Reviews
India Lewis
Sarah Moss’s new novel is a slim snapshot of a moment of fear and danger in the year of Covid. That year when judgement and recrimination ruled, and neighbourly feeling was in short supply. It is almost too close to the bone, but it is a neat examination of humanity in crisis.The Fell describes one night, when Kate, who is supposed to be self-isolating with her son, Matt, goes for a disastrous walk on the fells. She cannot stand having to stay inside with her own thoughts and longs to be free, living with the feeling that many of us had last year: that her actions couldn’t possibly lead to Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The premise driving Lenny Kaye Presents Lightning Striking is the idea that, as it’s put here, “transformative moments in rock ’n’ roll” not only happen at a particular time but in particular places too. Somewhere struck by that lightning at a certain point becomes pivotal, influential and a node from which influences ripple outward – impacting on the next such strike. It might take a little while for this to be seen – early rumblings precede the lightning, but there’s usually a year which becomes fundamental.Lenny Kaye may be best known as Patti Smith’s foil, but there’s a whole lot more – Read more ...
Graham Fuller
In the first 35 minutes of Hamaguchi Ryūsuke’s three-hour Drive My Car, which the Japanese director adapted with Oe Takamasa from a story in Murakami Haruku’s Men Without Women collection, the successful actor Kafuku Yūsuke (Nishijima Hidetoshi) endures experiences that would derail a less stoical man.One is the sight of his screenwriter wife, Oto (Kirishima Reika), having sex with a handsome young actor, Takatsuki (Okada Masaki), in their apartment. Mr Kafuku doesn’t react, but walks away and never mentions Oto’s infidelity to her.That Oto loves her husband is evidenced by the compassion she Read more ...
David Nice
That the ever-decreasing circles of Richard Jones’s first Wagner Ring instalment for English National Opera ended in a no-show for the fire that should have made former Valkyrie supreme Brünnhilde proof against all but a fearless hero – Westminster City Council poured cold water on it before this first night – is in a way the least of it.An act which has begun so searingly with a first-rate septet of warrior maidens and blazing orchestra under an ever-masterly Martyn Brabbins fizzles into some very choppy singing for the father-daughter confrontation which should make for one of the most Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
“Take Jazz Seriously,” wrote Maurice Ravel after his American trip in 1928. This past week of the 2021 EFG London Jazz Festival has seen that advice itself being taken seriously, with a bunching of projects and premieres. Jazz musicians have been welcomed in to work with London orchestras. The fruition of months of preparatory work has been on show.Soweto Kinch’s White Juju is a 75-minute “artistic response to a year of pandemic, racial animus and culture wars”, consisting of 10 pieces. It received a loud, prolonged, vociferous and very enthusiastic reception in a nearly-full Barbican Hall. Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
“Drug companies are supposed to be honest,” says a lady from the Department of Justice, explaining why the US Food and Drug Administration had been treating the pharmaceutical industry with a light, indeed barely detectable, regulatory touch.Dopesick is the story of how the chickens came home to roost when the unscrupulous drugs monolith Purdue launched its painkilling drug OxyContin on an unsuspecting American public, and from the mid-1990s into the 2000s set in motion one of the most devastating health scandals in medical history.Based on the book by Beth Macy, Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
Where do you draw – how do you draw? – a credible line between jazz and “classical” music in 20th-century America? With the reliably boundary-busting Britten Sinfonia, trumpeter Alison Balsom mixed and matched works from different formal lineages in her packed programme at Milton Court, “An American Rhapsody”. From Stravinsky and Ives to Gershwin and Miles Davis, open-minded and big-hearted dialogue blossomed, led by the sure, sweet and versatile voice of her own “genre-defying instrument” – as she called it in one of the informal chats with conductor Scott Stroman that threaded the items Read more ...
Laura de Lisle
Zadie Smith might not be the only writer who can rhyme "tandem" with "galdem", but she’s the only one who can do it in an adaptation of Chaucer. In The Wife of Willesden, her debut play, a modern version of one of the Canterbury Tales, Smith’s talent for mixing high and low is at full power.Indhu Rubasingham’s staging at the Kiln Theatre rattles along with warmth, wit, and a whole lot of heart. The premise is a little flimsy, but forgivably so. Brent has been voted London’s Borough of Culture, and the landlady of the Sir Colin Campbell has organised an open mic night to celebrate. A Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Why are we indifferent to anti-Semitism? In the past few weeks the Royal Court, a proud citadel of wokeness, has been embroiled in an appalling case of prejudice by allowing a character, who is a really bad billionaire, in Al Smith’s new play, Rare Earth Mettle, to be called Hershel Fink. Stereotype, or what?The really stupid thing about this row is not just that Smith created this nominal caricature of a money-obsessed Jew, but also that no one, repeat no one, in this theatre’s script reading process seems to have noticed. Proof, if that was needed, that, as comedian and writer David Baddiel Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
The world of the 17th-century tavern is a long way from the contemporary concert hall. A quick glance at the scene in paintings by Jan Steen or his contemporaries shows us a joyful tangle of men and women, dogs, cats and small children, all engaged in a riot of drinking, dancing, brawling, music-making and love-making (occasionally even napping) while hens stroll officiously across the floor pecking up crumbs. It looks noisy, dirty and a jolly good time.There were no dogs or hens (or napping, that I could see) at Bjarte Eike’s latest Alehouse Session at the handsome Middle Temple Hall. But, Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Well, this is a first: a comedy show with footnotes. Alfie Brown tells us at the top of the hour that he'll be stepping out of his routines from time to time to explain why the gag he's about to tell, or has just told, isn't offensive. It's a clever touch, one of several in Sensitive Man.Brown is perhaps taking a sensible precaution over being misunderstood because he's a contrarian comic who is happy to tackle sensitive subjects – unplanned parenthood, racism and paedophilia in previous shows – and here he delves into mental health and white male privilege.There's more material about Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It's difficult to know if this biopic of Richard Williams – father of Venus Williams and Serena Williams, two of the greatest tennis players ever (perhaps the greatest in the latter's case) – is true to the facts, or just a version of them.The women are listed as executive producers, so it was with a cynical reporter's eye and someone who has a little knowledge of the subject (I've interviewed Richard Williams several times over the years, and attended numerous press conferences given by his daughters), that I watched King Richard. It's an enjoyable appreciation of his role in their success Read more ...