Reviews
Bernard Hughes
Julian Anderson’s 50th birthday this year was the prompt for the latest of the BBC’s Total Immersion days, devoted to the work of a single contemporary composer. I have long been a fan of Anderson’s music since hearing the marvellous Khorovod in the 1995 Proms, but, after a couple of recent blips – I was not so keen on the opera Thebans or the recent Piano Concerto – I was ready to have my admiration re-awakened. And, in large measure, it was.The day consisted of three concerts of which I heard two: the BBC Singers surveying Anderson’s choral output and the BBC Symphony Orchestra his Read more ...
Peter Quantrill
Hyperbole be damned. The most iconic English classical recording was made on 19 August 1965 in Kingsway Hall, London. Like Maria Callas singing Tosca, Jacqueline du Pré simply was the Elgar Cello Concerto once the LP hit the shops in time for Christmas. Proud, diffident, exuberant, reserved – all those words the English once used of themselves became freely associated with both performer and work, the two almost indistinguishable from one another in popular imagination.Again like Callas, she was a heaven-sent gift for EMI, and not a moment too soon. By 1965 Callas was on the slide – she had Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Much is being made of the fact that Kit Harington is not only playing the Gunpowder Plot mastermind Robert Catesby, but is genuinely descended from him (and his middle name is Catesby). However, despite its factual underpinnings and screenwriter Ronan Bennett’s flowery 17th-century dialogue, Gunpowder is drama in a historical vein, rather than nailed-down fact.This first of three episodes (on BBC One, but all are now available on iPlayer) was broody, dark and menacing, history recycled into a Gothicky netherworld. Westminster, 1603 style, was portrayed as a stygian pile on the bank of the Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Seeger. A name to strike sparks with almost anyone, whether or not they have an interest in folk music, a catch-all term about which Peggy Seeger and her creative and life partner Ewan MacColl (they didn’t actually marry until a decade before his death) had strong feelings. Pete Seeger, Peggy’s half-brother and the legendary composer of “If I Had a Hammer” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”, was more tolerant. To him “the folk revival” in its broadest sense owes much, not least because he spent the years of Senator McCarthy’s “red scare” banished from the airwaves and so teaching folk Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Committed fans of Emerson, Lake & Palmer are spoiled for choice when they need to feed their passion for prog rock’s most eminent trio. Decent shape original pressings of their albums can be picked up for under £10. There are at least six different CD editions of their 1971 album Tarkus, more of their others and much of their catalogue was re-reissued on CD between 2014 and 2016. Archives have also been scoured for previously unreleased material. In 2001, two box sets of live shows (one with seven CDs, the other with eight) were released. And still, the repackagings, the reissues keep on Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Beautiful though Katie Mitchell’s original production of Written on Skin is, George Benjamin and Martin Crimp’s opera has always felt more at home in the concert hall. Last year’s Barbican performance put Benjamin’s meticulous orchestral writing absolutely in the spotlight, but perhaps this “concert-staging” – fully directed, but minimally staged – offers the best solution yet, allowing orchestra and action to share focus in this gripping piece of musical storytelling.Because that’s the power of this rarest of things, a contemporary opera that has already found a firm foothold in the Read more ...
Javi Fedrick
Both Rhode Island’s Downtown Boys, and Washington D.C.’s Priests sit at the centre of today’s feminist punk scene. As stated in a recent Downtown Boys press release, they oppose “the prison-industrial complex, racism, queerphobia, capitalism, fascism, boredom, and all things people use to try to close our minds, eyes and hearts”. This, perhaps, explains why the promoters have listed the night as a “radical double bill”. Having also both released extremely well received albums this year - Cost of Living and Nothing is Natural respectively - they descend on Manchester’s Deaf Institute amid a Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
If there were an arts award for loyalty, the Barbican Theatre would surely win it for having kept faith with Michael Clark. It’s no secret that the bad-boy image that has clung to Clark since his punk extravaganzas in the 1980s had consequences in his personal and creative life, forcing frequent "early retirements". But the Barbican, along with the Dance Umbrella festival that helped produce his work, kept on believing, and this time last year that belief was rewarded in a knockout triptych of new work sparked in part by the passing of David Bowie. “Fabulous, but too short!” was the general Read more ...
Katherine Waters
During his time at the Slade David Bomberg — the subject of a major new retrospective at Pallant House Gallery — was described as a "disturbing influence". The fifth son of Polish-Jewish parents who fled the pogroms, he grew up at the turn of the 20th century in the East End of London where neighbours lived on top of one another and space was scarce. One of a cohort of local kids to be funded through art school by the Jewish Education Aid Society at a time when European modernism was making an impact among London artists, Bomberg became part of a group known as the Whitechapel Boys who were Read more ...
aleks.sierz
A new baby is like an alien invasion: it blows your mind and it colonises your world. For any couple, parenthood can be both exalting and devastating, with the stress hugging the relationship so tightly that eventually all its lies pop out. In his new play, which opened tonight at the Bush Theatre, Chris Thompson takes this idea and chucks it at a broody gay couple and their surrogate mother: Daniel, a 46-year-old lawyer, and his husband Oliver, a 32-year-old freelancer, are having a baby with their best friend, Priya.As the story begins in their classy Shadwell flat, Priya is due any day, Read more ...
Katie Colombus
I have a confession to make. The first time I heard "This Town" – the debut release for Niall Horan's new album – I thought it was Ed Sheeran.Which gives an indication of the general level of acceptability of Niall’s first solo foray outside of 1D – "This Town" is sure to stick around the airwaves for a while. Overall, Flicker is pretty mainstream in comparison to his fellow Directioners, who’ve opted for stylistic gimmickery (Zayne Malik), faux-rock-kitsch (Harry Styles), or impregnating super-famous celebs (that other one)… Niall has opted for a stalwart’s strategy, capitalising on his Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Like Steptoe and Son with ideological denouncements, Stalin’s Politburo have known each other too long. They’re not only trapped but terrified, a situation whose dark comedy is brought to a head by Uncle Joe’s sudden, soon fatal stroke in 1953. The prospects of replacing him and of his survival alike cause behaviour which would disgrace rats in a sack. Armando Iannucci’s portfolio of political satire has found its perfect subject.He’s helped by a cast of fascinating contrasts. Steve Buscemi’s Nikki Khrushchev is all sardonic Brooklyn cynicism, mixing acerbic putdowns with disbelieving dismay Read more ...