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Graham Rickson
Saturday, 28 January 2023
Roger Norrington: The Complete Erato Recordings (Erato)Richard Osborne’s booklet essay contains some telling words from Sir Roger Norrington, tucked away at the end of the...
Sebastian Scotney
Saturday, 28 January 2023
A Short Diary, a duo album for piano and drums, contains music of astonishing directness, calm and concentration. The story of how it came into being is fascinating, but it also...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 27 January 2023
A film telling just the story of photographer Nan Goldin’s campaign against Purdue Pharmacy would have been worth the ticket price alone. But Laura Poitras’s documentary All the...
David Nice
Friday, 27 January 2023
There’s life in the old overture-concerto-symphony format yet – especially if the conductor not only shapes every phrase but takes care over the number of string players needed...
Gary Naylor
Friday, 27 January 2023
There’s a chance – a slim one – that you haven’t seen Noises Off, Michael Frayn’s farce about a farce that, as legend has it with The Rocky Horror Show, must surely be...
Saskia Baron
Friday, 27 January 2023
Seventy-eight years ago, on January 27,1945, Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army. The iconic images of the ovens with charred skulls and emaciated survivors...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 27 January 2023
Imagine what would have happened if the young Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel were cabin-mates on a transatlantic liner. The...
David Nice
Thursday, 26 January 2023
The Castalian String Quartet is half what I remember, but only literally: while viola-player Charlotte Bonneton and cellist...
Adam Sweeting
Thursday, 26 January 2023
A sprawling French-made drama set in the early days of the First World War in 1914, Women at War tells the stories of a...
Joe Muggs
Thursday, 26 January 2023
Ambient is everywhere now. After a quiet (lol) 2000s, when it rather disappeared into the cracks, perhaps tarred with the...
Alistair Davey
Wednesday, 25 January 2023
Treasures from the Hispanic Society Museum & Library are displayed as a monumental survey of Spanish art from Antiquity...
Miranda Heggie
Wednesday, 25 January 2023
In full force again for 2023, Scotland’s premier folk music festival Celtic Connections is back with its signature strand of...
Thomas H Green
Wednesday, 25 January 2023
Let me start by being pretentious and self-referential, spending ages doing that rather than reviewing the album. My theory...
Jenny Gilbert
Tuesday, 24 January 2023
At the arthouse end of contemporary dance no one expects a packed house, still less serial packed houses for more than a...
Tim Cumming
Tuesday, 24 January 2023
The 1997 release of Time Out of Mind was the resurrection of an artist who appeared to have wandered off the reservation...
Peter Quinn
Tuesday, 24 January 2023
Recorded in 2019, released in 2020, and winner of Album of the Year at the 2021 Parliamentary Jazz Awards, it was a delight...
Sebastian Scotney
Tuesday, 24 January 2023
I can’t help enjoying the continuing elevation of the jazz pianist Oscar Peterson (1925-2007) to national monument status in...
Bernard Hughes
Monday, 23 January 2023
I am proud – if surprised – to continue to be pretty much a lone voice in the wilderness singing the praises of the composer...
Veronica Lee
Monday, 23 January 2023
A lot has been happening in Lucy Porter’s life since she last toured. The pandemic we all know about, so she doesn’t detain...
disc of the day
Album: Sebastian Rochford, Kit Downes - A Short Diary
An album of grieving. And solace. And real class
tv
Women at War, Netflix review - contrasting stories entwine during the chaos of World War One
Passion, intrigue and heartbreak behind the front lines
Stewart, Sky Documentaries review - touching and insightful portrait of Scottish race ace
Fascinating documentary explores the triumphs and tragedies of motor racing
Happy Valley, Series 3, BBC One review - tension mounts as the Yorkshire crime drama approaches its conclusion
Sally Wainwright's masterpiece shows the competition a clean pair of heels
film
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed review - superb documentary about a campaigning artist
Nan Goldin's fight against the makers of Oxycontin is as gutsy as her work
The Last Stage review - a former prisoner returns to the death camp
The first feature film to be made in Auschwitz-Birkenau gets restored and re-released
DVD: Oscar Peterson - Black + White
Barry Avrich’s documentary celebrates the music and career of the great jazz pianist
new music
Album: Sebastian Rochford, Kit Downes - A Short Diary
An album of grieving. And solace. And real class
Celtic Connections: Juliette Lemoine, Orchestral Qawwali Project review - fusion of myriad musical traditions
Scotland's premier folk festival is back with a bang
classical
Classical CDs: Symphonies, suppers and knitting needles
Two conductors celebrated, plus accordion, bass trombone and string quartet
Jansen, LSO, Noseda, Barbican review - hearts of darkness
Pain offset by sheer beauty in communicative Beethoven, Sibelius and Prokofiev
Castalian String Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - genius in works and performance
Colossal finales by Beethoven and Britten don’t seem to tire these amazing string players
opera
First Person: soprano Soraya Mafi on why Glyndebourne's tour cancellation is disastrous
Though Arts Council England has partly reinstated English National Opera's grant, its cuts still have devastating consequences for the regions
Least Like the Other, Irish National Opera, Linbury Theatre review - the harrowing of Rosemary Kennedy
Composer Brian Irvine, director/designer Netia Jones and top performers mesmerise
A Child in Striped Pyjamas, The Cockpit review - a brave tackling of a Holocaust story
The celebrated novel is brought to the stage by a young composer with ambition
theatre
Noises Off, Phoenix Theatre review - much revived classic farce gains in poignancy
Sure it's overly familiar, but, 40 years on, the laughs keep coming
Charlie & Stan, Wilton’s Music Hall, review - a beguiling fantasy about two silent comedy greats
Told by an Idiot return with a celebration of silent-movie antics and daft gags
The Unfriend, Criterion Theatre review - dark comedy is (largely) audience-unfriendly
Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss's collaboration somehow forgets about the laughs
dance
Julie Cunningham & Co, Sadler's Wells review - a fine piece of work, with added spice
The other Cunningham stakes out their territory in contemporary dance, and the non-binary debate
Swan Lake, English National Ballet, Coliseum review - the story of a deluded prince
The corps de ballet take the laurels in Derek Deane's dependably fine production
comedy
Alex Edelman, Menier Chocolate Factory review - London run for unmissable off-Broadway hit
How a Jewish standup found the funny side of a roomful of white nationalists
Books
'I let it emerge': an interview with Fiona Benson on the cusp of the TS Eliot Prize announcement
The poet discusses her new book, mayflies, motherhood, and memory
Jaan Kross: A Book of Falsehoods review - plague, power and deception in 16th century Tallinn
At last, the translation of volume three in the Estonian master's great historical trilogy
visual arts
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed review - superb documentary about a campaigning artist
Nan Goldin's fight against the makers of Oxycontin is as gutsy as her work
Spain and the Hispanic World, Royal Academy review - a monumental survey
The refurbishment of New York's Hispanic Society provides a unique opportunity to see its treasures
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