America
Liz Thomson
First date, last dance: Emmylou Harris, possessor of one of country-rock’s most beautiful and evocative voices, opened the British leg of her farewell tour on Monday with a generous show at Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall. It was, of course, sold out, the audience on the older side (it was notable how many guys needed to take a comfort break as time wore on!) and Emmylou herself acknowledging, as she briefly massaged her left wrist, that “I’m 79… arthritis.” But she stood – in her customary cowboy boots, shoulder-length silver hair glinting in the spotlight, and playing her signature Gibson Read more ...
Gary Naylor
For a master dramatist - even for a tyro really - The Price is a strangely uneven play, brilliant psychological insights diluted by clunking structural issues. You wonder what it would be like in the hands of a less talented cast, a less experienced director, performed on a less convincing set - it could unravel very quickly. It was something of a surprise to find that amongst the credits in the programme, its weakest link proved to be its writer, Arthur Miller.We open on a middle-aged NYPD cop rooting through a treasure trove of stuff that you might find presented at an Antiques Roadshow Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Rick Rubin has revivified many late-career musicians, most notably Johnny Cash, whose quartet of American Recordings achieved both universal praise and commercial success. Twenty years ago, he worked with Neil Diamond, applying his trademark unplugged approach to Diamond’s distinctive spregesang style. The result, 12 Songs (2005), was one of the singer's most successful studio recordings, charting at #4 on Billboard. James Bassett of PopMatters considered it “an album of rare beauty, grace, and eloquence that captures Diamond in all his plain-spoken and big-hearted glory.” Home Before Read more ...
Ibi Keita
In 1999, American Football pioneered a brand-new genre with their self-titled album, and while they didn’t gain much recognition from their odd style of music, it soon grew into something beautiful, widely loved and imitated. Midwest-Emo is a genre that relies on the foundations that American Football set on that record, a slurry of twinkly melodies and precise, often off beat rhythms, I personally think it’s beautiful mess, but unsurprisingly, it’s an acquired taste. Vocals are the third piece to the Midwest-Emo puzzle, always conversational, strained and unbothered, almost shouted from Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Patriarchy is a trap for both men and women. This we know. But it’s not often that its takedown is as amazingly theatrical as this fabulous entertainment, Tender, by American playwright Dave Harris, now getting its wonderfully noisy premiere at the Soho Theatre. It’s a wildly immersive show, partly orgiastic, partly touching the bits other entertainments cannot reach, and brought to us by director Matthew Xia, who previously teamed up with the playwright to create the hit Tambo & Bones. Set in a dilapidated old theatre, this show explores the world of three male strippers, called the Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
The aftermath of school massacres for those left behind, and the pros and cons of restorative justice have become two strong themes for drama in recent years. Writer Fran Kranz combines the two, in an intense, claustrophobic piece that attacks both the brain and the heart. Mass has had an unusual journey: Kranz originally conceived it as a play, before turning instead to film (of the same name, in 2022), but then reworking it for his intended medium, which has its world premier at the Donmar. I haven’t seen the movie, so can’t compare; but it is perfectly at home on stage, and especially Read more ...
Sarah Ruhl
Perhaps fate led me inevitably to the theatre as a great love because my first kiss was in a scene study class when I was 14 years old. My scene partner and I were working on a sweet little scene that ended in a kiss; at least, that’s what the stage directions told us.We were studying with the great Chicago acting teacher Joyce Piven. At the end of our performance for the class, the very sweet young man I was acting with planted one on me. I drew back in surprise, and Joyce said, in her unmistakable deep growl to the young actor, “Dear boy, you have to plan these things first!”I never became Read more ...
Carsie Blanton & the Burning Hell, Hare & Hounds, Birmingham review - a fine revolutionary singalong
Guy Oddy
In these times of genocide, illegal invasions and a class war which the ultra-rich are emphatically winning, we clearly need a woman to point out the nonsense that we have just come to accept as the way things are meant to be. That woman is Carsie Blanton.Powered by revolutionary optimism, a guitar and a group of like-minded friends, she has plenty to say about the world – but does so with a sense of hope for the future and a wry smile. Folk, jazz, blues and ragtime songs such as “Rich People”, “Elon Musk” and “Ugly Nasty Commie Bitch” are funny but serious, hip-swinging but thoughtful and Read more ...
Markie Robson-Scott
Nine-year-old-year-old Callie-Rose (the extraordinarily talented Australian actor Lily LaTorre; Run Rabbit Run) needs the Wi-Fi to do her homework. The trouble is, there's no signal because her dad, a reticent cowboy named Dusty (an excellent Josh O’Connor), is living in a trailer on a FEMA campsite, his farm having burned down in wildfires.This quiet, beautiful film, directed by Max Walker-Silverman (A Love Song) with a great score by Jake Xerxes Fussell and James Elkington, is set in southern Colorado. There’s an atmosphere of John Prine-esque melancholy running through it, and indeed one Read more ...
Ellie Roberts
Johnny Franck’s energy is palpable with the latest Bilmuri instalment, his signature comedic country metalcore style is as honed as ever and Kinda Hard really just sounds like it was a lot of fun to make. Even with the genre blending, this album falls very much under the pop punk umbrella, with humour through emotion being at the forefront of its style. It’s not hard to see why fans of this trope enjoy Bilmuri, even if the moment has slightly passed. Maybe it’s because the world felt lighter, because the genre was newer, or because we were younger, but the notion of comedy through Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Immaturity is a virtue in Kirill Sokolov’s action-horror-comedy, a slapstick class satire set in an exclusive New York apartment block where being on the list gains a hellish new meaning. Derivative, fright-free and frenetically stylised, it still partially confirms the promise of the director’s 2018 debut Why Don’t You Just Die!Sokolov introduced Tarantino’s school of blackly comic ultra-violence to Putin’s Russia and this is his first feature in exile since criticising the Ukraine war, filmed in Latvia as part of producer Artem Vasilyev’s push to bring East European talent to the West. Its Read more ...
Nick Hasted
The Hail Mary pass is a desperate act of sporting faith when regular tactics fail, and the world’s end is faced here by constitutional optimists on both sides of the camera: The Martian novelist Andy Weir and its film’s writer Drew Goddard, Lego Movie directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord and Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace, waking alone in a spaceship unreachable light years from home, beard and brain mangled as he remembers his suicide mission. Gosling’s cool charm, a blank slate which flips from Drive’s smooth killer to La La Land’s mild lover, here converts into raw film star fuel for Read more ...