Reviews
alexandra.coghlan
The first panel in a would-be triptych, Elgar’s The Apostles is also something of a prototype – the musical experiment whose risks would culminate so strikingly in The Kingdom. Tackling the crucifixion from “the poor man’s point of view”, its occluded, obscured vision of events has atmosphere in abundance but a distinct lack of dramatic focus. There’s an awful lot of telling, climaxing in such an astonishing bit of showing that you almost forget the previous two hours’ tedium. Almost.Last night’s Proms performance re-enacts almost exactly Mark Elder and the Halle’s performance (and recording Read more ...
graham.rickson
Messiaen: Turangalîla-Symphonie Steven Osborne (piano), Cynthia Millar (ondes martenot), Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Juanjo Mena (Hyperion)Olivier Messiaen’s epic, ten-movement Turangalîla-Symphonie has always prokoved Marmite-like reactions in audiences. It was created in the dark post-war years, eventually entering the orchestral repertoire in the 1970s. It has long provided regular work opportunities for a small band of ondes Martenot players, a 1920s vintage electronic instrument whose erotic swooning gives this piece so much character. Nervous newcomers will hopefully be shocked Read more ...
Dylan Moore
National Theatre Wales like the word “us”. It was there in Michael Sheen’s Passion of Port Talbot – its film adaptation was called The Gospel of Us – and it is here, prominently, in the multi-layered title of Mike Pearson and Mike Brookes’ latest site-specific offering. The team that brought Aeschylus’ The Persians to the Brecon Beacons military range have now commandeered a disused aircraft hangar a few miles outside Cardiff to stage an experimental version of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, sprinkled with Bertolt Brecht’s unfinished version Coriolan. The German’s curtailed title allows the Read more ...
fisun.guner
Every year, FHM produces its 100 sexiest women of the year list. It follows a simple formula, since sexiness, as determined by the magazine’s readers, is predicated on fame – a particular type of fleeting, red-top tabloid fame. So this year, top of that list is Tulisa of the sex tapes. Likewise, every year Art Review does its 100 most powerful people in the art world list. So what is it to be the most powerful person in the art world? What is its relationship to fame, market value and fashion?Last year, it was Ai Weiwei, who still holds the title. One isn’t suggesting that the two title- Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Each year I wonder, as the hit-makers and Radio 1 darlings flock to the Ivor Novello Awards, how many spare a thought for that greatest of melodists, who lends his name to their accolades? Precious few, I suspect. While the musicals of Noël Coward have survived for their wit, the great American classics of Carousel and Oklahoma! for their big numbers and relatable, homespun stories, the eternally anachronistic, fatally glamorous world of Ivor Novello has disappeared without trace. Signs of life have begun to stir recently in London, but with this evening of celebration the Proms have put Read more ...
graeme.thomson
In the debating chambers and committee rooms of the Conservative Associations of Oxford and Cambridge lurk the Children of Cameron. The current cabinet is to a large extent an Oxbridge Old Boys club and succeeding generations are already being fattened up for the fray. Young, Bright and on the Right - and what an aimless title that was - picked two candidates and sharpened the knives.The film followed them as they negotiated the sharp end of student politics. Twenty-one-year-old Joe Cooke looked like a cross between Chris Evans and John Selwyn-Gummer and possessed a kind of dry charm and Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Blood feuds and mobile phones are not something you expect to find in the same film narrative. But they are both part of the landscape of American director Joshua (Maria Full of Grace) Marston’s Albanian-language The Forgiveness of Blood, which shows that while a small Balkan nation has caught up with the modern world in some technological respects, age-old traditions of clan revenge survive. Murder must be avenged with murder, making for generations-long disputes.The kind of simmering disputes between neighbours that end in bloodshed were a part of William Faulkner’s American South. In the Read more ...
caroline.boyle
East coast haar seeping into sun-drenched streets – familiar Edinburgh monuments disappearing dreamlike under blankets of mist, vibrant colour draining from the landscape as the city transformed into its more usual symphony in grey. The dramatic change in weather during the first weekend of the Edinburgh Art Festival has mirrored the overwhelming experience of one of this year’s major exhibitions.Van Gogh to Kandinsky: Symbolist Landscape in Europe, 1880–1910 is a joint project between the National Galleries of Scotland, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It’s a standard dilemma in film. What to do with the body? In this case, the answer can be seen coming but when it does, it isn’t one that could have occurred outside the world created for the otherwise all too generic Jackpot.Although based on a story by the Norwegian thriller writer Jo Nesbø and co-scripted by him, Jackpot (Arme Riddere) isn’t hard-boiled like his Harry Hole books or intrigue-laden like Headhunters, his novel also recently adapted for film. Instead, it sidesteps depth in favour of a cartoon-style punchiness. Despite it’s washed-out palette, Jackpot isn’t brooding Nordic Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
American critics haven't been too kind to Aaron Sorkin's new HBO series about a cable TV news programme, for a variety of reasons. At least they had the advantage of understanding the intricate partisan infighting of American politics which forms the show's backdrop, and which will be baffling to many British viewers. On the other hand, nobody is likely to have much trouble recognising the A Few Good Men view of history familiar from previous Sorkin milestones such as The West Wing and, uh, A Few Good Men.This time around, Sorkin's hero is Will McAvoy, a former lawyer turned veteran TV anchor Read more ...
Laura Silverman
The curators encourage you to come to Bush Bazaar with an open mind to explore the value of theatre. But I found this cluttered evening a lesson in the value of saying no. Twenty companies – 100 emerging artists in all – have taken over the building to sell their wares, including a dinner party, a cleansing treatment and one to one with Justin Bieber (hard to resist). After paying £10 to get in, you decide what to see and how much more to pay the artists. Sometimes before their show.Theatre Delicatessen have devised this work in response to the global financial crisis. They want to Read more ...
Jasper Rees
In the end only Robert Altman really knew how to do it: to take a spread of characters and somehow knit their stories together into a satisfactory whole. When filmmakers have attempted it in recent years they’ve tended to self-importance – Paul Haggis in Crash, Alejandro González Iñárritu in Babel – or risibility – Richard Curtis in Love, Actually. And now here comes 360, which riffs on La Ronde to daisy-chain the lives of several characters across the planet. Bring your passport.You’ve got to hand it to director Fernando Meirelles and writer Peter Morgan: they’ve aimed high with a story Read more ...