Reviews
emma.simmonds
In one of the great US sitcoms, Seinfeld, the mantra of the show's producers was "no hugging, no learning". Well, Parks and Recreation - which may end up occupying a similarly lofty place in comedy history - takes the opposite tack. Warm and wonderfully witty with characters and relationships that actually evolve, Greg Daniels and Michael Schur's sitcom also features TV's finest comedy ensemble. This perky, award-winning comedy has taken an absolute age to reach us, considering it debuted in the US in 2009 (where the fifth season has already aired). As with other such imports, BBC Four Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Stephen Soderbergh would have us believe that this might be his last movie, which is difficult to believe. But if so, he's bowing out with one his sharpest, most devious and most watchable pictures, in which a shrewdly-chosen cast does full justice to a screenplay over which Scott Z Burns has pored painstakingly for more than a decade.Our subject at first seems to be the evils of Big Pharma, the giant drug corporations which seek to exploit human weakness and the stresses of 21st century life to keep their market share high and their stock prices soaring. Their questionable ethics and Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Scores of reddish-bronze skinned men, and a few women and children, in full regalia, festooned in face paint, feathers, jewellery and decorations of all kind. They stare out at us, impassive and imperturbable, immortalised by George Catlin (1796-1872), the most famous American artist you have never heard of. His work is embedded in the American consciousness, if not its conscience. This succinct and representative selection visits London 170 years after the sensational exhibition of his Indian Gallery in the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly in 1843, when 500 of his portraits of American Read more ...
Laura Silverman
Five male Filipinos in Tel Aviv live double lives. By day, they care for dying Orthodox Jews; by night, they are a drag act, the Paper Dolls. Based on real life, this play tells an incredible story that must be heard. Unfortunately, this production is not necessarily the one to tell it.The story conveys how connections can be forged between clashing cultures. Elderly Jewish men and young Filipino transsexuals can have the same values; the same need for a sense of home; the same longing for companionship. Somewhere here is a heartbreaking, poignant play, focusing on one of this drama's many Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
Minimalism was born of popular music. The drones came from John Coltrane, the tape experiments from fiddling around with songs from the charts, the first rhythmic and melodic explorations from the folk music of Africa and Asia. And all the pioneers started their careers as jazzers (La Monte Young and Terry Jennings were saxophonists, Terry Riley a ragtime pianist, Steve Reich a drummer). So, what was strange about last night’s Reich world premiere, which used two short pieces by Radiohead as the basis for a new five-movement composition, was that it’s taken this long for Reich to return to Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Like a piece of conceptual art, it may be the idea rather than the actual music that is the most significant thing about the world premiere last night of Steve Reich’s Radio Rewrite. There will be a hundred times more people discussing the fact that Reich has taken on Radiohead than actually listening to it. Rather than variations, it's a 16-minute piece performed by the London Sinfonietta in which elements of a couple of Radiohead songs are referred to, often obliquely. Chords are shuffled around, but snatches of melody survive. It was a bit peek-a-boo and Spot That Tune.The first Read more ...
Heather Neill
Clybourne Park won Bruce Norris a slew of awards on both sides of the Atlantic a couple of years ago. His fearless, shocking, very funny response to Lorraine Hansbury's classic A Raisin in the Sun tackled hypocrisy in racial matters brilliantly and in language blithely free of political correctness. It is not surprising that Purple Heart, written eight years earlier, in 2002, falls somewhat short of the later play.Where Clybourne Park has a clear social and political target, Purple Heart's subject is less well-defined: the nature of love, kindness and grief. Norris indicates in a programme Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Compile a list of the subjects you thought may be unsuitable for a sitcom, and it will almost certainly include a person with learning difficulties, assisted suicide and an army bomb disposal team.Well all three of those now exist – Derek and Way To Go have just finished their first series on Channel 4 and BBC Three respectively, and on the latter channel last night Bluestone 42, set in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, made its debut. And while the makers may have had a modern-day M*A*S*H in their heads, they have some way to go before reaching that comedy's heights - they don't even Read more ...
Matt Wolf
"I'm so worn out with it," a character remarks in a different context well into Rufus Norris's film Broken, to which one is tempted to respond, "Ain't that the truth!" A dissection of so-called "broken Britain" in all its jagged disarray, stage director Norris's debut film wants to be excoriating but is instead mainly exhausting and feels infinitely longer than its briefish running time. Norris gets good performances out of a notable cast, and it's interesting (to put it mildly) to see certain actors cast defiantly against type, but the material suffers from being a continuous, non-stop Read more ...
Russ Coffey
When Justin Bieber finally arrived on stage last night the volume of the screams from the teen audience topped 100 decibels. I know because I measured it on my iPhone. That, however, wasn’t the first deafening noise from the capacity crowd of 20,000. The previous half-hour had been punctuated by a series of boos borne out of growing frustration. Bieber had been scheduled to arrive at 8.30. By 10.25, when the stage lights started to rise, he needed one hell of an entrance.Fortunately he had one. Dressed in a white suit and with a giant pair of wings Bieber descended from the domed roof on Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It looks as if Broadchurch will reveal itself as a "town-with-murky-secrets" story, but on the evidence of this first episode we can expect it to be done with a skilful touch and a fine eye for detail. The trigger for the action is the death of 11-year-old Danny Latimer, but writer Chris Chibnall is focusing on the effect this has on family and friends as much as on the grim event itself.Broadchurch is a small seaside town in Dorset where violent crime is largely unheard of. When Danny's body is first discovered on the beach, suicide or an accident are canvassed as possible causes. Then Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Definitely not the M that hit with “Pop Muzik” in 1979 and then swiftly vanished. This –M- is a bona fide, stadium-filling superstar. In France, that is. In Camden though, last night, Mathieu Chédid confounded any expectations of what stadium rock ought to be. The evening was rounded off by Chédid and his band dancing in a line to a playback of last year’s single “Mojo”, just as they’d done in the video. They make open and shut gestures with their hands, mimicking a mouth. The audience do the same. Pity that this often bewildering and sold-out show, the first of –M-’s two-night London run, Read more ...