Reviews
Hugh Barnes
Half way through Something, I Forget, in a poem entitled “Returns”, and subtitled “Invasion of Ukraine, February 2022”, Angela Leighton writes, “Today’s my birthday. Many happy returns. / Elsewhere there’s shot, mortar shells, grenades.”The technical term for this is poetic licence because Leighton’s birthday falls on 23rd February, and Russia’s invasion of that particular "elsewhere" didn’t happen until the following day. Strictly speaking, the poem can’t be true. Leighton’s birthday was as quiet and uneventful in Ukraine as it was anywhere else.One of the strengths, however, of Angela Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
There are probably two distinct audiences for the latest adaptation from Les Enfants Terribles, The House with Chicken Legs: the young teens who lapped up the fantasy novel by Sophie Anderson on which it is based, and the adults who came with them. The latter may not be as enraptured as fans of the book by the piece’s staging, not to mention its almost three-hour length. The piece made its debut at Manchester’s HOME venue, where it seems to have had a favourable reception. The QEH, though, is a different kind of space: quite steeply raked and with inadequate acoustics, which make it hard Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Typically tagged as the originators of pub rock, Brinsley Schwarz were where Nick Lowe honed his muse. But there were twists, turns and a waywardness which makes approaching them as a linear proposition difficult. Sometimes, they pointed one way yet then headed in a different direction. Next, off elsewhere. The complete-catalogue, seven CD set Thinking Back - The Anthology 1970-1975 encapsulates all of this.They had evolved from Kippington Lodge, a straightforward pop group which had released five singles on Parlophone over 1967 to 1969. Chafing at their unadventurous persona, they rejigged Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The original title of this French crime drama was Pax Massilia, a reference to the classical roots of its setting in what is now known as Marseille. Dating back to the 6th Century BC, it’s supposedly the oldest city in France. An atmospheric mix of architectural styles, dramatic views, a Mediterranean climate and multiple ethnicities, it makes the perfect stage for this fast-paced and sometimes horrifically violent thriller.It’s directed by Olivier Marchal, an ex-cop whose CV includes Braquo and 36 Quai des Orfèvres. And while the eternal struggle between police and thieves is hardly the most Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
David Ireland’s Edinburgh Fringe hit Ulster American is essentially a play about a play that a Hollywood big name has been cast in by a leading English theatre director. Appropriately, it stars two actual Hollywood “big names”, Woody Harrelson and Andy Serkis, the latter seen here for once without motion-capture tags or prosthetics. Welcome back.The setting is a typical middle-class period house In London, gutted and expensively decorated, where Leigh (Serkis, pictured below left) is preparing for a meeting with the Oscar-winning star of his latest production, Jay Conway (Harrelson, Read more ...
Mert Dilek
Stranger Things has shown us over four seasons that the alternate dimension known as the Upside Down can be the seat of many things: terror, mystery, camaraderie, compassion. As it turns out, it can spawn great theatre, too, for Stephen Daldry’s much-anticipated stage production of the prequel to the Netflix mega-hit has finally summoned its demonic energy to take the West End by storm.In this intensely cinematic and technically stunning show, a spirited ensemble breathes ambitious life into a villain origin story that feels at once epic and intimate – and with no shortage of wow factors. Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
There’s a touch of Dr Zhivago about director Paweł Pawlikowski’s screenplay for his 2018 film Cold War. Its plot is driven by the same Lara/Yuri dynamic, of an overwhelming love affair trying to outflank the forces of history. Now it's been adapted at the Almeida as a play-with-music by Conor McPherson, with lush songs by Elvis Costello, directed by Rupert Goold. It’s not remotely Christmassy, though offers a gift of no ordinary kind.The Polish lovers who consistently find themselves confronting the fault line dividing post-war Europe are Wiktor (Luke Thallon) and Zula (Anya Chalotra). Read more ...
Saskia Baron
This fascinating American documentary tackles the societal and medical treatment of the 1.7% of people born with intersex traits that leave them with sex characteristics (chromosome patterns, genitals, gonads) that aren’t obviously male or female. These people are the ‘I’ in the LGBTQI+ acronym.We meet three charismatic and impressive campaigners who have intersex conditions.Their life stories are riveting, their arguments persuasive. Political consultant Julia Roth Weigel was born with XY chromosomes and instead of ovaries had testes, which were removed in childhood so the doctors could call Read more ...
India Lewis
The folk band Lankum are (for want of a less cliched phrase) at the height of their power. Their gig at the Roundhouse, as they said themselves, was the biggest audience they had ever played for – and everyone was loving it. The Roundhouse, surely one of the most beautiful venues for gigs, felt completely packed by the end of the support act, Rachael Lavelle. Lavelle’s sound was entrancing in its own right, somewhere between Weyes Blood and Angel Olsen, ethereal but not without nods to the slightly absurd. A great cover of ABBA’s "Lay All Your Love on Me" was a particular highlight, Read more ...
Gary Naylor
We’re in Moscow (we hear that quite a lot) where an ageing woman on a rare trip out of her apartment block catches sight of an advert in a bank’s window. She is soon inside and subjected to a sales pitch by a keen young bank "manager", torn between his understanding of her dementia and the career-boost the loan will bring. Five months later, she’s in her little flat with a debt collector, a man even more ruthless in pursuit of his objectives – and events take an unexpected turn.Theatre503 continues to find highly promising playwrights through its International Playwriting Award scheme, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Welcome to the annual seasonal one-off, in which theartsdesk on Vinyl dives into festive releases, as well as the boxsets and reissues that will make fine presents. Grab a glass of something and dive in!CHRISTMAS VINYL OF THE MONTHVarious Stax Christmas (Craft)Who’s going to argue with a new collection featuring Stax artists tackling festive fare, mostly dating from the late 1960s and early Seventies? That it features a previously unreleased and impassioned version of “Blue Christmas” by Carla Thomas, as well as an alternate take of Otis Redding’s “Merry Christmas Baby” only adds to the Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
For a small nation, with a population not quite comparable to Scotland’s, Georgia has for long packed a mighty musical punch. Any visitor will know the soul-wrenching power of its choral polyphony, but a post-Soviet generation of classical soloists now walks proudly across the world stage. Pianist Mariam Batsashvili, only just 30, won the Franz Liszt international competition in 2014 and has since been a BBC New Generation artist. Last night’s Wigmore Hall recital (not her first) put Liszt’s music at the heart of a programme that revealed the almost-symphonic textures and colours that a Read more ...