Reviews
Kieron Tyler
Britain’s musical eruption of 1977 wasn’t just about the now. As the new box set 1977 – The Year Punk Broke amply demonstrates, the flux allowed more than first-timers through the door. Seasoned gig-circuit regulars Stranglers got a leg up. A band called The Rings, featuring former Pink Fairies, Pretty Things and Tomorrow member Twink, issued their one single in 1977. Andy Ellison, Radio Stars’ singer, had a similar pedigree – in the Sixties, he had been in John’s Children, alongside a short-stay Marc Bolan. Radio Stars bassist had been in Sparks, and most of the band were in Seventies almost Read more ...
Nick Hasted
With the vertiginous drama of England’s cricket World Cup victory still fresh, Barney Douglas’s documentary digs into the human cost of a previous ascent, when England’s Test team rose to No 1 in the early 2010s. Made in the dour image of coach Andy Flower, they seem ill-suited to Douglas’s intention of a “rock’n’roll” cricket film. But star batsman Kevin Pietersen’s mid-series meltdown, almost taking the team with him and rendering captain Andrew Strauss an insomniac before his final Test, is just the best-known crack-up. Media-trained interview omerta is forsaken, to reveal an odd, likeable Read more ...
Markie Robson-Scott
Nick Broomfield is never shy about inserting himself into his documentaries but here he has good reason: he was, briefly, a lover of Marianne Ihlen, Leonard Cohen’s muse (So Long, Marianne was originally called Come On, Marianne; Bird on the Wire was also inspired by her).In 1968 Broomfield met her on Hydra, the idyllic Greek island where she and Leonard had shared a house since the early Sixties – she gave him his first acid trip and photographed him the morning after - and although one of her other lovers turned up and Broomfield beat a retreat, they remained friends for years and she Read more ...
David Nice
So many second-rate Italian operas with good bits have been served up by Opera Holland Park and glitzier UK companies; despite best intentions and fine execution, none of the works by Mascagni, Zandonai, Alfano, Leoni, Ponchielli or Giordano has really flown. There are, at least, three composers close to grownups Verdi and Puccini: Leoncavallo, Wolf-Ferrari and Cilea, whose Adriana Lecouvreur now seems to have found its rightful place in the mainstream repertoire. Would his L'Arlesiana be equally worthy? Thanks to grateful vocal writing, exquisite orchestration and a rare sense of fluent Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
We like to think of scientists and inventors as innocent dreamers, trampled upon by the cruel old world. Of course, that’s not wholly true. Just look at today’s tech and social media industries. In fact the man cited as America’s greatest ever inventor, Thomas Edison, was a real scoundrel who wasn’t adverse to using dirty tricks to get ahead.The Current War is named after the infamous battle of wits in the US in the 1880s, between Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and the entrepreneur George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon), over who would provide electricity to illuminate and ultimately power Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
By happenstance, this Prom was fully topical, with Debussy’s languorous Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune fitting for one of the hottest days in London’s history, and the “Infernal Dance” from Stravinsky’s Firebird mirroring the infernal political dance taking place simultaneously in Downing Street.The official connection between three of the four items was that they were introduced to British audiences by Henry Wood among the “Novelties” he threw at his audiences, between oodles of Beethoven and Brahms. In each case he spotted a winner, and last night they were presented in exemplary Read more ...
Katherine Waters
Emmanuel (Anthony Ofoegbu) runs Three Kings Barbers in London. His assistant, Samuel (Mohammed Mansaray), is the son of his erstwhile business partner, who is currently in jail. Emmanuel is boss, surrogate father and — occasionally — verbal punching bag: Sam is a whizz with the shears and just as cutting with his tongue. It's not just London in which Inua Ellam's riotous play Barber Shop Chronicles — newly transferred to the Roundhouse from the National Theatre — takes place. Scenes in barber shops in Lagos, Accra, Kampala, Harare and Johannesburg intercut the action in London, where Read more ...
Marianka Swain
It’s too darn hot, BoJo is in Downing Street, and we’re all going to Brexit hell – so we might as well sing the blues. Or at least take a night off from the apocalypse to enjoy a virtuoso company singing them for us in this rousing revival of Sheldon Epps’ 1980 musical revue, which showcases jazz greats like Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen. It’s also unfinished business for Susie McKenna, who directed a short run at Hackney Empire back in 2014.Sharon D Clarke once again plays The Lady, whose concise narration sets the scene. We’re in a rundown hotel Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
As this month’s edition of theartsdesk on Vinyl appears the sun is blazing outside, a heatwave hits, and our record collections must hide in the shadows or warp. Yet still we want more to join them in their sheltered rows and where better to seek the greatest new releases than the longest, most complete monthly round-up of new vinyl releases. As ever, we run the gamut. This time there’s everything from grunge to soul to trap to Qawwali and a whole lot more most of us never imagined could exist. Dive in!VINYL OF THE MONTHQasim Naqvi Teenages (Erased Tapes)Teenages, latest album from New York Read more ...
David Nice
On the UK's biggest day of shame, it was some relief to tap in to the fury of the Russian people at a much greater national degradation (Napoleon's invasion in 1812, Hitler's in 1941). Though it works even better at the end of the first, "Natasha Rostova" part of Prokofiev's selective homage to Tolstoy, his choral epigraph gave us a good blasting at the start in the firm profiling of WNO forces under their music director Tomáš Hanus. The operatic War and Peace, though, is no more just about big gestures than the novel, and Prokofiev's astuteness in characterisation, which can be as assured as Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It was a year ago that BBC One scored a smash hit with the first series of Keeping Faith, but as series two opens 18 months have passed since Faith Howells’s husband Evan (Bradley Freegard) disappeared and triggered a traumatic chain reaction of events. Apparently the patriarch of a close and loving family, with himself and Faith both working in the family law firm, Evan had become embroiled in all sorts of murky stuff (bribery, corruption, perverting the course of justice etc). Was this really the devoted husband and father that Faith had known?All will be revealed across these six new Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Friday 19 July2019 is a big deal in the Supersonic universe, as it marks the fifteenth time that the Festival has been held in Birmingham – the Home of Metal. So, what better way to celebrate than to kick things off with a double header at the City’s iconic Town Hall venue and what better bands to do the honours than local lads, Godflesh and US noise veterans, Neurosis?Despite being July, Birmingham was distinctly soggy as fans queued to get into Town Hall, and not one for acting like a star, Godflesh’s Justin Broadrick hit the stage in an anorak and rucksack with sodden hair. Initially, the Read more ...