Reviews
Karen Krizanovich
In The Master, it is the hand that matters. Lancaster Dodd is the charismatic leader of a cult-like therapy/religion similar to Scientology, its lengthy, non-sensical "processes" aiming at metaphysical time travel. But that isn't important. In fact, nothing is important about the plot of The Master. It works, in tailor’s terms, on “the hand” - the way it feels.Director Paul Thomas Anderson, maker of ingenious films like There Will be Blood, Magnolia and Boogie Nights, has created a work of such depth and texture that over half was shot on 65mm film. Then there’s the touch of Philip Seymour Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Science thrives on stage. In play after play, various scientific ideas seem to flourish in the warm, well-lit environment of the theatre, fed by a crew of artists and despite the threats of critics or other predators. Now, Lucy Prebble — fresh from her outstanding success with Enron — turns her attention to the subject of love and neurology in her latest play, which opened last night. Directed by Enron maestro Rupert Goold, the play stars Billie Piper so it’s already sold out, but is it any good?The short answer is yes. For a longer answer, read on. The Effect is set in a facility managed by Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
You can tell a lot about a performance of L’elisir d’amore from the two pizzicato string chords that so neatly take the sheen off the military pomp of the opening phrase. Played well, these subversive little asides can throb with all the wit and cheeky self-mockery that elevates this opera above the hundreds of Donizetti also-rans. Played earnestly, as they were last night however, they heralded a rather limp performance – laboriously correct without ever finding (let alone seizing) that anarchic glee that riots through the score.Laurent Pelly’s production returns to the Royal Opera House for Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The BBC has other things on its to-do list at the minute. However, once all the newly installed acting heads have been replaced by actual heads, and the matter of the ex-DG’s severance pay sufficiently chewed over by the Corporation’s bosom pals in the Fourth Estate and the Conservative Party, perhaps someone at TV Centre could get around to other business. The search, for example, for a costume drama capable of giving Downton Abbey a bloody nose.It’s not been a good period for period on the BBC. Since the ladies of Cranford hung up their bonnets, Upstairs Downtairs trailing oodles of Read more ...
Louise Gray
In 1991, the Basque performance artist Esther Ferrar wrote a letter to modern music’s inventive genius, John Cage, on the future of anarchism. Ferrar’s letter – written in the year before Cage died – was in fact a reply to a question about anarchy’s prospects that the composer had thrown out to the wider world (typically, in the form of mesostic poem called “Overpopulation and Art”), and it’s true to say – as this last event in the short Cage Rattling season made clear, that two streams of anarchy were being addressed: on the one hand, the unfettered possibilities flowing from Cage’s chance Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
The last gasp of the Twilight franchise is really quite good, fugueing on the idea that if vampires live forever, wouldn’t it be great if a vampire fell in love with a human being - and didn’t drink her to death? As irresistible as that seems, there are times over its run when the Twilight franchise seemed to work against itself - what with huge idiotic CGI wolves that are neither scary nor realistic, etc. Nevertheless, the fifth and final (so far) film for the Twihards (Twlight hardcore fans) impresses: it knows exactly what it wants to achieve and sets out to do it - with one huge surprise. Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Alan Davies used to be a regular on the stand-up circuit, before acting and other television work, including ad campaigns and being a panellist on the long-running quiz QI, took him away from live comedy. But now, after a break of more than a decade, he's back on the road and the rest has clearly served him well.He got the mentions of Jonathan Creek and QI out of the way fairly quickly as he did some chitchat with the audience. He appeared unfazed by the largely unresponsive audience at the Hackney Empire, where I saw the show, but he turned a friendly heckle - which considerably disrupted Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
This compilation of nearly 90 photographs by 30 photographers from 13 different countries of the Middle East is literally and metaphorically illuminating. The Paris-based Iranian photographer Abbas puts it thus: “I write with light.”Framed in three different labelled sections - Recording, Reframing, Resisting – the exhibition is an unusual and welcome collaboration between the Victoria & Albert and British Museums, with support to the tune of £100,000 from the Art Fund. The gift was shared between the two museums who each bought for their own collections. The results, dating from Read more ...
terry.friel
There was a memorable, very French moment in a television series hosted by the great British wine writer, presenter and Master of Wine Jancis Robinson. A French winemaker, asked to taste an Australian wine, swills in disdain and pointedly walks outside, on camera, to spit it out. It’s not good enough even to slosh the floor of his traditional wineshed.That was just a few years ago. Chateau Chunder showed how Australian wine went in two generations from a joke and "plonk" fit only for the poor, the alcoholic and the desperate to some of the best wine in the world. It opened with the famous Read more ...
Matthew Paluch
The Jasmin Vardimon Company bring their latest creation, FREEDOM, to Sadler’s Wells this week for two nights only. The work is best described as a collection of vignettes (supposedly) discussing the subject of freedom, and any conflicting conditions. The programme literature confirms that Vardimon is assessing “political systems, social conditions and personal philosophies” within the piece – which is seriously fighting talk that wasn’t necessarily backed up.The work starts well with a diversely textured set (by Guy Bar-Amotz and Vardimon) suggesting a natural locale, all tactical green moss Read more ...
joe.muggs
At the beginning of last night's show, Herbie Hancock looked like he was going to perform with the dignity and serenity befitting a 72-year-old with some 50 years playing experience. The improvisation that launched from a base of Wayne Shorter's “Footprints” was elegant, charming, tasteful and often very beautiful. The synthetic instrumental loops that he triggered via a couple of iPads mounted on his grand piano as backing were unobtrusive to begin with and had a delightfully loose groove.Hancock's playing over some 15 minutes of that piece ran through a meandering narrative that took in Read more ...
Laura Silverman
Not even a cameo by Tamsin Greig can redeem this painful adaptation of Euripides' The Trojan Women. For an hour and a half it screams with anguish, verging at times on the parodic. The production is a puzzle. Caroline Bird has updated the language, stripping the original of much of its poetry and adding expletives. Jason Southgate has designed a brilliantly claustrophobic modern hospital ward as the set, and Noelle Claude has chosen simple, if sometimes bland costumes that could pass for modern outfits (those worn by Helen of Troy are designed by Sonia Rykiel). Yet these are Read more ...