America
Marianka Swain
Composer Henry Krieger’s highly anticipated Dreamgirls arrives later this month, but first up is the UK premiere of his less well-known but thoroughly likeable Side Show, based on the real story of a pair of conjoined twins who became 1930s American vaudeville stars.Daisy and Violet Hilton have spent their lives on display, from the abusive midwife who charged punters to peer at them in the back room of a pub to the autocratic guardian who makes them the star attraction in his travelling sideshow. Now, they’re seeking autonomy, but disagree on the form that should take: Daisy wants fame and Read more ...
Odaline de la Martinez
This year is the sixth London Festival of American Music, and I could not be more excited about it. From the first festival in 2006 – 10 years ago now – I had a very specific idea about what I wanted the London Festival of American Music to be like. At its heart the festival is designed to celebrate the contemporary American musical landscape, and to bring the best America has to offer to UK audiences.The American music scene has never been stronger – there is an amazing range of styles and works being produced all across the states. UK audiences, however, tend to be solely familiar with Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Two personable musicians, who win on all fronts: at the pinnacle of their highly competitive and skilled professions, highly articulate, and perhaps unlikely partners in their art. In one corner, ladies and gentlemen, the composer, world-leading jazz trumpeter, teacher, head of Lincoln Center Jazz, the New Orleans-born Wynton Marsalis, 55. In the other, Nicola Benedetti, 29, the Scottish classical violinist, teacher and leading campaigning proselytiser for the importance of music in all spheres.Miss Benedetti played the premiere of Wynton Marsalis’s Violin Concerto in D, with a mere 100 Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Having survived what you might call his boy-band years, Jude Law has emerged as a truly substantial actor, and his role here as Lenny Belardo, the newly-elected Pope Pius XIII, may prove to be a defining moment. Created by a multinational consortium including HBO, Sky Italia and Canal+, The Young Pope confronts the viewer with something of a learning curve, with its mysterious Vatican setting and arcane multi-lingual clerical hierarchy, but by the end of this opening double episode you could sense that this is going to be a weird and wild ride.Director Paolo Sorrentino didn't make it easy on Read more ...
Nick Hasted
The parallel universe of what was known as “race” cinema gets five packed DVDs here. Instead of cringing with sympathy at small, racistly conceived black roles in a classic Hollywood era which coincided with an American Apartheid, these are indie films made inside black neighbourhoods between the wars. Even when white writers or directors are involved – just as in the period’s record labels – authentic culture gets through.Hollywood itself produced some wonders aimed at the impoverished black cinema circuit (mostly musicals, such as the jaw-dropping song and dance bonanza Stormy Weather, Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Where’s the beef? In exchanging the raw meat couture Lady Gaga wore to the 2010 MTV Awards for the leathery country sounds of her latest, fifth album, fans will be wondering if she’s lost her cutting edge. For a New Yorker of Italian descent, a country-tinged album is not a return to anything, but a strategic choice, and these are not rootsy songs, but sometimes rather rootless ones. There are many successful recent templates for young female singers who want to express their inner hoedown. The trouble for Gaga is that she has usually been the one creating the templates for others to attempt Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Four years on from Tom Cruise's debut as Jack Reacher in Jack Reacher, here he is doing it again. Not a lot has changed. Cruise eerily continues not to age (does the Scientology robotics division know something we don't?), Jack Reacher is still the man from nowhere who mystically materialises when he's needed, and bad guys obligingly queue up to get their asses kicked and their noses broken.This time Edward Zwick directs, replacing Christopher McQuarrie, but this hasn't helped to bring any life to Cruise's leading character. Nothing quite gels in his portrayal of the rootless, apparently Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Jon Bon Jovi may be many things – a rock star, heartthrob and possessor of a fine haircut, to name but a few. The jury's still out, however, on whether he's actually a great singer. The consensus is more that Bon Jovi's voice is a character instrument and one that works best with Richie Sambora's guitar. Little wonder then, that when the guitarist left in 2014, the band struggled to recapture their old magic. Still, two years have now elapsed, since when many sonic adjustments have been made. So have they now regained their old mojo?This House Is Not for Sale certainly starts well enough Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Could Jeremy Paxman explain the inexplicable, so that viewers could begin to understand the meaning of the astonishing theatre that is the 2016 American presidential election? We can hardly even grasp the plot, let alone the coming denouement and its repercussions.To those of us on this side of the pond, one candidate is a misogynist lying bullying businessman with a red face and badly dyed hair, who seems to have garnered enormous support among the white working class. Here was Republican Donald Trump, aged 70, aka The Donald, known in Scotland for controversial golf courses, in New York for Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Kemp Powers’s play is set in a motel room in Miami on the night of 25 February 1964, after Cassius Clay (as Muhammad Ali then was) had earlier beaten Sonny Liston to gain the world heavyweight title. He is joined by two friends, the singer Sam Cooke and the American football star Jim Brown, and his political and spiritual mentor, the civil rights activist Malcolm X.Inspired by real-life friendships, but heavily fictionalised by Powers, this set-up allows the playwright to examine momentous times for African Americans – within days Ali announced he was joining the Nation of Islam and casting Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
For decades Brian Wilson was depicted as the mad, lost genius of the Beach Boys, but these days, at 74, he's looking more like one of pop's great survivors. After all, he has comprehensively outlived his brothers Dennis and Carl, and has restored his reputation with deliriously acclaimed performances of Pet Sounds and the salvaged Sixties masterpiece SMiLE. He gets invited to all-star galas and awards ceremonies at the White House.Of course, a lot of care and attention (much of it medical and psychiatric) has gone into bringing Wilson back from the brink. In the opening chapter of this Read more ...
Markie Robson-Scott
“It’s a business opportunity,” explains Jake (Shia LaBoeuf) to dreadlocked, wild-child Star (Sasha Lane). She’s eyeing him up in the aisles of a Midwestern Walmart while he dances around with a rag-tag, stoned young crew to Rihanna’s “We Found Love”. “We go door to door. We sell magazines. Come with us.” Sounds an unlikely proposition.Admittedly, 18-year-old Star doesn’t have much choice in the way of business opportunities. In the first scene, she’s dumpster-diving with two little kids outside that Walmart. Their biggest prize is a frozen bird. After they've hitchhiked home, the toddler sits Read more ...