Reviews
Sebastian Scotney
“It mustn’t be a surface thing. You have to put in the work,” Janet Baker once said. Sandrine Piau’s Wigmore recital of German song followed by French song was the perfect demonstration of that credo in action.Whereas Piau described the repertoire, almost nonchalantly before performing their encore – Debussy’s “Beau Soir” – as a “new programme from David Kadouch”, there was no disguising the level of careful preparation and forethought which both singer and pianist had put into every nuance. The poetry and the music could be savoured and enjoyed completely; the results were overwhelmingly Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The name of Neville Chamberlain and the term “appeasement” have become indelibly linked, thanks to his efforts to accommodate Adolf Hitler’s bellicose ambitions in the run-up to what became World War Two.This film version of Robert Harris’s novel Munich seeks to draw a more nuanced portrait of the British Prime Minister, putting the case that the agreement Chamberlain signed with Hitler in Munich in September 1938 delayed the outbreak of war long enough to allow Britain and her allies to prepare themselves for hostilities and eventually defeat Germany.It’s a thesis which might be deemed to Read more ...
Ian Julier
Having conducted two Discovery programmes with the LSO after being a finalist in the 2016 Donatella Flick competition, London-born Kerem Hasan went on to win the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award in 2017. Operatic entrées arrived swiftly with his appointment as Associate Conductor at WNO, and a notable Glyndebourne debut with their recent touring revival of The Rake’s Progress followed by Rossini’s L'italiana in Algeri in Innsbruck, where he has been Chief Conductor of the Tirol SO since 2019. March this year sees him at ENO for Così, so no surprise that this Bournemouth Read more ...
Veronica Lee
There was a time when UK pantomime was heavily populated by Australian soap stars; rather late in the day Jason Donovan – formerly known as Scott from Neighbours – makes his panto debut, as Count (careful how you pronounce that, Jason) Ramsay of Erinsborough.Playing against type in a baddie role, he acquits himself well in this thoroughly entertaining spectacle with several nods to vaudeville (including circus acts in the line-up), but his fans might wish he played a more substantial part in proceedings.It’s well into the second act before he has much to do. In a paper-thin plot, Donovan's Read more ...
aleks.sierz
History is a prison. Often, you can’t escape. It imprints its mark on people, environments and language. And nowhere is this more true that in Northern Ireland, where the history of conflict between the Republican Catholic community and the Loyalist Protestant community is both centuries old, and still raw from the legacy of The Troubles. Kate Reid’s new play, which premiered at the VAULT festival in 2020, and now resurfaces in a co-production between Park Theatre and Plain Heroines, gives a meta-theatrical spin – with the cast also including the playwright – on both the legacy of Bloody Read more ...
Music Reissues Weekly: Chris Farlowe & The Thunderbirds - Stormy Monday And The Eagles Fly On Friday
Kieron Tyler
TV-watching pop fans in many of the British regions were served a treat on 16 September 1966. A whole episode of Ready Steady Go! was dedicated to Otis Redding, who had arrived in the UK a week earlier on his 25th birthday.As would be expected Redding ripped through his performance segments, bringing his power to “My Girl,” “(I Can’t Get no) Satisfaction” and “Respect.” Room was made for local acolytes. Redding introduced Eric Burdon – in his first TV appearance after leaving The Animals – taking on “Hold on! I’m Comin’.” Burdon later introduced Chris Farlowe’s version of James Brown’s “It’s Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
This latest revival of the Royal Opera’s Nabucco production has suffered more than most from COVID disruptions. At the first night, on 20 December, the chorus were obliged to wear masks, news that was greeted by boos from the audience. Then the next two performances were cancelled.This one did take place, but without conductor Daniel Oren or star soprano Anna Netrebko, the latter grounded by travel restrictions. But we got a performance, no doubt a relief in some quarters, as the occasion marked the 75th anniversary of the company.The production, directed by Daniele Abbado, first appeared in Read more ...
David Nice
After a too-much-too-soon debut disc, Lisa Davidsen has just rolled out the gold on CD with her great fellow Norwegian Leif Ove Andsnes in songs by their compatriot Grieg. The visuals last night, in the first concert of a Barbican mini-residency, made the Grieg first half better still: Davidsen lives each world, communicates so well with her audience – as she moves so beautifully on and off stage, too, she looks around as if to engage – and has the benefit of a well-lit stage, the auditorium duly darkened, with translations projected on a screen above (why doesn’t the Wigmore do that?) Read more ...
David Nice
Most dystopian satires are located in a nightmarish future, but their scripts build on the worst of our world today. Adam McKay's Don’t Look Up is different: this is now, and the notion of a comet hurtling towards the assured destruction of planet Earth is the hub for a heaping-up and jamming-together of how media and government respond to the worst imaginable crisis.Clever, often brilliant, luxuriously but pointedly cast, sprawling – I was never bored but I understand the plea for the shedding of 20 or so minutes – and stylishly filmed. Don’t Look Up doesn’t disappoint in its bid to say many Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The BBC have billed this as a “four-part thriller about sexual politics in the modern workplace”, which is slightly misleading because it looks as though it’s taking place in about 1983. The action centres on a sportswear company called Fly Dynamic, based somewhere in the north of England, a company which began as a market stall and now allegedly threatens the supremacy of JD Sports. It’s doing so well it’s about to float on the stock exchange.Screenwriter Ruth Fowler has evidently steeped herself in the history of #MeToo, the abuse of female employees and the deplorable “toxic masculinity” Read more ...
Gary Naylor
In the 80s, An Audience With... gave a television studio to an actor who then recounted stories culled from a life in entertainment. The best subjects were the natural raconteurs with plenty to say - Billy Connolly, Barry Humphries, the incomparable Kenneth Williams - and it's a testament to the format's longevity that Adele did one as recently as November. With a few crucial differences, David Suchet - Poirot And More, A Retrospective captures the warmth and easy pleasures of that much-loved format.Two chairs, placed the required two metres apart on stage, set the tone for the evening: Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they say. I'm not sure One-Woman Show, written and performed by comic, writer and actor Liz Kingsman, is an imitation of a solo show that catapulted another female actor-writer to worldwide fame, but it's imitation-adjacent in a spot-on spoof kind of way.The elephant in the room for this wickedly funny hour is Phoebe Waller-Bridge's brilliant, zeitgeisty and deservedly lauded Fleabag, a play that I loved on its debut at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2013; it previewed at this theatre and later had a successful post-Fringe run on the same Soho stage. How' Read more ...