Wales
BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Martin, Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff review - a host of horns in the wild woodsMonday, 15 January 2024![]() There were a lot of horns on display in the BBC NOW’s latest concert in Cardiff’s Hoddinott Hall. Brahms’s Second Symphony has four of them, and so does the Elegy for Brahms that Parry wrote on hearing of Brahms’s death in 1897. Gavin Higgins’s Horn... Read more... |
The Eternal Daughter review - tricksy ghost story with a poignant emotional coreFriday, 24 November 2023![]() Joanna Hogg has made a film that resolves itself backwards: what happens in the final reel recasts what you have just seen completely. It’s something of a departure from her previous films in style, but equally probing and moving.The Eternal... Read more... |
Album: Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons - Kings of the AsylumThursday, 31 August 2023![]() Three albums in, Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons have proved themselves a proposition to be reckoned with. A solid live draw, they’ve supported Guns N’ Roses amongst others, and made the album charts in mainland Europe.They may initially have... Read more... |
Wolf, BBC One review - a load of old...Wednesday, 02 August 2023![]() Adapted by Megan Gallagher from one of Mo Hayder’s Jack Caffery novels (the seventh one, apparently), Wolf might be described as Welsh Gothic, spiced up with a splash of gratuitous sadism. Episode two, for instance, is titled merely “Torture”, which... Read more... |
First Person: tenor Elgan Llŷr Thomas on recording a queer-themed albumSunday, 09 July 2023![]() “No one makes money from CDs anymore”; “Remember, once it’s out there it’s out there forever”; “Everyone’s making recordings these days, it’s a very cluttered market”; “You’ll struggle to make a mark…”These are just some of the things uttered to me... Read more... |
Candide, Welsh National Opera review - vaut le voyage, just for the visual sideMonday, 26 June 2023![]() If you read the synopsis of Candide - which I strongly advise if you plan a visit to this new WNO production - you may well wonder how it will be possible to get through so much in so short a time. Voltaire’s novella is itself fairly short, but... Read more... |
Steeltown Murders, BBC One review - eloquent true-crime drama about tracking a serial killer 30 years onTuesday, 16 May 2023![]() The thought of yet another primetime true-crime series might weary the soul, even if it has been created by Ed Whitmore (Manhunt: Martin Clunes heading two cases as DI Colin Sutton), directed by Marc Evans (Hinterland: Wales’s contribution to modern... Read more... |
Blaze of Glory!, Welsh National Opera review - sparkling entertainment up the valleysMonday, 13 March 2023![]() Like certain other opera companies, WNO has leant in recent years towards popular shows of one kind or another. In their case this is not mere pandering to the Valleys coach parties, but a genuine attempt to assert an identity through an exploration... Read more... |
Trouble in Butetown, Donmar Warehouse review - entertaining and warmheartedWednesday, 22 February 2023![]() With the fast-approaching anniversary of the latest war in Europe, our culture’s continued fascination with World War Two gets a contemporary boost from Trouble in Butetown at the Donmar Warehouse.Written by Diana Nneka Atuona, this follow-up to... Read more... |
Album: John Cale - MercyWednesday, 18 January 2023![]() John Cale has always walked a cutting-edge. At 80, he is still making music that stretches the mind. He is accompanied on his most recent album by a number of talented and original ground-breakers from both sides of the pond – from the eccentric and... Read more... |
Album: CVC - Get RealThursday, 05 January 2023![]() CVC stands for Church Village Collective, a six-piece who hail from the countryside near Cardiff. They were the best live act I saw last year (of a long list which includes Melt Yourself Down, Paul McCartney, The Prodigy and Wet Leg). It was a... Read more... |
The Silent Twins review - the tragic story of the Welsh teens who were sent to BroadmoorFriday, 09 December 2022![]() The fascinating story of the silent twins, June and Jennifer Gibbons, who were incarcerated in Broadmoor for 12 years for minor crimes, has been told before, several times. There’s a 1986 BBC film by Jon Amiel based on Marjorie Wallace’s book about... Read more... |
