Reviews
aleks.sierz
Critics can also be historians. In my opinion, the great new wave of 1990s British theatre starts not with Sarah Kane’s Blasted in 1995, nor with Mark Ravenhill’s Shopping and Fucking a year later, but with polymath Philip Ridley’s amazing debut, The Pitchfork Disney, in 1991. Now, with this long overdue revival which opened last night, we get another chance to sample a powerful and imaginative drama in all its glittering and eerie strangeness.Set in a dimly lit room in the East End of London, the play starts by showing the hermit-like existence of Presley and Haley Stray, a couple of 28-year Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The Chemical Brothers have long had one of the most vital shows around. It’s a visual spectacular that can only be likened to peak-time Pink Floyd or Jean-Michel Jarre, yet precision-tooled, without the bombast of those acts. Their long-term visual designer, Adam Smith, is mostly responsible and now he’s shot a concert film of the electronic duo’s appearance at the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan last year. Smith has directed a few bits and bobs before, notably the BBC adaptation of Little Dorrit, and he’s the perfect choice to take the Chemical Brothers experience into the cinema.He doesn’t, Read more ...
Veronica Lee
With its mistaken identities, a meddling mother, a chest of precious jewels, gulling of fops and two pairs of thwarted lovers, it's easy to see Shakespearean overtones in Oliver Goldsmith's 1773 masterpiece. And because She Stoops to Conquer's witty and intelligent heroine, Kate, outsmarts her would-be suitor Marlow, it's even more tempting to see it as having shades of The Taming of the Shrew, only without the difficult bits for modern audiences.Whatever else it may be, She Stoops to Conquer is a delightful and warm-hearted comedy of manners that is as relevant today in its depiction of Read more ...
Jasper Rees
It’s not a genre which springs too many surprises. Ever since Sir John Harvey-Jones strode into shot a good 20 years ago, the template was set for the sort-your-life-out documentary. Expert enters, throws up hands in horror, delivers a quantity of home truths, exits. Like the talent contest, it’s a flexi-format, applicable to kitchen cleanliness, child-rearing, the high street and, in the case of The Hotel Inspector, mouldy B&Bs on their uppers. In The Fixer, Alex Polizzi has checked out of hotel salvage and turned her attention to putting a smile on the face of ailing businesses.In Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Laura Veirs may be increasingly seen by some as an “undiscovered gem”, but to others she still comes over a bit too corn-fed to warm to. Of course, the much applauded Year of Meteors and July Flame contain some mighty pretty moments, but there’s also a sense that they belong to a slightly smug American West-Coast eco-culture. But now, recent mother Veirs has released an album of “children’s folk songs,” gaining rave reviews. Would last night's show find her fuzzy and huggable, intimate, or just a little too worthy?When Veirs walked on stage in a “vegan chic” vintage pea-green dress and horn- Read more ...
ash.smyth
As if by way of riposte to Birdsong’s ever-so-pensive treatment of late, last night’s Royal Marines: Mission Afghanistan brought warfare back to the 21st century with an uncompromising thump. In Episode 1: Deadly Underfoot, Chris Terrill joined Lima Company, 42 Commando, as they took over from their Marine colleagues at Toki base, in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand. This was in the tenth year of the war – as the greatest of narratives would have it – and the Taliban, so Terrill assured us, were “on the back foot”. There was, presumably, no pun intended.For 50-odd minutes we Read more ...
howard.male
Last night was one of those occasions when I found myself looking forward to seeing the support band more than the main act. This wasn’t because Senegal’s sublime Orchestra Baobab haven't delivered a transportive heart-warming set of Cuban and soukous grooves every time I’ve seen them live. It was simply because Belgium-based Congolese rapper Baloji made Kinshasa Succusale - one of my favourite albums of last year.This extremely diverse collection of tunes relies heavily on a talented array of guest musicians (Amp Fiddler, Konono No1, Royce Mbumba and La Chorale de la Grace, to name but Read more ...
emma.simmonds
Drawing us deep into the coercive, immersive world of a sinister sect, in its audacity and provocatively luscious aesthetic Martha Marcy May Marlene announces its first-time writer / director Sean Durkin as a major new talent. Durkin ingeniously emulates his young heroine’s disorientation as she fights for her sanity and - as the more-than-a-mouthful title suggests - her identity. Its credibility is buoyed by a courageous and psychologically complex performance from its young lead, another newcomer Elizabeth Olsen.A highlight of last year’s London Film Festival, and of Sundance before that, Read more ...
Veronica Lee
You may think that Whitechapel's USP would have made a third unlikely after two successful mini-series. The first was about a modern-day copycat killer in Whitechapel who was recreating the 1888 Jack the Ripper murders, while the second was about a modern-day copycat killer who was recreating the Kray twins murders from the 1960s. Now the East End of London may be, in estate agents' terms, a vibrant place, but there are only so many bloodthirsty periods from its history to spawn yet another modern-day psychopath.The third season, which started last night, consists of three two-parters and the Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
I can’t help thinking of Mad Men when watching the opening sequence of Alma Har’el’s marvellous documentary Bombay Beach. Newsreel footage from the 1950s excitedly trumpets the “miracle in the desert” of the Salton Sea, formed by accident when the Colorado River ran wild, and the heart of a development scheme that was to turn the area into “the recreational capital of the world”. One can imagine the likes of Don Draper having a field day with the promise of the American Dream in this strangely idyllic Californian setting. Not surprisingly, the dream soon turned to dust, as the reality of Read more ...
David Benedict
As in sex, so it is in music: there’s a lot riding on the climax. The celebrated third act trio of Der Rosenkavalier is arguably the most famous orgasm in music – dear reader, can you name a better one? – but time it wrongly and you’ll regret it. There is, however, absolutely nothing regrettable about this A-list cast in the hands of director David McVicar and conductor Edward Gardner. Theirs is the most assured, most riveting Rosenkavalier in this country for years.Lush, plush and dangerous to know though Strauss’s score is, many directors shy away from the opera for the simple reason that Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
This adaptation of Jennifer Worth's memoirs about life as a midwife in 1950s east London has been a spectacular and instant hit, though it's difficult to believe its success can be solely due to its graphic scenes of screaming, blood-drenched childbirth. And at 8pm on a Sunday, too.Nor is the show's milieu of poverty-stricken tenements in London's unreformed Docklands, with the funnels of huge liners looming up at the end of the street, especially conducive to jollity and good cheer. The stories woven through the ongoing depiction of the lives of a group of young midwives, and the nuns of Read more ...