Reviews
edward.seckerson
There’s a moment of stunned silence in Imelda Staunton’s storming Mama Rose at the Chichester Festival Theatre, a long, long, moment where neither speaking nor singing she conclusively demonstrates what a difference a great actress makes in this most iconic of musical theatre roles.Just like her mother and husband before, her daughter June has run off with the act’s hoofer Tulsa (excellent Dan Burton) and she (Rose) sits with the letter taking in all its implications. Suddenly everything else happening on stage dissolves into a kind of background blur as we read first the shock, the Read more ...
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 ...
Nick Hasted
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner is an epic chamber piece by a contemporary great. From the moment a stone suddenly smashes the car window of landlord Aydin (Haluk Bilginer), physical threat darkens the corners of the remote Anatolian hotel-home he shares with his bitter, bored sister Necla (Demet Akbao) and young, emotionally dying wife Nihal (Melisa Sozen). But unlike Ceylan’s previous sagas, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia and Three Monkeys, the violence remains verbal.Aydin, an ex-actor who never quite made it, leads a comfortable, unchallenged life in a home that’s likened to a Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
The chatty, loquacious, exuberant Simon Schama, whose seminal 1987 book on Holland in the 17th century, The Embarrassment of Riches, transformed the anglophone’s understanding of the Dutch Republic, describes himself as historian, writer, art critic, cook, BBC presenter. He is also the University Professor of History and Art History at Columbia, and has written 14 substantial and even significant books. On several of his subjects, from British art, slavery in America and landscape in culture to the history of the Jews, he has presented popular television series. The energy and curiosity is Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
This morning, those who follow ballet on both sides of the Atlantic might be feeling a bit like the male soloists at the beginning of Ashton’s Scènes de Ballet: turning their heads sharply, almost pantomimically, from side to side. Over there, in New York, Wendy Whelan, the prima ballerina retiring after a 30-year career with City Ballet, made her farewell in a programme heavy on modern masters Wheeldon and Ratmansky, including a world première. Over here, in London, the Royal Ballet performed a quadruple bill of works by Frederick Ashton, its revered and adored founder choreographer, the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Madness: One Step Beyond - 35th Anniversary EditionLast time One Step Beyond was reissued on CD, for its 30th Anniversary, the album was expanded to cover two discs with added B-sides, tracks from EPs and a flexi-disc, a John Peel session as well some live cuts. The package was rounded out with five promo videos and liner notes by author Irvine Welsh.Now, five years on and 35 from its original October 1979 release, Madness’s debut long player resurfaces again in a multi-foldout digi-pack as a double-disc set. Disc Two is a DVD with four of the videos from last time (“The Prince” is Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
In the vein of My Left Foot, Inside I’m Dancing and Gaby: A True Story, Margarita, With A Straw focuses on living a full life with cerebral palsy. Laila (Kalki Koechlin) is a young woman who lives in Delhi with her supportive and loving family. Despite ructions between mother (Revanthi) and daughter, Laila’s life is pretty good. Growing up is another matter and after one particular embarrassment, she takes on an opportunity to study in New York City. There, she discovers physical love with blind activist and girl power proponent Khanum (Sayani Gupta).Well structured and intentioned, writer Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
The septuagenarian American sculptor Richard Serra can treat the most massive sheets of steel as though they are handy pieces of paper for his version of origami; or he can decide to stack huge dense metal blocks as though they were children’s play bricks. He can playfully balance huge slabs of steel held just so by a perfectly judged tension, and he almost persuades us that one huffing breath might bring the whole thing down, particularly so in London Cross, which is just what it says it is: two huge elevated steel planks crossing each other at an oblique angle in a specially constructed Read more ...
David Nice
You may be more familiar with the Italian title, Il mondo della luna, but chances are you won’t have seen this or any of Haydn’s other 16 operas. You haven’t missed much, at least until the last of his works as court composer to the Esterházy family, Armida, an "heroic drama" rather than the slim comedies which don’t seem to have inspired the composer to the heights of his symphonies and string quartets. Glyndebourne failed to trigger a revival with La fedeltà premiata in 1979 – my first acquaintance with the house as a teenager; young Simon Rattle was conducting – and more recently the Royal Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Another week, another war commemorative; it’s the story of all the arts in 2014. But – because you can always rely on David Bintley and Birmingham Royal Ballet to be different – last night’s programme at Sadler’s was overshadowed by the Second World War, not the First. Nor were there any soldiers or war widows to be seen: instead this remarkable mixed programme danced from the doomed brightness of the inter-war generation, to religious experience in war-torn Clydeside, to a kilt-girt, abstract, bittersweet lament.Kenneth MacMillan’s 1979 La Fin du Jour is an odd bird. Deliberately evoking the Read more ...
graham.rickson
Mahler: Symphony no 9 Danish National Symphony Orchestra/Michael Schønwandt (Challenge Classics)The halting, juddering opening of Mahler 9 is nicely characterised in this live reading. Low harp notes ring out like bells, the stuttering rhythm on cellos and horn sharply pointed. Michael Schønwandt conducted this performance at short notice owing to a colleague's illness, and there's an unusual flexibility and spontaneity on display. The build up to the first climax, three minutes in, is well handled. Schønwandt lets us hear all – the orchestral playing fiery and radiant, the tempi Read more ...
Matthew Wright
A first live experience of the French-Cameroonian singer Sandra Nkaké leaves many questions unanswered. Once the immediate bewilderment has passed, the most pressing question for a British audience should be: why is this extraordinary performer not block-booking the festival circuit? In a single set, accompanied by flautist and controller of the electronics, Jî Drû, Nkaké gave a stunningly complete display, as voice, accompaniment, movement and stage presence combined to project her mesmerising, leonine charisma. For Georgia Mancio’s ReVoice Festival, it was an inspired booking.There’s a Read more ...