Reviews
Tom Birchenough
Rebecca Zlotowski catches the blue-collar underbelly of France at dangerous work and uneasy play in her second feature Grand Central. Tahar Rahim from A Prophet leads as Gary, rejected by his family and looking for any job going: it turns out to be maintaining the huge nuclear plant that dominates the film’s Rhône landscape (and provides its title). Camaraderie grows convincingly between veterans and newcomers, as they live together and bond in a caravan park.The drama of the hazardous decontamination work has its own rules: preconditions for workers include the fact that if their personal Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Awful crimes are being committed in an Australian outback town: young girls murdered, and dumped in culverts. But what makes it worse for Aboriginal detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen), newly returned to his small hometown from the city, is the barely coded and bare-faced racism he encounters, from his cop colleagues most of all; the sense that these girls, because they’re Aboriginal too, don’t matter. They’re just expendable pawns in bigger, evil games being played out in eerie countryside, and the parched streets of an Aboriginal part of town which looks like it’s been left in the sun to Read more ...
graham.rickson
Sean Hickey: Cello Concerto, Clarinet Concerto Dimitry Kouzov (cello), Alexander Fiterstein (clarinet), St Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra/Vladimir Lande (Delos)Sean Hickey’s 2007 Cello Concerto solves the problem of balancing soloist with orchestra by keeping the accompaniment spare and light. The brazenly tonal language can’t help recalling several well-known 20th century cello concertos - those by Walton and Shostakovich come to mind. Like them, Hickey enjoys unusual sound combinations – the concerto’s slow movement contains a beguiling, quirky duet for cello and bass clarinet Read more ...
Mark Valencia
Toby Spence’s recovery from thyroid cancer is a cause for rejoicing, but surely it’s time we focused our attention back on his work rather than his medical condition? Apparently not. The pre-publicity for this Wigmore Hall recital made great play of the “profound insights into the human condition” that the singer acquired during his convalescence – a claim that must have ladled extra pressure onto him as he prepared his programme. Spence, though, is one of the most assured and intelligent of today’s princely generation of tenors, and if he harboured any concern that a copywriter’s puff might Read more ...
Caroline Crampton
It's often a sign of a good drama when, as it concludes, you find it hard to tell which character you dislike most. And so it is with Adult Supervision - all the way through, first-time playwright Sarah Rutherford skilfully manipulates your allegiances, causing your sympathies to shift and shift again until there is no one left to be redeemed.The action of this play takes place on the night of the US election in 2008. Natasha, an uptight, anxious woman with a shiny, too-perfect hairstyle, is hosting a results party for what we assume are a group of her friends. However, it soon becomes clear Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Internet porn, the sexualisation of childhood and the objectification of women are so commonplace in Western society that they go mostly unmentioned and unchallenged, even in the arts. So thank goodness for performance artist and comic Bryony Kimmings, who not only mentions and challenges these pernicious forces in so-called civilised society, but in Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model, an award-winning show first seen at Edinburgh Fringe, fashions an entertaining show around them.It was created from a very personal perspective. Kimmings recently started taking an active care role in the Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Period dramas are all the rage, and you can imagine Breathless being plucked with forceps from a steaming cauldron in which bubbled Call the Midwife, The Hour, Mad Men, Heartbeat and inevitably a sprig of Downton, which couldn't hurt. It's 1961, the National Health Service is still regarded as one of the wonders of the known universe, and women are foolish little things who wear stylish frocks, are obsessed with hair and nails and keep getting themselves up the duff. As one posh lady put it, inadvertently finding herself in an "interesting" condition, "I've been such a silly muffin."Luckily Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
In some ways Malachi Davies, one of the titular “truckers” in this new BBC comedy drama, brings to mind Frank Gallagher of Shameless. Admittedly Davies, played by Stephen Tompkinson, has a job - but it is a job that is as central to the identity of the character as Gallagher’s avoidance of one ever was. Some of the similarities are pretty superficial: the two characters share the love for a drink, a seeming inability to get a decent haircut and even an ex played by Maggie O’Neill. But what really links the two characters is the importance that each one places on family - at least, in the Read more ...
Ronnie Flynn
Puglia, otherwise known as Apulia, is the heel of the kinky boot that makes up Italy. It’s usually associated with the golden sands of the Ionian coast, the clear, sun-spun waters of Castellanata Marina, the palaces of Bari, and the sublime fish restaurants of Peschici. There is, however, another side to this Italian paradise. It boasts a music scene whose chief contenders resent being lazily lumped in with cheesy holiday Euro-disco or worthy local folksiness, bands and DJs who wish to engage with the wider spectrum of western pop, rock and dance music.For four days Puglia Sounds is bringing Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
L’Arpeggiata are everything that crossover should be and everything that this arranged marriage of genres so often isn’t. The work of lutenist Christina Pluhar and her band of period musicians is organic and authentic, a blend of musics that amplify and enrich one another, a conversation between friends and equals.After a too-lengthy drought of UK appearances (save one token visit to the Proms last year), L’Arpeggiata are at last back. Last night’s concert was only the first in a residency at the Wigmore Hall that will take us all the way through to next July, giving the group’s British Read more ...
Simon Munk
Stunningly good entertainment, interesting art, rubbish game. Beyond: Two Souls does more than any other videogame around to further the cause of interactive narrative fiction – sadly, by jettisoning most of the "interactive" bit.Beyond: Two Souls predecessor is 2010's Heavy Rain. It's probably one of the most important videogames of the last ten years. Ostensibly an update of the old "point-and-click" adventure genre, you play as four characters whose lives cross in a rainy city – your job is to choose dialogue options, solve puzzles and occasionally grapple with action sequences where you Read more ...
emma.simmonds
Alexander Payne has never been one for flashy features and in his latest he tones things all the way down to monochrome, as if his intentions are more bittersweet than ever. It's a fittingly subdued aesthetic for a tale of a man on his last legs, reluctantly forced to confront his past.Bruce Dern plays Woody Grant, a man who's just won a million dollars - or so he thinks. When he receives postal notification of his big win it's an obvious scam but, still, he's itching to collect. While his credulity is met with irritation by his wife Kate (June Squibb), his son David (Will Forte) understands Read more ...