Reviews
Laura de Lisle
“We haven’t started yet!” Hannah-Jarrett Scott, dressed in Doc Martens under a 19th-century shift, reassures us as she attempts to dislodge a yellow rubber glove from a chandelier in the middle of the set of Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of). So begins this rollicking all-female adaptation of the timeless Jane Austen romcom, in which the servants recreate their famous mistresses’ and masters’ turbulent love lives.Written by Isobel McArthur, the play originated in Scotland in 2018 and has gone through several versions before pitching up in the heart of the West End. Directed here by Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
We ought to be sated with the Royal Family right now – on screen, given the riches of The Crown, and in general, what with the persistent, annoying buzz emitted by Harry and Meghan, or the odour of Andrew. So, it’s testimony to the enduring fascination with Princess Diana and the wonderful, singular filmmaking of Pablo Larraín that there’s room for more.Spencer is an extraordinary film, daring in its conception, strange and captivating in its execution, and with a performance by Kristen Stewart that feels, quite literally, out of this world. We’re used to Brits personifying American Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The population of the Shetland archipelago is only about 23,000 (similar to Broadstairs or Amersham), though judging by the adventures of DI Jimmy Perez, an extraordinarily large percentage of them harbour dark secrets or murderous tendencies. BBC One's sixth series of Shetland (scripted by David Kane, since the original Ann Cleeves novels have long since been used up) finds Perez world-wearier than ever, as he probes into the steadily darkening circumstances surrounding the murder of local lawyer Alex Galbraith.The original appeal of Shetland was the way its human dramas were entwined with Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Is the Bosnian conflict of 1992–95 the war that Europe forgot? Maybe, although most fans of new writing for the British stage will remember its massacres as the inciting incident for Sarah Kane’s 1995 modern classic, Blasted. Certainly, this genocidal struggle in the heart of Europe not only etched its horror on everyone who heard about it, but also continues to inspire drama. The latest story, from British-Bosnian writer Igor Memic, is Old Bridge, which is also his debut. Winner of the 2020 Papatango New Writing Prize, the play is now getting a cracking production on the main stage at the Read more ...
Ian Julier
At last! The eagerly awaited first opportunity in the new 2021-22 Belfast concert season to catch up with the Ulster Orchestra’s Chief Conductor, Daniele Rustioni has arrived. He took up his appointment for the new autumn season in 2019, but the arrival of the pandemic early in the following year put an untimely cap on building the relationship, so expectations were running high in Ulster Hall. They were more than amply fulfilled by the cracking delivery of a programme featuring Lyadov, Korngold and Rachmaninov.After months of silence from both orchestra and audience, The Enchanted Lake by Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Bergen’s Electric Eye’s pithy description of themselves is “psych-space-drone-rock from Norway.” They also say they “play droned out psych-rock inspired by the blues, India and the ever-more expanding universe.” Horizons is their fourth studio album.They’ve been honing what they do for just short of a decade. Their drummer Øyvind Hegg-Lunde has also regularly played with folk and jazz individualists Building Instrument and Erlend Apneseth Trio. Guitarist and keyboard player Njål Clementsen has been in post-rock/psych-rock bands The Low Frequency In Stereo and The Megaphonic Thrift. Amongst Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
‘Night, Mother remains a play of piercing pessimism, something that’s not necessarily the same as tragedy, though the two often run congruently. The inexorability of the development of Marsha Norman’s 1983 Pulitzer Prize winner certainly recalls the tragic arc of drama, but its sense of catharsis remains somehow limited.The cathartic impact for the audience is incremental, and it is absolutely felt in the closing minutes of Roxana Silbert’s production for the Hampstead Theatre – ‘Night, Mother received its British premiere there back in 1985, and it’s revived now as part of the theatre’s 60th Read more ...
Jon Turney
Our everyday lives, if we’re fortunate, may be placid, even contented. A rewarding job, for some; good eats; warm home; happy family; entertainment on tap. Yet, even for the privileged, awareness of impending change – probably disaster – intrudes.Our entertainment is saturated with foreboding. In the Anthropocene, the hard-to-define era when the human collective has planet-wide effects that will endure for aeons, any new fictional world bears traces of the ways our real world is being made, or unmade.Mark Bould’s book explores how these reveal what he calls the Anthropocene unconscious, which Read more ...
Daniel Baksi
In his 1985 essay “Not-Knowing”, the American writer Donald Barthelme describes a fictional situation in which an unknown “someone” is writing a story.“From the world of conventional signs,” Barthelme writes, laying out for the reader this story being written, “he takes an azalea bush, plants it in a pleasant park. He takes a gold pocket watch from the world of conventional signs and places it under the azalea bush. He takes from the same rich source a handsome thief and a chastity belt, places the thief in the chastity belt and lays him tenderly under the azalea, not neglecting to wind the Read more ...
India Lewis
Composed entirely of their 2021 release, Terrain, Portico Quartet’s Friday night concert at St John at Hackney was a beautiful performance, albeit slightly marred by a low stage and a chatty audience.The crowd itself was a cross-section of fans from the slightly more left-field end of ambient: hipsters in beanies with annoyingly large backpacks, earnest-looking edgy couples with interestingly long hair, the more normal gig attendees clutching warm beers, and the uncomfortable-looking older man. The setting in the church itself couldn’t have been more fitting, the interior a stark white, Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
To make bricks you torment the soft, moist and fluid material of clay and sand in a prison of fire until it becomes dry, hard and unyielding. In Selva Almada’s rural Argentina, that’s also how you make – and break – men. Brickmakers is the third of her books translated as part of the expertly-curated series of contemporary Latin American literature published by the Edinburgh-based Charco Press. Its predecessor, Dead Girls, took the form of a non-fiction novel that investigated the killing of a trio of young women in provincial Argentina in the 1980s. Those three, all-too-typical, cases Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Sun Shines Here - The Roots Of Indie-Pop 1980-1984 is three-CD set in a clamshell box with 74 tracks. The opener is “Better Scream”, January 1980’s debut single from Wah Heat! The closing track was issued in November 1984: The Jesus And Mary Chain’s first single “Upside Down”. In between: Mo-Dettes, The Monochrome Set, Microdisney and Marine Girls. Lori & The Chameleons, Ludus, The Loft and The Lines too. There’re also the pre-fame Pulp, Prefab Sprout, Hurrah! and lesser-knowns like Junes Brides offshoot The Ringing and The Page Boys, who spawned 1000 Violins.The Sun Shines Here is Read more ...