Glasgow
Eugene Onegin, Scottish Opera review - sweepingly sumptuous TchaikovskySaturday, 28 April 2018
It’s 25 years since Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin last came to the Scottish Opera stage, and this brand new production, directed by Oliver Mears, DIrector of Opera at The Royal Opera, gives the stirring score a stately yet elusive grandeur. Based on... Read more... |
Ariadne auf Naxos, Scottish Opera review - superb singing in slick new productionTuesday, 27 March 2018
"The Show must go on". So say the posters dotted around Glasgow and Edinburgh for Scottish Opera's production of Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos. Except on Thursday, it didn’t. A fire at a nearby Glasgow nightclub which ravaged several city... Read more... |
Craig Hill, Glasgow International Comedy Festival review - sweary and filthy funMonday, 12 March 2018
The Glasgow International Comedy Festival kicked off with a performance by one of its most popular performers, Craig Hill, a comic far better known in his native Scotland than south of the border. That may be because his shtick relies so much on... Read more... |
Flight, Scottish Opera review - poignant and powerful, this production soarsMonday, 19 February 2018
Inspired by the astonishing true story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, the Iranian refugee who lived in Charles de Gaulle Airport for 18 years, Jonathan Dove’s Flight is a humorous, touching, uplifting yet profoundly poignant study into human... Read more... |
CD: Mogwai - Every Country's SunSaturday, 19 August 2017
Mogwai’s ability to create both frighteningly intense and gorgeously understated compositions has led to them being one of post-rock’s most celebrated and accessible bands. In recent years, they’ve increasingly become known for their unnerving and... Read more... |
CD: Lory D - Strange DaysMonday, 26 June 2017
Imagine that The Ramones were not only still playing into the mid 2000s, but were still writing new songs as good as “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” and still sending young audiences completely delirious to boot. That might seem fanciful, but it's a... Read more... |
theartsdesk at Tectonics Glasgow 2017Tuesday, 09 May 2017
Has Glasgow’s Tectonics weekend turned away from its wilder excess? Has it, in its fifth outing, even – well, grown up and got serious? That was partly the sense from the opening day of conductor Ilan Volkov’s visionary mix of contemporary classical... Read more... |
Ayesha Hazarika, Soho Theatre review - 'politics is her patch'Thursday, 20 April 2017
What a day to open your political stand-up show, entitled State of the Nation, a few hours after Theresa May had announced a snap election. If Ayesha Hazarika needed any extra material, yesterday morning's events would certainly have supplied it.... Read more... |
Expensive Shit, Soho Theatre, review - 'strong but slender'Thursday, 06 April 2017
It’s hot. Real hot. And you’re dancing, just lost in music. You’re at the legendary Shrine nightclub in Lagos, where Afrobeat star Fela Kuti is king. It’s 1994. And it’s hot. Sweat is just pouring off you, no longer in little trickles but soaking... Read more... |
Bluebeard's Castle & The 8th Door, Scottish OperaMonday, 03 April 2017
What to pair with Bluebeard’s Castle? It’s always a dilemma for opera companies. Something lightweight, even comic, provides contrast but also risks trivialising Bartók’s dark, symbolist drama. Something equally brooding risks submerging the... Read more... |
The Replacement, BBC OneWednesday, 01 March 2017
Can women have it all? (Stop me if you’ve already heard this one). This is the premise of Joe Ahearne’s new three-part drama, set in the offices of a successful firm of architects in Glasgow. But he’s a bloke, what would he know about it? Anyway,... Read more... |
Lost in FranceWednesday, 22 February 2017
Pulling together a music documentary strikes me as a simple enough concept. Gather your talking heads in front of a nice enough backdrop, splice with archive footage in some semblance of a narrative order and there you go. There’s no need to, say,... Read more... |
