Reviews
Owen Richards
Not all One Direction solo albums are created equally, and after Liam Payne's public ostracization for LP1, all eyes are on Harry Styles. His self-titled debut earned some baffling comparisons to David Bowie, so what to expect next?Fine Line is akin to a seasonal selection box, picking the sweetest styles from across the genres. A bit of precision art pop here, a touch of dramatic blues rock there, a sprinkling of calypso on top. It certainly isn't comfortable staying still. Single "Adore You" owes a heavy debt to The 1975 by way of Simply Red, but still works thanks to an irresistible chorus Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Christmas and Agatha Christie are a very good fit – how better to spend time with your loved ones than sitting down to watch some murder and intrigue together? So Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar was an early festive treat, another enjoyable melding of fact and fiction (mostly fiction, it should be said) from husband-and-wife producer team Tom and Emily Dalton, whose Agatha and the Truth of Murder was a hit for Channel 5 last year.We were in Ur, southern Iraq in 1928 where a team of British archaeologists led by Leonard Woolley (Jack Deam) and his assistants Max (Jonah Hauer-King) and Pearl ( Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
Matthew Bourne’s tally of hits is such that many of his dance-drama interpretations of old ballets and films were labelled “classic” as soon as they appeared. Yet The Red Shoes, Bourne’s 2016 tribute to the 1948 film, is arguably the one that most rewards repeat viewings. Thickly layered with entertaining detail, you can see it again and again and still find new things to love.It’s also unique in adding more dance than the original contained. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s film follows the rise of a talented young British dancer, Vicky Page, as she joins a foreign ballet troupe ( Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
History has corseted Elizabeth I with the title of “Virgin Queen” for centuries, but in Ella Hickson’s laceratingly witty new play she is revealed as nothing less than a lioness on a hot tin roof. In this pacy, dagger-sharp production we watch Elizabeth asses the dangers and contradictions of her inheritance, before ruthlessly reinventing herself so that she will not fall victim to the court’s deadly political undercurrents. “My mother seduced a man so successfully that he altered the constitutional history of this country.” Abigail Cruttenden’s crisp enunciation cuts the air Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
It is a very rare thing, as Darius Brubeck reflected, to “inherit a hit.” This gig by the pianist and his quartet marked the exact day of the 60th anniversary of the launch of Time Out by his father Dave Brubeck. Time Out was the first million-selling album in jazz, reaching No 2 in the US pop charts. “It was the gateway drug into jazz for a whole generation,” he mused.The concept of “inheriting” in monetary terms is unthinkably rare in jazz to say the least, but is quite literally true for Time Out. The story goes that Columbia took against the bizarre idea of an album consisting of tunes in Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Britain is unpleasant to look at right now, ugly and foolish, so why not lock down with some tuneage. Below is the best plastic that’s hit theartsdesk on Vinyl over the last month, all genres, all the time. Watch out for the forthcoming Christmas Special where we’ll endeavour to find the seasonal good cheer we’re not currently feeling.VINYL OF THE MONTHKimyan Law Yonda (Blu Mar Ten Music)It’s true to say that theartsdesk on Vinyl prizes originality over familiarity. One of our mottos is that comfort is the enemy of creativity. Kimyan Law – AKA Nico Mpunga – is the Vienna-based son of a Read more ...
Jessica Duchen
Why does music suddenly disappear? It is all the more heartening when a work as excellent and enjoyable as Louise Farrenc’s Symphony No 3 takes wing once more, but you do have to wonder how in the world such a terrific orchestral piece was permitted to sink and vanish in its day under a morass of dubious opera. The symphony formed the second half of the Aurora Orchestra’s latest concert in its Pioneers series, for Kings Place's "Venus Unwrapped" focus on music by female composers, and very welcome it was. Farrenc (1804-1875) was a highly successful and well-regarded musician in her Read more ...
India Lewis
Whatever your office Christmas party was like, I can (almost) guarantee that it wasn’t as much fun as this Fire Records event. Running from five to midnight in Studio 9294, with lashing rain cutting across the River Lea just behind the venue, it was like being invited to a party by someone you don’t know very well but know that you’re going to like very much.There were seven bands to see, with the possibility to slip in and out (which I did). Each band played a mini-set, with the length increasing as the evening wore on. This had its negatives and positives – the vignette-like brevity gave a Read more ...
Lauren Brown
Nalini Singh's debut thriller thrusts us into Golden Cove, a small coastal town in New Zealand at "the edge of nowhere” that isn't everything it seems. What on the surface is a sun-bleached paradise made recently popular with back-packers is revealed to be much more sinister. The crashing waves harbour a vicious maelstrom, people aren't who they purport to be, and behind the sunshine-smiles of the tight-knit community lies madness.The vision of a fiercely self-contained town where everyone has known each other since childhood is shattered when Miriama, a bright-eyed, (and much over-mentioned Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Animal intelligence has come to the fore as an essential and fashionable subject for study. Dolphins, elephants, bees, prairie dogs, gannets, whales, baboons, wolves, parrots, bats – not mention lance-tailed manakins and grey mouse lemurs – are just a few of our fellow creatures whose social behaviour is the subject of this pithy, elegant book.Although her book is dedicated to a number of animal companions, Eva Meijer does not approve of pets. Yet as any pet owner or farmer knows, groups of dogs, cats, cows, pigs and chickens can communicate. We acknowledge animal emotion, and recognise what Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Hugh Hefner established Playboy Records in 1972 as an arm of his male-targeted business empire. Amongst the singles issued in its first year were seven-inchers by jazzer Bobby Scott, proto-yacht rockers The Hudson Brothers, singer-songwriter Tim Rose, Björn & Benny (with Svenska Flicka), who were ABBA before they had a name, and Michael Jarrett, who’d written “I'm Leavin'” for Elvis Presley. In 1974, Playboy Playmate Barbi Benton came on board.Other notables included country staple Mickey Gilley, soul star Major Lance, soft rockers Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds and, late in the Read more ...
Daniel Baksi
In March 1937, the government of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk instigated what it called a “disciplinary campaign” against the Zaza-speaking Alevi Kurds in the Dersim region of eastern Turkey. What followed was a bloody, coordinated assault that resulted in thousands of civilian deaths and forcible deportations. The episode has “weighed on Turkey’s official history ever since” and supplies the context to Sema Kaygusuz’s Every Fire You Tend, translated into English by Nicholas Glastonbury. The novel, which grapples with memories that are both an obligation and a burden, is a brave rejoinder to an Read more ...