Reviews
alexandra.coghlan
“Would you enforce me to a world of cares?” croons Rylance’s Richard III, lingering tremulously over his question, the picture of world-sick piety and reluctance. As the groundlings cheer an ecstatic affirmative, Shakespeare’s most compelling villain once again claims the dramatic victory. History may have him as the vanquished, but in Tim Carroll’s new Globe production, even death cannot strip the crown of the vanquisher from Mark Rylance’s brow.Any persistent memories of the strutting Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron are banished within moments. Shrunken and hobbling, withered arm clutched uselessly Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
Much has been written about how old-fashioned Daniel Barenboim's Beethoven cycle feels. Yet what can seem backward-looking is in fact a perfect reflection of Barenboim's personality. Each and every symphony appears with a swagger in its step and a cigar in its mouth. Last night's instalment - taking us to the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies - was no different. We were given puffed-up performances that displayed flashes of brilliance but also, especially in the Eighth Symphony, an overall glibness.They were also carefree. Carelessly so at times. It was instructive to watch the maestro at the Read more ...
fisun.guner
Tino Seghal’s Turbine Hall commission makes me wonder about fellow art critics. Do they not get out enough? I’m struck by how easily seduced they are by brief encounters with live, interactive artworks, as if spending so much time looking at inanimate things instead of talking to people has made them imagine that talking to strangers who’ve been drilled for the task is either life-enhancing, edgy or, in fact, interesting. Actually, Seghals's piece doesn’t really invite you to converse with strangers. This is about strangers imparting rehearsed stories, in your general direction, whilst Read more ...
Ismene Brown
So that’s all over then. Which isn’t good. The gnawing anxiety for followers of Twenty Twelve, the programme whose theme song is “There may be trouble ahead...", has been whether real-life events would become so like it - or even worse, more like it than it could be - that the programme would become redundant. The extempore absurdities of Jeremy Hunt, the lost Olympics taxi drivers and G4S have given its scenarios a tense run for their money, and I'd guess a lot of BBC nails are down to the quick by this week.This was an exceptionally bold TV idea, to keep apace with current events and Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
“Of all the anti-social vested interests the worst is the vested interest in ill-health.” The Preface on Doctors that precedes George Bernard Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma finds the writer at his characteristic best: caustic certainly, witty frequently, but in the service of a serious and lengthy invective on the state of British healthcare. Unfortunately the play that follows doesn’t fully share its brilliance, attempting an awkward dramatic marriage of social satire, melodrama and soapbox sermonising.Which isn’t to say that it doesn’t make for an entertaining evening, just one whose billowing Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
At the end of episode four, we left ferret-faced copper Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) seemingly having his fingers hacked off with a bolt-cutter by a gang of hooded thugs and their poisonous little child-sidekick, Ryan. Boringly, the glum and dislikeable Arnott was rescued in this finale when the supposedly corrupt DCI Gates organised a police rescue, and got away with all his fingers mostly intact.It seemed to symbolise Line of Duty's annoying habit of setting up ever-murkier scenarios, then wriggling its way out of delivering a real punchline. It really, really wanted us to believe that it Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Jane Treays's previous film about diver Tom Daley was 2010's The Diver and His Dad, which followed the amphibious teenager as he sat his GCSEs and defended various titles. Ominously, it also charted the progress of his father Rob's struggle against a brain tumour.This sequel picked up the story in 2011, as the London Olympics loomed over the horizon and became the focus of Daley's ambitions. In July last year, he made the inaugural dive into the brand new Aquatics Centre pool in Stratford, a few days after he'd qualified for the 2012 Olympics at the World Championships in Shanghai. Daley only Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
We had Kevin MacDonald’s Bob Marley epic documentary earlier this year, and this is a similar film about another artist who became a symbol as much as a singer. I only saw Miriam Makeba in her sixties, by which time she had become a revered institution they called Mama Africa, as though she was the mother of an entire continent. This Storyville documentary took us back the amazing vibrancy and courage of her early years, with some terrific archive footage.By the 1990s, although her long exile from South Africa was over, Makeba had been bashed around by events, notably the death of her Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
We’ve had more than our fair share of Beethoven symphonies in London recently. But with the Proms’s monolithic Daniel Barenboim cycle now midway through, memories of Riccardo Chailly and John Eliot Gardiner are being steadily blotted out. Gone are the frisky tempos, the lightness of touch, and in their place we’re being reintroduced to Beethoven the heavyweight. There’s majesty here certainly, and occasional moments of compelling originality, but also a fair amount of frustration.The first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No 6 may be marked “Allegro non troppo”, but the composer’s in-built Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
The first anniversary of Amy Winehouse’s death seems like both a temptation and an opportunity for a sensationalist, hyperbolic tribute. Refreshingly, this Arena film, which told the story of the night that a superstar in the making performed to an 85-capacity church in the Irish fishing village of Dingle, for the most part avoided the clichés: the word “tragedy” wasn’t even mentioned until 38 minutes in.“You don’t just go to Dingle by accident,” Philip King, director of Irish music series Other Voices, explained by way of introduction. Every winter the show manages to attract some of the Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
“It’s the oldest building in England,” Ana Matronic said breathlessly. “We’re probably going to behead someone.” The Tower of London is an unlikely venue for the fizzy pop monster that is Scissor Sisters, who dedicated one song to Anne Boleyn. In the end, no executions, or drawing or quartering, but they did have a couple of oversized beefeaters (pictured below) flanking the stage and dancing. Seeing them top the bill at the BT River of Music at the Americas Stage, you realise just how many pop classics they now have at their disposal from their four albums.It was a case of wishing you could Read more ...
charlotte.gardner
Last night's concert performance of Berlioz's Les Troyens was not a Prom for the fainthearted. After all, if sitting through a five-hour opera had been a daunting undertaking for the Covent Garden audiences last month - who could also enjoy David McVicar's eye-catching staging - then it was inevitable that anyone seated in the Royal Albert Hall for the visually pared-down version was expecting to feel very culturally virtuous by the end of the night. With its Trojan horses, ballets and massive crowd scenes, this grand five-act opera based on the fall of Troy and establishment of Rome is both Read more ...