Manchester
Mark Sheerin
In China there are more than 100 million fans of Manchester United. At least that’s what I’m told when I get to the the city's National Football Museum. And in a sartorial decision unusual in the art world, we are greeted by artist Chen Wenbo wearing an Arsenal football scarf. In sport, as in contemporary art, the Chinese are often playing the same game as us.The Asia Triennial Manchester hosts the UK’s largest exhibition of contemporary art from south of the Great Wall. Harmonious Society, who make up the bulk of the triennial, has a display co-ordinated by the Centre for Chinese and Read more ...
philip radcliffe
Staying close to his Scandinavian roots, John Storgårds, principal guest conductor of the BBC Phil and chief conductor of the Helsinki Phil, is gearing up for the celebration of Carl Nielsen’s 150th birthday next year. Being the seventh child of 12, Nielsen battled his way from poor beginnings to musical eminence, serving his time on the way as a military bandsman and, for 16 years, as a violinist in the Royal Danish Orchestra. He, too, always stayed close to his roots, even writing Danish popular songs to the end.Storgårds will be conducting all six Nielsen symphonies, written between the Read more ...
philip radcliffe
Sir Mark Elder has a penchant for taking on large-scale works in Manchester, from operatic concert performances of Wagner and Verdi to Hollywood musicals. Following that line, he kicked off the new Hallé season with Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé ballet score in its entirety, described by the composer as “a vast musical fresco faithful to the Greece of my dreams”. We are used to hearing the odd suite, but rarely the whole work. It calls for large forces for the three parts with 13 scenes and lasts about an hour. Commissioned by Diaghilev, it evokes the glory days of the Ballets Russes and that Read more ...
Marianka Swain
The advantage of basing drama on real events, particularly emotive ones like the 2005 London bombings, is that they have inbuilt resonance; the disadvantage, all too apparent in 2013 play Warde Street, is that it can be challenging to articulate a revelatory view. Familiarity with the arguments and sentiments expressed in this 80-minute piece vastly lessens its impact, and a burst of late tension (chiefly earned via the shortcut of a firearm) is further diminished by dubious use of reverse chronology. It’s a short play with grand ambition, sadly unfulfilled.Writer Damien Tracey focuses not on Read more ...
Russ Coffey
According to Johnny Marr people with gigantic egos are generally miserable. Jokes about Morrissey aside, it follows Marr must be a pretty contented guy. For what other guitarist with his reputation would have put vanity aside to spend 20-odd years as a gun for hire? Now, however, it seems the affable muso finally wants to be a solo artist. Last year he released the interesting, if patchy, The Messenger. Now he’s back with Playland. So what’s it like?In interview, Marr says it sounds just like “where he’s from”, and it’s true that some of the album feels like rain on gray Read more ...
Matthew Wright
A mental blur of airports, stations and dangly cardboard air freshener, minicab-driving has always seemed vulnerable to cliché. The problem facing Vince McKee, David Morrissey‘s driver protagonist in BBC One’s new three-parter, is that the rest of his life is even more dull. His job as a cabbie, involving copious urine, vomit, and a stiletto heel to the neck before he gets tangled up in a criminal gang, is action-packed by contrast. The problem facing the viewer is that despite a decent performance from Morrissey himself and some low comedy from the villains, the mechanics of plot and Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
There was a time, around 25 years ago, when Inspiral Carpets’ psyche-eyed cow logo, accompanied by the motto “Cool as Fuck”, was ubiquitous on tee-shirts. Along with the Charlatans, they represented the second tier of the “Madchester” movement, trailing behind Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses. Unlike the preposterously revered Roses, however, Inspiral Carpets’ music has drifted out of the radio-played heritage rock canon.This is a shame. Inspiral Carpets touted a rather different sound from Manchester’s slew of “baggy” also-rans. Not for them a pastiche of Clyde Stubblefield’s “Funky Drummer Read more ...
philip radcliffe
Having been put to the fiddle at the age of five, Nicola Benedetti appreciates the value of making music at an early age. She is fiercely committed to music education and developing new talent. So it was a joy to see her playing enthusiastically with 30 primary school children as a pre-concert curtain raiser to the start of Manchester Camerata’s new season.It was all part of the laudable “In Harmony” project, which aims “to use music as a tool to increase aspirations, enthuse, unite and inspire the community”. It was started in two less-than-privileged schools, Old Park Primary, Telford, and Read more ...
philip radcliffe
Instead of that small well-worn stone balcony in that courtyard in Verona, picture an extended well-worn cast-iron balcony in the Victoria Baths in Manchester. The young lovers have ample room to move in the labyrinthine interior of the old building, with its three disused tiled swimming pools and ecclesiastical stained glass windows. Romeo is the length of a cricket pitch away as he addresses Juliet on the balcony and, for some reason, is moved to do a take on “Love Me Do”.The old changing cubicles are still there, crumbling away, but providing hidey-holes for the warring gangs of Montagues Read more ...
Veronica Lee
One of the oddities about theatre is that there can be a gripping performance at the heart of an underwhelming production – and so is the case with Maxine Peake’s Hamlet, directed by Sarah Frankcom. This was a much anticipated production – Peake going home, as it were. She started acting at the Royal Exchange Youth Group and is now an associate artist at the theatre, and has recently been seen giving a towering performance in The Village on BBC One. Frankcom’s production, meanwhile, is described in the press release as a “radical reimagining” of the play.Peake’s interpretation has much to Read more ...
Mark Sheerin
When Ryan Gander’s wife wanted a designer lamp, the versatile artist knocked one up from junk. She was so impressed he sold it as an artwork and by now has made 55 in his garden shed. Three are here in Manchester, made from foil food trays, a guitar stand and concrete. These pieces are quite unrepresentative of the rest of this highly conceptual show, but in a diverse, major survey there appears to be no truly representative way in.What most visitors first come across, in the 19th-century foyer of Manchester Art Gallery, is a short bronze ballerina. Degas, you might think, rather than Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Oasis: Definitely Maybe“His onstage presence is supernatural, a good looking boy exuding primal sexual allure while standing stock still, hands behind his back, all effort going into his big chested, raw throated pure and essential singing.” The beyond-hyperbolic liner notes to Deluxe Box Set edition of the 20th-anniversy reissue of Definitely Maybe, the first Oasis album, read like a parody. Liam Gallagher may be many things. But supernatural?Elsewhere, they gush that “the holy grail of British pop music is surely a bunch of longhaired boys with guitars playing swaggering, melodic rock Read more ...