Reviews
aleks.sierz
Writer Anthony Horowitz is a busy man. Having written more than 40 books, he has also worked in many media. One year, he’s penning another series of the ever-popular Foyle’s War; the next he’s reviving the world of Sherlock Holmes in novels such as Moriarty; then it’s onto James Bond with Trigger Mortis. Now he casts his eagle eye on Saddam Hussein and shows how the blood-thirsty Iraqi dictator, who was paranoid about being assassinated, used to call in at the homes of private citizens, asking to eat and to stay. So what’s it like when the most powerful bully in the country rings your Read more ...
Matthew Wright
It’s nearly 10 years since Gareth Malone’s series The Choir first brought amateur choral singing to an improbably appreciative television audience. Like baking, amateur choral singing is quintessentially British – most other cultures leave them to professionals – and their affectionate place in the national psyche has created successful viewing brands.Yet this time Malone has introduced that serpentine cliché of contemporary programming, the reality competition, into the innocent enthusiasm that so inspired reluctant singers of his previous series, from shy teens to military wives. Read more ...
Marianka Swain
Following a dangerously selective reading of a religious text, 15-year-old Benjamin has adopted a fundamentalist doctrine that espouses misogynist, homophobic and puritanical views and, at its extreme, violence. Neither his mum nor his teachers know how to handle him. The clever twist in Marius von Mayenburg’s 2012 play: that text isn’t the Qu’ran, but the Bible.This change in faith revitalises the oft-repeated concerns dominating headlines and opens up the debate to extremism in all forms, with militant atheism taken to task alongside Benjamin’s (Daniel O’Keefe) hardline Read more ...
aleks.sierz
The actor and historian Ian Kelly is fascinated by the way that performers use the theatre to understand not only themselves, but also the world. In this new play, he looks at the life and career of Samuel Foote, one of the larger-than-life figures in the age of Garrick who has, alas, been forgotten by time. Kelly, who has also written a book about Foote, has certainly been blessed by a warm-hearted production, which stars national treasure Simon Russell Beale – as well as the author himself.Foote’s life was pretty amazing. Born in 1720 in Cornwall, he made a name for himself as a mimic in Read more ...
Peter Quantrill
The frail bridge between Baroque and Classical aesthetics was the theme for this debut UK appearance by Insula, the period-orchestra extension to Laurence Equilbey’s superb vocal ensemble accentus.With a chunky harpsichord continuo and urgent pulse, they delivered an instantly engaging response to the Miserere’s pleas for mercy and Zelenka’s relentlessly intense setting of it in which chromatic harmony is stretched on the rack and phrases are hammered in place with stabbing accents. Equilbey (profiled here by David Nice) encouraged the strongest of contrasts between a smooth legato for the Read more ...
Jasper Rees
There’s a new book out called Red: A Natural History of the Redhead, which gets to the heart of what it is to have the ginger gene, be it Boudicca or Jessica Rabbit. It says coppertops are more prone to bee stings, and perfume gives off a different odour on their skin. And then there are the more hackneyed ascriptions: flaming hair implies fieriness, wildness, total and utter otherness etc. This is not to solicit a visit from the ginger police, but can anyone picture Florence Welch with a short sensible peroxide crop?She’d be a much tamer beast than the creature who opened her Alexandra Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Sunday evening may have been all about melancholy at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, but last night Bjarte Eike and his uproariously talented Barokksolistene traded wails for ales and one of their legendary alehouse sessions at the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. There was music, certainly, but also dancing, storytelling, drinking (yes, really) and more joy than it’s possible to imagine from this tight-knit bunch of musical mavericks.Remember the childhood delight of forming a band and spending hours in your parents’ garage, basement or attic practising? Violinist Eike and his ensemble have Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Last night's perfectly-judged, superbly communicated performance of Mahler's Fourth Symphony served as a reminder that the passion, experience and astonishing musicality of 86-year-old conductor Bernard Haitink are things to be cherished and never taken for granted. The symphony, first performed in 1901, was the main work in this second of Haitink's three concerts with the LSO before they leave together for Japan.The score contains a minefield of instructions to make constant subtle and sometimes radical adjustments to the tempo. Haitink's understanding of them and how to set them instantly Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Hot on the heels of Lady Chatterley's Lover, the Beeb has made another foray into literary depictions of English class warfare and scandalous sexuality with this new version of LP Hartley's novel (published in 1953 but set in 1900). To ease the didactic burden, the Corporation has discovered yet another phwoarr-factor leading man who obligingly gets his kit off at strategic moments.He's Ben Batt, playing rustic Norfolk farmer Ted Burgess who's embroiled in a steamy affair with posh Marian Maudsley from the Big House down the road. Going between them and carrying their billets-doux back Read more ...
David Nice
“Sounds a bit depressing,” said several friends when I urged them to attend the theatrical incarnation of The Image of Melancholy, inspirational violinist Bjarte Eike’s award-winning CD with his stunning Norwegian-based group Barokksolistene. Creative melancholy, though, is not the same as stuck depression, and the sequence on the disc was well-balanced with songs and dances as well as superbly engineered sound. The instrumental sheen created equal magic in the wood-resonant surrounds of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse last night.It was admirable of Eike to vary the strain and not repeat the CD Read more ...
Jasper Rees
It began with the sinking of the Titanic all those series ago. However many holes Julian Fellowes has seen fit to build in to the design, his own ocean-going liner has valiantly refused to go down with all hands on deck. But by Christmas we will have seen the last of Lord Grantham and his household, until such time as they all get resurrected for a big-screen reunion, even the Dowager Countess Maggie. For some, the bereavement will be too much and they'll rewind to the start of the first boxset. For others it'll be like the end of a long prison sentence.As for the inhabitants of the Abbey, Read more ...
David Kettle
It’s hard to believe that East Lothian’s Lammermuir Festival has only been around for six years. In that short time, it’s become a cherished fixture in Scotland’s musical calendar. For regular concert-goers, it’s a calmer antidote to the August festival mayhem of Edinburgh, just half an hour away, and just a couple of weeks after the capital’s wall-to-wall chaos ends. And for East Lothian locals, it’s a well-appreciated intensive burst of classical music in the beautiful but decidedly untouristy villages and historic buildings of their neighbourhood.And it’s to the credit of co-artistic Read more ...