your reading pleasure. (Depressing if you’re British and not a billionaire.) Since 2008, UK government austerity measures have been equal to the sum of money paid out in bankers’ bonuses: £80 billion. Not depressed yet? Try this. In 2013 the UK’s thousand richest people saw their wealth increase by a sum equivalent to the combined earnings of the country’s fulltime workforce: £70 billion. You probably are now, but if not... We play host to more billionaires than any other country in the world: 104. Oh, and the UK is the only leading economy which has become more Read more ...
Simon Munk
It's an exciting time to be a videogamer – the mix of big budget and independent titles, the opportunities increasingly offered by a wider variety of devices and streaming content, the sheer processing power developers have to work with. But what does emerge from this list is a lack of innovation in terms of enemy intelligence, emotional depth or narrative complexity. Perhaps we'll have to wait for 2016 for those…Game of ThronesEpisode one may have had a shaky start but Telltale know their stuff and the seeds have been sown for an epic gaming 'box set'. Stuart HoughtonBloodborneThe next game Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Can a country like Russia escape its history? In Moses Raine’s new play — transferring to the West End from the tiny Old Red Lion pub theatre where it was first seen in May 2014 — the answer seems to be no. Like Tena Stivicic’s 3 Winters at the National, the drama tells the story of a nation through the close study of three generations under one roof, in this case a small flat in contemporary Moscow. As you’d expect, each age cohort is shaped by its political, social and cultural experiences.An intelligent blend of quotidian detail and political metaphorSo here goes: the grandad Alexander is Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Let's face it, we're all fascinated by orgies. The idea of them gets the blood up. Sex Party Secrets promised a window into this netherworld, advising that such events are increasingly popular, that we're becoming a more liberated nation. At least, the rich are. The documentary's hashtag, #POSH ORGIES, lays down the parameters. This isn't about the world of paunchy, middle-aged suburban wife-swapping but, instead, parties that promise high-end glamour and ecstatic release, as recounted by the organisers, alongside the experiences of attendees.Director James Newton does a great job marshalling Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
The twelve days of Christmas may be over, but I have good news for ballet fans in London: a whole new batch of presents for you has washed up at the Coliseum, and it's overflowing with lords-a-leaping, ladies dancing, and swans-a-swimming. In Derek Deane's production (a vast improvement on his 1997 arena version for the Royal Albert Hall) English National Ballet really have a gem of a Swan Lake: even where I disagree with Deane's decisions, I find the whole package intensely likeable. And when, as happened last night, there are stupendous principals performing the main roles and a corps Read more ...