Reviews
Nick Hasted
Saul Dibb dispenses with the first half of Irene Nemirovsky’s great novel Suite Française in about a minute. Grainy newsreel footage disposes of the Fall of France in 1940, then it’s on to the occupation of Bussy, the country town where Lucille (Michelle Williams) falls for gentlemanly German officer Bruno (Matthias Schoenaerts, pictured below with Williams). Their unconsummated, forbidden affair under the gimlet gaze of mother-in-law Madame Angellier (Kristin Scott Thomas) is the focus of this plainly filmed period romance, as the posters suggest it will be. Lovers of the novel will be Read more ...
Peter Quantrill
Morton Feldman and Robert Schumann don’t often appear in the same sentence, but in his brief platform introduction Alexander Melnikov perceptively located common ground: they are two of the greatest writers on music, both for their polemical intent and their vivid imagery. It can be hard to avoid analogy and metaphor when discussing Feldman’s music, but why bother trying? The composer himself wrote of Triadic Memories (1981) that “Chords are heard without any discernible pattern. In this regularity there is a suggestion that what we hear is functional and directional, but we soon realize Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Paloma Faith has been on the front pages lately. Winning the Brit Award for Best Female Solo Artist 2015, following two previous unsuccessful nominations, has done her profile no harm. A few songs in tonight she squats down behind the grand piano and announces, “There’s a little thing round here,” then triumphantly produces her Brit, dedicating it to her audience. Aside from the Brit, much media interest was roused by her bold move asking Owen Jones, political journalist and author of the books Chavs and The Establishment, to be her touring support act.Prior to her performance she brings the Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
“Do you think they’ve got enough plot to get us through to the end?” I overheard a lady anxiously asking her husband during the interval. It was a fair question. Donizetti’s The Wild Man of the West Indies was written within a year of L’elisir d’amore, and the two operas share many things, but not that spark of genius that can transform a pantomime into a drama. Rarely has so little happened in an opera, and with even less effect.Which makes it all the more baffling that the imaginative and usually so reliable English Touring Opera would tackle it. General director James Conway is quoted in Read more ...
Simon Munk
There are so many worthy, interesting, non-violent games in the world. And then there's this… this steaming hot mess of pulsing electronica, endless ultraviolence and drug-inflected hyper-visuals. This is the videogame the Droogs would have played in A Clockwork Orange. And, rather worryingly, it's absolutely brilliant fun.Forget the rather pointless plot, involving drug-addled protagonists and hallucinatory phone calls. Instead focus on the play. Your job in each level is to work your way through whatever hellhole (police station, crack den, mafia penthouse etc.) you find yourself in, Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Michael Tilson Thomas is in town to celebrate his 70th birthday. And he's with old friends – he’s been working with the London Symphony since 1970, including six years as principal conductor. There is still plenty of chemistry here, and the orchestra’s strengths perfectly complement his, the clarity and boldness of his interpretations given voice in the orchestra’s precise ensemble and rich sonorities. The concert was a gala event with a retrospective feel, and each piece was well chosen to highlight an aspect of the long and fruitful relationship.Colin Matthews’ Hidden Variables ticks many Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Of course they had to end with “Gold”. It’s one of those songs which, once heard, even if you dislike Spandau Ballet, is impossible to remove from the brain, a bona fide Eighties classic. Lead singer Tony Hadley and guitarist Gary Kemp, the man who wrote their songs, even performed a short acoustic version earlier on, perched amid the Brighton Centre’s 4500 capacity crowd in the sound desk area. “Gold” is a joyful climax to a night of ups and downs from a band whose occasional musical highs are balanced by a welter of contradictions.Spandau Ballet started the Eighties in the avant-glam post- Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Earlier tonight, I read - on Twitter, so I’m not vouching for its accuracy - that more people have now signed a petition to reinstate Jeremy Clarkson at the BBC than to take stronger action against female genital mutilation (FGM) in the UK. FGM, as actress Zawe Ashton (Fresh Meat) quickly finds out in a moving documentary for Comic Relief, is a hard thing to talk about, because vaginas are hard to talk about. But as she looks further into the practice both in the UK and abroad - speaking to survivors, activists and even a "cutter" - Ashton discovers that education is already beginning to make Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Andrew Manze chose an all-English programme for his debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Clarity of texture and disciplined, propulsive tempos are the hallmarks of his conducting, the results of many years as a violinist and ensemble leader in the period instrument movement. They may not seem ideal qualities for the early 20th century romanticism of Elgar, Ireland and Walton, but all of the works responded well to Manze’s treatment, each in its own way.While he clearly has an ear for detail, Manze is never inclined to constrain his players or to limit expansive orchestral textures. Read more ...
aleks.sierz
As their career progresses, playwrights face a real problem: should they please their fans by writing the same play, over and over again, or should they risk trying out new things? Polymath Philip Ridley has built up a corpus of East End gothic plays, in-yer-face shockers and dystopic visions. But he has also written female monologues and imaginative two-handers about love. His latest one breaks more new ground: it is a comedy, and — unique for this playwright — it is overtly political.Radiant Vermin is about a young couple, Ollie and Jill. They are having their first baby and fantasise about Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Reviews of English National Ballet in which I rave about what Tamara Rojo is doing for the company are getting to be the norm round here. This one is no exception, and I'm not even going to apologise for it. Last night was the opening of Modern Masters, an ambitious new bill in which the company more than prove they're up to handling the big beasts of late twentieth-century choreography. It took place not at the Coliseum, but at Sadler's Wells, the home of exciting contemporary dance programming in London, and a new partner venue for ENB in what looks like a very savvy deal for Read more ...
Veronica Lee
In and Out of the Kitchen (***), created and written by Miles Jupp, was first heard on Radio 4, a delightful spoof of celebrity chefs and our modern obsessions with food and having the perfect kitchen. Now Jupp and director Mandie Fletcher have brought it to television.Jupp plays Damien Trench, a food writer obsessed with good nosh, who lives with his partner, Anthony (Justin Edwards), an ex-banker now looking for a job. They're chalk and cheese; Damien has a range of sharp shirts and woolly cardigans, while Anthony spends most of his time loafing around the house in his pants or pyjamas. For Read more ...