Reviews
Gavin Dixon
William Christie chose a suitably light and breezy programme for this warm summer evening’s concert at St. John’s Smith Square. The concert was titled “Bach goes to Paris”, with works chosen to highlight the connections between the German master and his French contemporaries. But, more significantly, they showcased Christie’s deep affinity with French Baroque music, and the vibrancy and passion he brings to this repertoire.For Christie, Baroque music is always about dance, so it was fitting that much of this music derived from ballet. Christie gestures broadly from the podium, but rarely to Read more ...
Mark Sanderson
It’s half a century since homosexuality was partially decriminalised in England and Wales, so who better to cast his gaze over the lie of the land than stately homo Rupert Everett? The accomplished actor (and even finer diarist) started as he meant to go on in 50 Shades of Gay by disappearing down a manhole in Manchester. His mission? To relive the heady days of “cottaging” – sex in public conveniences – with a former copper whose job it was to catch men at it. And not a single mention of dear, departed George Michael.Cruising was a dangerous pursuit that could lead to exposure and ruin Read more ...
Marianka Swain
A memorable 2015 parliamentary select committee hearing asked Kids Company CEO Camila Batmanghelidjh and chair of trustees Alan Yentob whether the organisation was ever fit for purpose. Tom Deering, Hadley Fraser and Josie Rourke’s new verbatim musical – think This House meets London Road – asks the same not just of the charity, but of the political system itself and the way we treat the most vulnerable in this country.Kids Company was the feather in the cap of David “Big Society” Cameron, and thus, despite repeated warnings, received hefty sums from the Government, including a final £3 Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Oh those Victorians! Hail Prince Albert whose far-sighted ambition led to Albertopolis, embracing museums, galleries, universities and the Royal Albert Hall. And what in the early 21st century do you do with the Victoria & Albert Museum itself: one of the world’s greatest museums occupying higgledy piggledy buildings which have been a-building, expanding and growing topsy-turvy for more than a century and a half?In its largest building project since 1909, the museum continues to enhance, expand and change to meet different demands: demands from visitors, and demands from the objects Read more ...
Steve O'Rourke
Appreciating art involves applauding experimentation, but when you break new ground you don’t always land on your feet. Case in point: Get Even, a game that tells an old story in a new way, and at times, pays a high price for attempting innovation.You assume the role of Cole Black, an apt name for a hired gun with a gruff Sean Bean-style northern accent, who regains consciousness in a deserted asylum with almost no recollection of his past, apart from the lasting memory of a young girl, held hostage, who had a bad encounter with a bomb vest. Under the guidance of an anonymous captor, Black Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Presumably it seemed like a good idea at the time. Broadcasting juggernaut Lord Bragg would undertake a sweeping survey of the way that television has transformed our lives and reflected British society in the last 70-odd years, soaring over dramas, documentaries, current affairs, soaps, reality TV shows etc with hi-def satellite vision. Clips of key programmes from the archives would cue up bouts of discussion among hand-picked experts.Only two major problems. At two hours it was far too long, yet paradoxically each section was much too short. It felt as if a collection of long lists had Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Talk about survival: St Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningrad, now again St Petersburg, all the same city, has it nailed down. It was founded through the mad enthusiasm, intelligence, determination and just off-the-scale energy of Peter the Great in 1703, built on the bodies of around 30,000 labourers (not the 300,000 that later rumours have suggested) at the whim of an Emperor. You can visit his original wooden cabin there today; the nobles he ordered, on pain of forfeiting titles and wealth, to come and live in his new city had to build in stone.It has been at times the capital of Russia. Its Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
From beginning to end, B-Sides and Rarities plays through like a regular album; as though it collects a series of tracks recorded where a cohesive release with a flow was the goal. Yet this 14-cut collection is a compilation with its earliest selection from 2005, the year Beach House formed. Its most recent tracks are from the sessions which resulted in the two 2015 albums Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars. It doesn’t matter that the 2005 track , “Rain in Numbers”, is skeletal and of demo quality – it is of a piece with its companions.What this says about Beach House – Victoria Read more ...
Liz Thomson
It’s 25 years since Chris Patten lost his seat as Conservative MP for Bath. The 1992 election was called by an embattled prime minister, bruised by the Maastricht Treaty (remember “the bastards”?). Neil Kinnock had been expected to win, Labour ahead in the polls until the last. Party chairman Patten orchestrated the campaign so perhaps the exigencies of the role left little time to attend to his own constituency. In any event, to those disappointed that the Tory order was not overturned, Patten’s defeat was a cheering moment in a grim night.He felt “sick at the humiliation” but a consolation Read more ...
David Benedict
An enormous amount rides on a musical's opening number. Without explicitly expressing it, a good opener sets tone, mood and style. Take The Lion King, where "Circle of Life" so thrillingly unites music, design and direction that nothing that follows equals it. "Spring", the opener of The Wind in the Willows, repeatedly announces the warmth of the season, and precious little else. Animals dance perkily, but with nothing to dance about, the flatly staged song goes nowhere. Sadder still, the second song, "Messing About in a Boat", compounds the felony, stating the happiness of the title and the Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Were ordinary folk to plunder their lives for comedy, most of us would be sadly lacking in any topics worthy of analysis, let alone laughs. But Russell Brand, who every few years appears to reinvent himself – from drug addict to stand-up comic, from sex addict to husband, from anarchist to social campaigner, to name a few reboots – can in no way be described as ordinary.His latest show, Re: Birth, charts his latest progression, this time into parenthood, but thankfully it’s minus any of the self-congratulatory “I changed a nappy, aren’t I super?” material so beloved of lesser comics. Instead Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Grange Park Opera is aiming big. The company is in a new venue, the grounds of West Horsley Place in Surrey, where they have built themselves a spectacular new opera house in less than a year. The building is not yet complete, but is close enough to stage a full summer season, including this new production of Die Walküre, the second opera of Wagner’s Ring cycle. The opera is a major undertaking for any company, but Grange Park has taken it in its stride, presenting an imaginative and intelligent staging, and to high musical standards, not least from the almost uniformly fine cast.It’s a Read more ...