Reviews
Adam Sweeting
It's remarkable that the story of Seretse Khama, the king of Bechuanaland, isn't more popularly known, though Amma Asante's film may change all that. The movie opens in a smoggy, gloomy London in 1947, where Seretse (David Oyelowo) is completing his studies in law prior to returning to rule his homeland. Momentous change is in the air in the post-war world, as Europe struggles to rebuild and Indian independence signals sundown on the British Empire. Seretse encounters filing clerk Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) at a London Missionary Society dance, where their eyes meet across a crowded Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
At 83, and with 60-odd years on the road, Wayne Shorter could be forgiven for, in a musical sense, getting the slippers and pipe out and knocking out comfortable versions of his hits, the classic tunes he wrote for Miles Davis among them, like “Footprints” and “Sanctuary”. But instead, he went full tilt into a largely improvised set consisting of only five numbers in 90 minutes, most of them recent, and then a new collaboration, given only its second outing at the Barbican. There were a few times you thought you had heard some of these these musical conceits before - but that is mainly Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
This is a documentary about a minority in a minority, a riff on young, gifted and black. And how better to attract both practitioners and audiences to classical music than by encouraging diversity? The totally startling statistic was that in the UK, only five per cent of classical musicians are black or from ethnic minorities.The programme focussed on the Kanneh-Mason family, the parents Stuart and Kadiatu and their seven children (two boys, five girls), from the 20-year-old pianist Isata, now the holder of the Elton John scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, on down. Their Nottingham Read more ...
mark.kidel
First-person documentary must steer the uneasy path between embarrassing confessional, narcissistic self-obsession and work that will resonate beyond the merely parochial context of home movies. The dangers surrounding the genre are of course one of the sources of its potential strength. The intimacy that near-absolute subjectivity affords is a plus. And so is the thrill of perhaps getting a glimpse behind the personae of everyday life.The New Man chronicles close to a year in the life of film maker Josh Appignanesi and his wife, the writer and academic Devorah Baum. They are supposedly co- Read more ...
Bill Knight
It’s that time of year again. The National Portrait Gallery exhibits the finalists in the annual Taylor Wessing Portrait prize. The judges have seen 4,303 photographs from 1,842 photographers and now show us 57.The imprimatur of the National Portrait Gallery means that this is a really significant show. Entries come from all over the world and the quality of image and reproduction is second to none. As seen through the eyes of the exhibitors, life is a pretty serious business. Here are images of hardship, endurance, duty and emptiness. Not many smiles, unless you count Nigel Farage, hidden Read more ...
Liz Thomson
As the United States – and the world – agonises over the coming of Donald Trump, it seems to many of us that all hope is almost irretrievably lost. How timely, then, is the publication of a collection of essays which chronicle and celebrate a decade when hope abounded, when it seemed (despite manifold horrors) there was still all to play for.That’s not to say it was all peace and love. Far from it. At home, Americans fought a bloody battle for the most basic civil rights and abroad a costly and futile war in Vietnam. Khrushchev decided to park nuclear missiles on Cuba and for 13 days the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In 1996, the NME ranked Super Furry Animals’ debut album Fuzzy Logic as the year’s fourth best. It sat between Orbital’s In Sides (number three) and DJ Shadow’s Entroducing. Beck’s Odelay took the top spot and Manic Street Preachers’ Everything Must Go was at two. Fuzzy Logic was on Creation Records and the Oasis-bolstered label’s only other album in the run down-was The Boo Radleys’ C’Mon Kids (15). A run through the list suggested Britpop was over (Suede’s Coming Up was in there, but they were hardly Britpop) and grunge was on the shelf (Screaming Trees made the cut though they, like Suede Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The Jeremy Clarkson trio must have been vastly amused by the disastrous progress of the Chris Evans version of Top Gear, which staggered across our screens in the summer and prompted the new host to fall on his sword, but they shouldn't be resting on their laurels just yet. This long-awaited debut of their new show, The Grand Tour, was big, brash and lavishly budgeted – Amazon have reportedly stumped up £4.5m per show – but it flirted dangerously with bloat and bombast. Sawing off a chunk of its 70-minute running time would have been a smart move, while recruiting guest stars Armie Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Thank God for Akram Khan, English National Ballet, and Tamara Rojo. Their new Giselle, which finally arrived at Sadler's Wells this week after its Salford premiere in September, is a work of intelligence, power, beauty, and - most gratifying of all in this age of lies, damned lies and politics - stunning integrity. This is a ballet about issues that matter, made by people who know what they're doing.Giselle, thematically much the richest of the 19th-century ballets, is a strong choice for a remake, with a tight two-act structure on which to hang the exploration of all sorts of interesting Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Behind and beside Canadian electronic noisies Crystal Castles are lines of strobes which they use relentlessly from the moment they arrive onstage. It’s hard to even look, such is the visual barrage, and when I do, for as long as my retinas can stand, I only see a manic silhouette, flinging itself around, long hair whipping about like a dervish having a fit. As opening song “Concrete” draws to a close, this proves to be pink-maned frontwoman Edith Frances who now, and throughout the whole gig, squirts bottled water over her head and on the front rows.On one level, it’s surprising Crystal Read more ...
Matthew Wright
There was an Italian flavour to the EFG London Jazz Festival programme at Kings Place on Thursday night. Enrico Rava is an eminent statesman of European jazz, who emerged in the 1960s as a disciple of Miles Davis. He was collaborating with young pianist Giovanni Guidi, also recorded on ECM, though best known for diaphanous soundscapes rather than free jazz at its most raw and bloody. They were joined by electronic music pioneer Matthew Herbert, who now has a distinguished presence across opera, theatre, film and books, as well as improvised electronica. Last night’s gig was the first Read more ...
graham.rickson
Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Op. 90, Op. 101 and Op. 106 Steven Osborne (Hyperion)These three Beethoven sonatas are often thrown together as a trilogy; each work seems to lead into the next, the technical demands and scale increasing as they progress. Steven Osborne’s disc places the Hammerklavier first. And it’s phenomenally good; a big-boned, entertaining performance of a vast, unwieldy work, Osborne capturing the grandeur along with the passages of whimsical introspection. There’s a racy scherzo and a beautifully sustained slow movement. And what a finale: Beethoven’s peculiar slow Read more ...