Reviews
Sarah Kent
In 2008, a disastrous fire gutted Cloud Gate’s rehearsal studio in Taipei destroying props, costumes and the company archive. Amazingly though, the masks worn by the deities in Nine Songs survived the blaze and Lin Hwai-min, founder of the award-winning company, was so moved by the miracle that he decided to re-stage this sumptuous work. The phoenix-like revival of the epic, first premiered in 1993, seems especially pertinent since resurrection is a recurring theme. Accordingly, a bed of lotus flowers, symbols of rebirth, fills the orchestra pit and designer Ming Cho Lee has covered the Read more ...
edward.seckerson
Vasily Petrenko used his baton like a piratical rapier to galvanise the London Philharmonic violins in their flourishes of derring-do at the start of Berlioz’s Overture Le Corsaire. And the brilliance was in the quicksilver contrasts, the lightness and wit of inflection which lent a piquancy to the panache of this great concert opener. The arrival of the main theme - tantalisingly delayed - was almost balletic in its vivacity and even the final trumpet-led assault suggested a Byronic hero as French as he was feral. One of Petrenko’s great strengths as a conductor lies with the sharpness of Read more ...
graham.rickson
Beethoven: The Symphonies (And Reflections by Kancheli, Mochizuki, Šerkšnytė, Shchedrin, Staud, Widmann) Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Mariss Jansons (BR Klassik)When you've a full size modern orchestra performing Beethoven symphonies, there's the worry that everything will sound too easy. Riccardo Chailly's life-enhancing 2011 Leipzig set achieved miracles thanks to lightning speeds and razor-sharp articulation. Mariss Jansons' Bavarian Radio players make an even more sumptuous noise than Chailly's Gewandhausorchester and they could, presumably, perform each of these symphonies on Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Other than for die-hard fans, expectations for this Limp Bizkit tour have been, well, pretty limp. Nu-metal has been on the wane for years, and Limp Bizkit have aged the worst. Small wonder: surely even hardened metal fans must raise their eyebrows at a 43-year-old in a red baseball cap telling us to go fuck ourselves, whilst he takes our bitches (as Fred Durst does on the new single). So, if Limp Bizkit are a spent force, who goes to their concerts these days; and what exactly goes on?As I arrive, first appearances indicate the band now actually attracts a more conventional metal audience. Read more ...
Matt Wolf
"What's happening here?" Jennifer Connelly asks somewhere near the not-a-moment-too-soon ending of A New York Winter's Tale, a question filmgoers will have been muttering from pretty much the first frame. Not long after, Connelly lets rip with "this is crazy", a sentiment similarly likely to strike home with that hapless few who find themselves at this magical-realist foray into psychobabble and soap suds. Writer-director-producer Akiva Goldsman may have won an Oscar for scripting A Beautiful Mind (Connelly got her own trophy for that one), but his directorial debut has eventual triumph at Read more ...
graham.rickson
"The Sage Gateshead is in the top five best concert halls in the world." So thinks Lorin Maazel, and he should know. Attending concerts here is a real pleasure. The audiences are unfailingly friendly. The architecture is inspiring, and the views over the adjacent River Tyne spectacular. The main hall's acoustics are better than anything you'll find in London. Credit is due to a far-sighted Gateshead Council who paid for the building's construction. (They point out that the value of the money ploughed into the local economy since The Sage's opening ten years ago amounts to six times the cost Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
There really was astonishing talent on display in The Brits Who Built the Modern World (*****), as full a television panorama of the work of the five architects whose careers were under examination – Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, Nicholas Grimshaw, Michael Hopkins and Terry Farrell – as we’re ever likely to get. Peter Sweasey’s three-film series, fascinatingly rich in archive footage, was supported by the Open University and produced in partnership with the Royal Institute of British Architects (which has published an accompanying book), emphasising that it’s once-in-a-lifetime project.The Read more ...
Matthew Wright
With their self-conscious blend of flamenco, Latin and pop creating the improbable-sounding Catalonian rumba, the Gipsy Kings, who played to an ecstatic Royal Albert Hall last night, are one of the pioneers of the world music genre. Their contribution has just been recognised by the Grammys, where they shared this year’s World Music prize (with Ladysmith Black Mambazo) for their new album Savor Flamenco.Formed from two groups of brothers, the Reyes and the Baliardos, who celebrate 25 years together this year, they now live in Provence, but both families are originally from Spain. The Reyes’ Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Well! Just when you think you’ve constructed a nice tripartite schema for dance styles based on their relationship with the ground, along comes a company which tears up that rule book entirely.Last week I theorized that contemporary dance goes down to the ground, ballet aims up off it, and Tanztheater Wuppertal walks, magnificently, on it. Then I saw Circa, an Australian contemporary circus ensemble, who on last night’s evidence can apparently dispense with the ground altogether and just fly through the air instead.Ok, I exaggerate. But not all that much: Circa’s performers Read more ...
Steve Clarkson
It takes a particularly hard heart to fail to be moved by the sheer scale of community fragmentation around the time of the Miners' Strike – for many, the single most devastating period in the north of England's social history. But maybe, just maybe, this Brassed Off play is not quite as stirring as it should be.Adapted by Paul Allen from the classic 1996 film, the story about a colliery and its brass band has been revived at York Theatre Royal to mark the strike's 30th anniversary year. Pulling the strings is Damian Cruden, an award-winning director of such vision and skill that his Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Over many months, the release of stills and teaser trailers from Nymphomania, as well as the poster showing the faces of its stars (presumably) faking orgasms, have maximized press speculation on the nature of Lars von Trier's hardcore-laced saga about the life of a female sex addict.Would it be a garden of delights, earthly and unearthly? Would it be to 21st century global culture what the unexpurgated Lady Chatterley's Lover was to British society in 1960? Would it be yet another film made by the provoking Dane, in the misogynistic spirit of Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville Read more ...
Stuart Houghton
Avoid: Sensory Overload is a racing game without a race. A litle bit of Wipeout, a dollop of Temple Run, a dash of Zaxxon and a hint even of Flappy Bird, it is a test of reaction times and nerve. At least, it is after a certain point.The first few levels of Avoid are almost absurdly easy. If you have played any kind of racing game or endless runner, or even if you have ever walked in a straight line at speed then you will likely ace the first few stages and even feel like you are playing in slow motion. This is a temporary state of affairs and if you push through (or just cheat and select a Read more ...