Reviews
Jonathan Geddes
Even blessed with youthful confidence, when the Coral first stepped out on the Barrowland stage 21 years ago to support the late, great Joe Strummer it’s hard to imagine they could have foreseen that they’d be able to return to the same stage over two decades later. Yet much like the former Clash frontman that night, here were the Liverpudlian group armed with a considerable back catalogue to delve into, and an audience eager for nostalgia, in the form of a run-through of the band’s debut album.The Coral themselves have changed in that time, of course, increasing to a seven-piece for Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Ti West’s slyly self-referential horror film about a Texan porn shoot subverts expectations. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre/Debbie Does Dallas genre mash-up promised by the premise, pumping out head-spinning sex and gore, is in fact a muted exercise in craft, with memorable ideas on desire.From the moment blonde Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow) steps out of the Bayou Burlesque club beneath a mural of an alligator snapping at a bikini bottom, and the camera pans to the industrial estates and belching refineries behind this particular American dream, West wittily depicts sex as small-town escape and Read more ...
Nick Hasted
A speeding drunk driver arrows down a silent street into a Roman block of flats. The impact’s reverberations ripple through the next 10 years, in Nanni Moretti’s soulful, Italian all-star adaptation of Eshkol Nevo’s novel, Three Floors Up.The teenage driver, Andrea (Alessandro Sperduti), sent a woman fatally careening on his disastrous course, confirming the low opinion of his judge dad (Moretti), while barely phasing sympathetic mum Dora (Margherita Buy). The smashed flat’s owners, Lucio (Riccardo Scamarcio) and Sara (Elena Lietti), are more concerned by incipiently senile old neighbour Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
During the first week of February 1982, Theatre Of Hate got as close to the mainstream as they’d ever get. They opened that week’s edition of Top of the Pops with a run through of “Do You Believe in the Westworld?” which was then at 40 in the Top 40 – the highest position they’d reach in the single’s chart.Though the band mimed, frontman Kirk Brandon sang live. So intense, he looked close to exploding. Musically, the song’s spaghetti western guitars voguishly echoed the “Stand and Deliver” Adam and the Ants of the previous year. The lyrics went “The cowboy turned the gun on himself as he sang Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
Dance has long had an association with jewels and jewellery, which is something of an irony given that so few of today’s dancers earn the kind of money needed to buy any. Historically, male ballet fanciers would offer expensive trinkets post-performance to their favourite ballerina, and until well into the 20th century it was not uncommon for star dancers to wear their diamonds on stage, heedless of safety or practicality. The glittery little ear-studs worn as standard by the female corps in George Balanchine’s New York ballets are a remnant of that tradition. And it was Balanchine who gave Read more ...
Ian Julier
Returning to his Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra for the first time since the crisis began in his home country, Kirill Karabits’ arrival on stage was greeted by the entire Lighthouse audience rising to their feet with loud applause and cheers of support.Given how much the world has changed he’d considered changing the programme to include some Ukranian music, but quickly came to the conclusion that there was little point. During his past thirteen years with the orchestra his series “Voices from the East” has regularly featured so many works from his homeland that he felt both the BSO and local Read more ...
Sarah Kent
I would suggest watching River on the largest possible screen, so you can bask in the breathtaking beauty of the visuals. Directed by the Australian Jennifer Peedom, who won awards for Mountain and Sherpa, the documentary celebrates the magnificence of rivers and reminds us that we are utterly dependent on water for our survival. “Humans have long loved rivers,” says narrator Willem Dafoe but, he asks, “as we have learned to harness their power, have we also forgotten to revere them?”The answer, of course, is “yes” and the film reveals our propensity for treating rivers merely as resources – Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
Having established his world-class reputation with gritty crime thrillers, notably A Prophet, Jacques Audiard is clearly on a mission to branch out: after his terrific, revisionist western The Sisters Brothers, comes this ambling, sexy, millennial story about love, friendship, and the complicated areas in between. It doesn’t electrify as his very best, but is thoroughly appealing and made with the Frenchman’s usual combination of empathy and precision.The film is loosely based on a trio of graphic short stories by the American Adrian Tomie. While this may explain the film’s episodic Read more ...
David Nice
"Why does he have to sentimentalise this piece?", Britten is reported by former Royal Opera director John Tooley to have said of Jon Vickers as Peter Grimes the tormented fisherman, so very different from the composer's life partner and creator of the role Peter Pears. Britten didn't qualify his disappointment by stating what for most of us is obvious: Vickers was one of the great tenor voices, and his latest successor in the role, Allan Clayton, is heading for that kind of status too.Handsome indeed, as is this production and so much about it; but in both Vickers’ case and this, lacking some Read more ...
Saskia Baron
Patricia Highsmith must be spinning in her grave. This ridiculously incompetent adaptation of her 1957 crime novel lacks all suspense or credibility. It’s hard to believe that Adrian Lyne, responsible for huge box-office hits like the provocative thriller Fatal Attraction and the dodgy but watchable 9 ½ Weeks and Indecent Proposal, could make something quite so feeble as Deep Water.The movie was originally intended for a cinema release, but COVID-19 provided the perfect excuse for shuffling it out for streaming in the hope that its stars would draw an audience at home. Deep Water Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
White Lies began their set as many bands would end it, with a familiar hit ringing out and an explosion of confetti over the crowd. Such a tactic made you wonder if the three-piece would peak too soon here, mirroring the band’s commercial fortunes over a now lengthy career. First came a chart-topping album, then a series of mostly well regarded follow-ups that have slipped down the charts each time. Thankfully, and at times, surprisingly, the opposite was true.Although the commercial fervour of 2008’s debut "To Lose My Life" has long faded, the indie group have retained a dedicated following Read more ...
David Nice
One of the world’s top five orchestras – sorry, but I locate them all in continental Europe – played on the second night of its London visit to a half-empty Barbican Hall. Half-full, rather, attentive and ecstatic. As for the much-criticised venue, which I’ve always been able to live with, playing as fine as this shows that you don’t need a state-of-the-art auditorium to make the most beautiful sounds.Under the masterly hands of Semyon Bychkov, there were depths and perspectives in defiance of the acoustics. They were there right at the start in the noblest possible performance of the Read more ...