Reviews
Veronica Lee
Considering where Motion Sickness ends up, Ivo Graham's new show begins a million miles away, as he talks about his love of trains and his favourite train company, Chiltern – or “The Chilt”. But don't be fooled by this quotidian fare; what begins as a seemingly aimless wander down a path of nothing very much packs an emotional punch by the end of the hour.Graham has previously made much gentle humour out of his thoroughly English, middle-class existence. His USP (not quite so unique, but we'll let that pass) is that he was Eton and Oxford, rather clever but witty and self-deprecating enough Read more ...
Robert Beale
Two days after announcing his appointment as their next chief conductor (he takes the reins officially next summer, in time for the Proms), by remarkable good fortune the Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic was able to present Omer Meir Wellber as the conductor of their second Bridgewater Hall series concert. It was a harbinger of things to come – he said as much in the talk before the concert – in that he’s an experienced opera conductor and wants to bring the spirit of the stage, and probably the reality of more operatic performances, to the Philharmonic’s programming.So his Mozart opener – Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Humdinger! This is a totally brilliant idea for an amazing anthology, although the subtitle “Letters that Changed the World” is slightly misleading. All or any of these letters might substantially or subtly change your view of grandees of all sorts – emperors, tsars and tsarinas, kings, queens, presidents, generals, admirals, dictators, politicians, authors, artists – as well as the ordinary folk who have written them, but not all are letters that fall into that elevated category (there are certainly letters that initiated wars, though).In the age of the internet, who will be writing letters Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Stanley Kubrick’s use of music in his films has been inspirational. In 1999, The Caretaker – a nom-de-musique of Jim Kirby – issued Selected Memories From the Haunted Ballroom. While his alter-ego openly acknowledged the director’s film The Shining, the album’s music reconfigured vintage recordings of bands in tribute to the film’s haunted ballroom scenes.Kubrick has affected how music is heard. Until 1972, “Singin' in the Rain” was inseparable from the 1952 film of the same name. A song of joy, it exulted the shared belief that obstacles were there to be overcome. However, with the release Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
For all the bleakness of its subject matter, there’s considerable exhilaration to Ali Soozandeh’s animation feature Tehran Taboo. That’s due, in part, to the film’s breaking of many of the official “rules” of Iranian society, the myths of the theocracy that can’t, and don’t conform with the realities of human life. But there’s something wider as well, almost Dickensian, as the director presents his varied cast as players in a big city drama in which the Iranian capital itself becomes a protagonist, an entity bubbling with life, most of it “not conforming to Islamic virtues”.But what otherwise Read more ...
Glyn Môn Hughes
There must be something of a beauty parade going on in Liverpool now that Vasily Petrenko has called time on his tenure at Philharmonic Hall. After all, someone will need to step into his shoes from 2021 after he departs for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was refreshing, therefore, to welcome Anu Tali to conduct the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, making her debut with the orchestra. She’s conducted extensively in the USA and in Asia and in many parts of Europe, especially Germany, Scandanavia and her native Estonia. But her appearances in the UK are few and far between. That’s Read more ...
aleks.sierz
There are not that many plays about sport, but, whether you gamble on results or not, you can bet that most of them are about boxing. And often set in the past. Joy Wilkinson's superb new drama, The Sweet Science of Bruising, comes to the Southwark Playhouse, a venue which regularly punches above its weight (sorry!), armed with a beautifully evocative title and plenty of theatrical energy. It is also tells a story that is both original and affecting, about the Victorian subculture of female boxing. So hold tight, leave your squeamish side at home, and roll up to the ring to watch the Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
Bach specialists like to explain that the second book of preludes and fugues in The Well-Tempered Clavier, composed around 1740 and thus almost two decades after the first, draws on more of the fancy and daring “modern” music of its time than its more traditional predecessor. Yes, but there’s modern and there’s modern. I don’t think the scholars have yet argued that, among the ear-stretching range of moods and effects encompassed across these 24 pieces, comes a spooky anticipation of Seattle grunge. Listening to Angela Hewitt play the F minor prelude at the Wigmore Hall, with its plaintive Read more ...
Matt Wolf
"It's the same old story, told over and over forever": So remarks the redoubtable Sam Elliott late in the most recent reboot of A Star is Born, which itself manages to take an oft-told story and reinvent it very much afresh. As the grizzled sage who happens to be the older brother to the self-sabotaging rocker played for keeps by the film's director Bradley Cooper, Elliott in a sentence gives voice to the eternal appeal of this intersecting narrative, about one artist (Lady Gaga's waitress-turned-vocal wonderwoman, in this instance) who is catapulted to film even as the other flames out in a Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Blimey, Nish Kumar is angry. Angry about Donald Trump, angry about misogyny, angry about racism, angry about Brexit – angry about a lot of things. But before anyone could dismiss It's In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves as a checklist of woke priorities for the liberal metropolitan elite, he turns the joke against himself – it shows how upside down the world is, he says, that a 33-year-old comic whose favourite food is dips has become a spokesman for the politically engaged.As anyone who has seen Kumar fronting The Mash Report – a comedy take on the week's news – will know, Brexit really Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
There’s been a lot of conjecture over the last couple of years about HD Vinyl. It is, we’re told, a more precise and rounded analogue experience, taking record-listening to the next level. The company’s Austrian MD Guenter Loibl has explained that the process uses “a laser-cut ceramic instead of electroplated metal stampers” to achieve results that add 30% more audio information to a record. Sounds great. Bring it on. Just don’t go all CD on us and charge the earth. Because that old vinyl still sounds very good, both the new ones that arrive at theartsdesk on Vinyl each day and the ones that Read more ...
Jessica Duchen
We could probably spend all day pondering what makes a great musical partnership. Is it long experience, special sensitivity, a shared sense of humour? We’d get nowhere, though because there is, genuinely, something about it that can't be explained. It’s like a good marriage: it just works, and if you could analyse precisely why, there’d likely be something wrong. Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen are that most unusual of ensembles, a piano duo; and their London Piano Festival launched its third and longest season yet – five days this time – with a concert celebrating their remarkable Read more ...