sun 16/02/2025

Cambridge

Timothy Day: I Saw Eternity the Other Night review - heavenly harmony, earthly discord

In 1955, Sylvia Plath attended the Advent Carol Service at King’s College in Cambridge. Like countless other visitors, listeners and viewers before and since, she was entranced by “the tall chapel, with its cobweb lace of fan-vaulting” lit by “...

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Cambridge Folk Festival review - women rule the roost

Twinned with the legendary Newport Folk Festival, founded on Rhode Island in 1959 as a counterpart to the celebrated jazz festival, the Cambridge Folk Festival this year celebrated its 54th birthday under blue skies. The sun shone relentlessly...

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Guy Johnston on his 1714 Tecchler cello - 'every day I start again and explore the possibilities within'

This adventure began in 2014 when my cello turned 300 years old. As birthdays go, it was a big one, so for me it felt important to do something special to celebrate. Why not imagine a journey back to Rome where it was made?The role of the cello has...

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Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains, V&A review – from innocence to experience and beyond

The title of this exhibition is typical of Pink Floyd’s mordant view of the world, not to mention their sepulchral sense of humour. Needless to say, the band that took stage and studio perfectionism to unprecedented lengths have pushed the boat out...

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Madonnas and Miracles: The Holy Home in Renaissance Italy, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

A lovely, scholarly and gently revelatory exhibition, Madonnas and Miracles explores a neglected area of the perennially popular and much-studied Italian Renaissance – the place of piety in the Renaissance home. We are used to admiring the great...

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Grantchester, Christmas Special, ITV

Cambridge 1954, and Christmas was coming, which meant carol singing, mince pies and an unnecessarily conceptual nativity play. But murder was also on the menu, and once again handsome, jazz-loving vicar Sidney Chambers (James Norton) was about to...

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Generation Painting 1955-65, Heong Gallery, Cambridge

The individual colleges of the University of Cambridge can call, when needed, on an astonishing international network of alumni for expert advice, consultation and financial support. Such is the backing for an exquisite new public gallery on the...

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Hannigan, Britten Sinfonia, WRCH Cambridge

“Songs of Vienna” by the Britten Sinfonia turned out to be a concert of chamber works, with never more than six performers on the stage at any time. It was built around two appearances by the Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan, who ...

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MacMillan's St Luke Passion, King's College Chapel

The St Luke Passion I heard last night was my second sung Passion of the day. The first was in a parish church as a central part of the liturgy of the day on Good Friday: nothing too fancy, as befits an amateur choir, the words of St John as set by...

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Romeo and Juliet, Moscow City Ballet, Cambridge Corn Exchange

The question with Moscow City Ballet is: should I judge them on what they are, or on what they claim to be? The touring company, a self-supporting private enterprise, takes productions of classic ballets (The Nutcracker, Swan Lake et al) round...

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Garbarek, Hilliard Ensemble, King's College Chapel Cambridge

This was “Officium – the final concert.” The Hilliard Ensemble took their decision around three years ago to disband as a group, and – for three of them – to retire, rather than to re-launch with a new generation of voices. They are now on the road...

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Quartermaine's Terms, Wyndham's Theatre

A wise man once said of Simon Gray's plays - and he wrote a lot of them - that they often have a lot of talk and very little action. And so it is with his 1981 tragi-comedy, set in the staff room of a language school for foreign students in...

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