Reviews
Laura de Lisle
“We all make history, one way or another.” But some of us make more history than others, and a group of 27 English schoolboys who got lost in Southern Germany in 1936 haven’t made much, unfortunately. Scottish playwright Pamela Carter has brushed the cobwebs from this strange corner of Anglo-German relations and spun an irreverent new play about what it means to be English. Our narrators are three pupils of the Strand School in South London: rambunctious Eaton (Vinnie Heaven), clean-cut Harrison (Hubert Burton), and earnest Lyons (Matthew Tennyson), the youngest. They’re on a walking Read more ...
Hugh Barnes
Laura Beatty is a kind of Shirley Valentine figure in contemporary English literature. A decade and a half ago she published an astonishing debut novel entitled Pollard about female emancipation from the strictures of English life. In that story her escapist heroine falls in love with – and in – Salcey Forest, whose mysteries (and voices) Beatty captures with marvellous poetic skill. She returned to this subject – Englishness and its feminine discontents – in her second novel Darkling (2014), which juxtaposes a fictional love affair with the real-life history of a Puritan woman during the Read more ...
Saskia Baron
There are films that, after seeing the trailer, I very much expect to love. But when the actual movie is disappointing, I find writing the review makes me just a little bit sad. Unfortunately, Wild Men is one of those movies. Billed as a comedy-thriller, it doesn’t quite make the grade on either front, it's not gripping enough as a policier and the jokes often fall flat. Danish director Thomas Daneskov loves Fargo (who doesn’t?) and he’s very much working in a similar setting – small-town cops baffled by incoming crooks. The main outsider is Martin ( Read more ...
Veronica Lee
If the state of the world is a little too bleak for you right now, do yourself a favour and watch this utterly charming documentary about Barry and Joan Grantham, a couple who have been married and performing together for several decades (Audrey Rumsby's film is vague on the details, but archive clips of them performing date back to the late 1940s). They are considered experts in Commedia dell'arte, the comic theatrical artform that dates back to 16th-century Italy and which, the voiceover informs us, provides “the roots and grammar” of European theatre, from Shakespeare to sitcom.The Read more ...
aleks.sierz
The traditional, and much derided, well-made play is meant to have a beginning, middle and end. Although playwright David Eldridge often writes in opposition to these outdate forms, his trilogy about relationships, which started in 2017 with the hit show Beginning, now reaches its second part with Middle, which opened tonight at the National Theatre. No prizes for guessing what the final part will be called. Like its predecessor, this one is directed by Polly Findlay, and this time stars Claire Rushbrook and Daniel Ryan, but how does it compare to Beginning?At first we are in familiar Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
Amid the warm familiarity of a programme of established Vaughan Williams favourites, presented at the Barbican by the RPO and the City of London Choir, what really drew me in was the chance to hear his Fantasia on the “Old 104th” Psalm Tune, performed at the Proms in 1950 and apparently not heard again in London since.The piece, seemingly modelled on Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, pits choir and orchestra against solo piano in a set of variations on a 17th century hymn tune. Unfortunately it turns out there is a good reason it hasn’t been heard for more than 70 years: it's a bit of a dud.This Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Most artists tend to view the live arena as an opportunity to commune with fans old and new, with audience reaction being an integral part of the whole experience. Not so much Jason Pierce’s Spiritualized.The nine-piece band trooped onto the stage at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall in two distinct groups. First to come were eight anonymous individuals, dressed in black, including two guitarists, a bassist, drummer, keyboard player and three backing singers. As they took their places, Jason Pierce, bandleader and the only constant member since Spiritualized’s inception, ambled on and took his seat Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
Lucy Bailey’s joyous, visually ravishing Much Ado About Nothing opens on a sombre note. On stage there is laughter and merriment as people prepare for a party in the sprawling grounds of an Italian estate, but then a lone soldier enters the auditorium, his head wrapped in a bandage, and the tension becomes palpable.He is carrying a letter, and it suddenly becomes clear that the people watching his approach are all worried that it will bring news of the death of a loved one. Singing mournfully he hands the missive over; Leonata peruses it anxiously before her face lightens as she announces Read more ...
Robert Beale
In the first and sixth symphonies of Vaughan Williams, Sir Mark Elder had two of the most ambitious and rewarding of the whole canon to present in Saturday’s VW 150 concert, which consisted of those two works alone. A Sea Symphony in particular (the first) is a big work in every sense and worthy of his expertise in marshalling and inspiring large forces: performed second, it brought the evening to a marvellous end and received an enthusiastic standing ovation of the kind more usual at pop concerts than from classical fans.The Sixth Symphony, however, is music of remarkable freshness, in many Read more ...
Christopher Lambton
In my last review from Edinburgh, I remarked on the sheer size of the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, with over 100 players on stage. Little did I know that two weeks later the Royal Scottish National Orchestra would swell its ranks with around 50 young students from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, taking the total number of musicians to over 130. This was for a performance of Richard Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony, a somewhat gargantuan piece at the best of times, but here rendered with almost overwhelming volume.But that was after the interval. The RSNO began the evening, the first Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
First on were The Supremes with “Baby Love.” Next, The Miracles performed “You Really Got a Hold on me.” After this, Stevie Wonder’s “I Call it Pretty Music But the Old People Call it the Blues,” The Temptations’ “The Way You do the Things You do” and Martha & The Vandellas’ “Heatwave.”The opening section of the Ready Steady Go! episode broadcast on 28 April 1965 was hot – really hot. The show was titled The Sound of Motown and its guest host was Dusty Springfield. She sang a song solo, and one with Martha Reeves.Those involved with the show knew Springfield was a high-profile ambassador Read more ...
Mert Dilek
At long last, the giant has come back. Over a decade after its critical apotheosis on both sides of the Atlantic, Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem returns to London in an astonishing revival starring Mark Rylance as the high priest of its proceedings. With the renewed intensity of its vision of an England in crisis, Butterworth’s infinitely rich play is proof that legends age well. First staged at the Royal Court Theatre in 2009, Ian Rickson’s superbly calibrated production once again lures us into a world marked by its anarchic flair and supernatural rhythm. At its centre is Johnny “Rooster Read more ...