Reviews
Kieron Tyler
Although there was no shortage of interview clips with Glen Campbell [who has died at the age of 81] in this fine overview of his career, the tragedy was that archives were so heavily drawn on. Tragic because pop-country stylist Campbell has Alzheimer’s and is limited in what he can contribute. Less tragic, but equally noteworthy, was that British TV has taken so long to get around to seriously appraising the singer of classics like “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”, “Wichita Lineman”, “Galveston” and “Rhinestone Cowboy”.Campbell was a British chart and television fixture from the late Sixties Read more ...
graham.rickson
Bach: The Six Cello Suites Peter Wispelwey (Evil Penguin Records) Bach’ s Cello Suites remained stubbornly off-limits to me until I read Eric Siblin’s affectionate, rambling book, The Cello Suites: In Search of a Baroque Masterpiece. I’m now a convert; after overdosing on thick orchestral sludge we all need a palate cleanser, and these six solo suites do the job beautifully. Like many, I got to know these works through Pierre Fournier’s elegant 1960s cycle. You soon find yourself acquiring, imperceptibly, other sets. You won't get bored of hearing this music. Dutch cellist Peter Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The manner and the speed with which Sinéad O’Connor veers between impishly poking fun at herself and her material, and delivering it with scorching force, is bewildering. For instance, with the “The Healing Room”, a tender song about a spiritual quest for inner peace, she cracks jokes about Mr Blobby during the intro and then changes the opening line to “I have a universe inside me… and a cucumber.” What’s extraordinary is that despite often sending herself up in this way, she can immediately slip back into singing so fiercely and persuasively that everything flows. The comedy moments merely Read more ...
David Nice
Want to learn more about 20th century music in action? Starting tomorrow, you could lose yourself in the labyrinth of the Southbank’s year-long The Rest is Noise festival, and plough your way through Alex Ross’s monumental but partisan study of that name. Or you could learn a lot in a short space of time from John Adams’s mini-residency with the LSO at the Barbican. There’s an even more essential book to read alongside it, the composer’s Hallelujah Junction, following an insider’s path to finding his own voice after encounters with the rigours of the 12-tone system, Cage-style anything-goes Read more ...
Simon Munk
Once upon a time (in the Nineties), Japanese game developers ruled the world. Now, with the notable exception of Nintendo, gamers seem to look more to the west for the most exciting and innovative interactive entertainment.Happily, the setting sun hasn't stopped Platinum Games, a collective of Japanese superstar developers, mounting a last-ditch effort to create new twists on traditional game styles. Platinum people have been responsible for Viewtiful Joe (side-scrolling platforming), Vanquish (shoot-'em-up speed meets over-the-shoulder Gears of War-style combat) and Bayonetta (Devil May Cry Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
Flesh-tearing, woman-raping, body-goring brute he may be, but he's misunderstood, that Minotaur. It's a bold argument to make, but this is the contention of Harrison Birtwistle and David Harsent's 2008 opera. They are aided by a surprisingly cuddly performance from John Tomlinson. Head trapped in a prosthetic bull's cranium, hairy belly flopping out, a small stick-on penis standing to attention, Tomlinson is a reluctant and eloquent (if still pretty hideous) half-man, half-beast, soliloquising soulfully on his existential crisis (that of being treated as all-beast when he sees himself as Read more ...
philip radcliffe
Once upon a time, Gyorgy Ligeti heard a rehearsal performance of a piece of music he wrote soon after graduating from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. Just once. Then it was banned by the Hungarian apparatchiks responsible for the arts and he had to wait another 20 years to hear it played in public. It was the Concert Romanesc (Romanian Concerto), written in 1951 and drawing from his memories of, and research into, the folk music of the Romanian Transylvania of his boyhood.
It’s a jolly piece altogether, capturing the attractiveness of dances and village bands and Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
"There's a lot of nudity in The Sessions." That's what people will be thinking - and maybe fearing while also being curious - when they consider seeing this uplifting drama. 'Do I really want to see a naked sex surrogate have naked sessions with a naked journalist crippled with polio? Isn't this going to be maudlin, or perhaps worse, Oscar-drama territory?' After all, the film won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and we all know how 'out there' that could be.But, instead of some half-baked Kenneth Anger/Warhol take on other people's problems, Polish-born Australian director Read more ...
emma.simmonds
With its exuberant blood-spray, rambunctious dialogue and generous running time, Django Unchained is writer-director Quentin Tarantino’s first full foray into Westerns. Although it’s not a remake, it pays tribute to Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 Spaghetti Western Django, not only in name but in its use of the title song - which opens this movie as it opened that one - and in the fleeting appearance of the original's game star, Franco Nero (pictured below right).The year is 1858, two years before the American Civil War, and the setting "somewhere in Texas". We watch as a pair of slave trading brutes Read more ...
graham.rickson
The overpowering nastiness of Shakespeare’s source material is offset by Verdi’s sublime, impeccably judged music; this is a wonderful opera with barely a dud moment. Trust the score, get decent singers and an understanding, intelligent conductor, and everything should be fine.The one rocky moment in Opera North’s new production of Otello comes in the opening minutes; Verdi’s storm-tossed prelude blasts out gloriously, the huge ensemble cast enter and stare boldly out into the auditorium. And yet, when the solo singing starts it’s almost impossible to ascertain where the individual voices are Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Was there ever a band to generate such passionate fan adulation as Dropkick Murphys? Keeping up a chant of "Let's Go Murphys" for a good 10 minutes before there was any sign of the Boston seven-piece on the city's most famous stage, the Glasgow punks were in fine voice even before the raucous singalongs began.But begin they do right away with "The Boys Are Back", the track that kicks off the band's new album Signed and Sealed in Blood. It's a song that's perfectly pitched to open every punk rock slam-dance party ever both in lyrics and chugging, clap-along rhythm; though it will doubtless Read more ...
Ismene Brown
I've always keenly anticipated Derevo. A rare sight in London, they are the must-catch company in a singular branch of mime theatre - some would call it clowning, from an oblique, dark place of visions, fears and childlike imaginings. They are a small monkish Russian troupe who with apparent heedless aim have for the past 25 years been snatching at history, fantasy, antique commedia dell' arte, and the rubbish-strewn street in productions that often leave your brain spinning with questions but your heart twanging with comprehension.They sport shaven heads and bodies of balletic litheness, and Read more ...