Reviews
Ismene Brown
Thank you, Romania, for ballerina Alina Cojocaru, pianist Dinu Lipatti, sopranos Angela Gheorghiu and Ileana Cotrubas, sculptor Constantin Brancusi, tennis player Ilie Nastase, playwright Eugène Ionesco, conductor Sergiu Celibidache, actors Edward G Robinson and Johnny Weissmuller among other Romanians who have added so much artistry and entertainment to modern life.Which came strongly to mind at Cojocaru’s Sadler’s Wells gala in aid of her charity supporting hospices for the terminally ill in her native land (as she explained to me in our interview last week). Romania has become a trigger Read more ...
Graham Fuller
For those familiar with Ginger Baker’s virtuosic musicianship, but not with his life, the biggest revelation of the warts-and-all documentary Beware of Mr Baker may be that next to drumming, playing polo was the great time-keeper’s obsession. One might expect a jet-setting country gent like Bryan Ferry to mount up for a chukka or two before teatime, but the wild man of Cream and Blind Faith, late of Lewisham? Does Topper Headon play bowls?If, as an addiction, polo didn’t match Baker’s 19-year affair with heroin, it has been almost as ruinous a pastime. Toward the end of Jay Bulger’s film, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Aware I was going to see a stand-up comedian at the Brighton Festival but not knowing much about Daniel Kitson, the opening of his new show, After The Beginning, Before The End, bemused. On he wandered, shaven bald of head, geeky, bearded, wearing specs and a librarian-style brown jacket. He sat in a nondescript red chair at a small table with a cup of tea and pressed buttons on an electronic gizmo which began to burble sweet abstract electro bleeps. Then he went into a monologue which ceased an hour and 40 minutes later. With a brief, humble goodbye he wandered off in much the same way he Read more ...
garth.cartwright
The final concert of The Jim Jones Revue’s four-night stand at Bethnal Green boozer The Sebright Arms found the box-like basement venue packed with men – and a few women – who would recall a time when watching short-haired rock bands in this type of space was the cutting edge of British music culture. These days going to see a rock band on a Saturday night is possibly as quaint as attending a scooter rally. But The Jim Jones Revue conjure up those halcyon days when leather jacket-wearing rockers communicated a primal excitement like little else.Considering TJJR can sell out London venues the Read more ...
kate.bassett
Eddie Izzard is lining up his targets. He’s taking issue with dictatorial authority figures, with God, royals and priests, right-wingers and high-profile liars. These days, he doesn’t merely natter about the colour of his nail varnish, though that’s still in the mix. In his new solo show, Force Majeure - trumpeted as the most extensive comedy tour ever, taking him from Cardiff to Kathmandu - his transvestism is mentioned, but only en passant. His mixture of masculine/feminine attire is, likewise, understated: a traditional gent’s suit from Savile Row, with a just a glimpse of high heels. Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
The disgraced ex-cop turned private investigator has become such a trope of contemporary noir that the fate of the first great modern detective, following the events of his first televised outing, is not particularly surprising. The Murder in Angel Lane has Paddy Considine reprise his 2011 role as the titular detective, but this time the mystery he is charged with solving has sprung entirely from the pen of Appropriate Adult’s Neil McKay rather than being inspired by true-life events.Forced out of the police on mental health grounds by the events of his last televised adventure, former Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
For a celebration of all that's supposedly best in British television, this year's telly-BAFTAs felt mysteriously flat and anticlimactic. Even perennial host Graham Norton seemed less fleet of foot than usual, though he did manage one caustic barb about the plank-like acting skills of Downton Abbey's Lady Mary. Perhaps he was distracted by his own dual nominations (he won for Entertainment Programme). The ejector seat from his chat show might have been the perfect accoutrement to add a bit of adrenalin to the occasion.An ominous early omen was the win for the tepid Last Tango in Halifax in Read more ...
Tim Cumming
There have been memorable nights at the Foundling Museum recently, with Alasdair Roberts delivering a superb solo show in April, while on Friday the Nest Collective hosted a double bill of Zimbabwean-born singer Eska and Bristol’s masters of English folk minimalism, Spiro.I’d seen Eska at Essaouira’s Gnawa Festival last year, performing with Soweto Kinch and Hamid El Kasri – she was so good they invited her back with her own band this year – and on the strength of her opening set in the Picture Gallery, the folks in Essaouira have chosen well. She has a powerful, emotive, and mellifluous Read more ...
edward.seckerson
If you should take your seats prematurely in the London Coliseum you’ll find yourself confronted with a group of serving British soldiers. You’ll shift a little uneasily under their gaze. There they are, staring, smoking, loitering; there we are, on a visit to the opera. There’s a disconnect. Among those soldiers is Wozzeck (Leigh Melrose), the eponymous anti-hero of Alban Berg's operatic masterpiece. And since it's not too often that stagings of the opera actually address the issue of his profession there is an added immediacy. This is the here and now of a Britain effectively still caught Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Various Artists: The Sun Rock Box - Rock ‘n’ Roll Recorded by Sam Phillips 1954-1959It’s no exaggeration to say that Sam Phillips transformed society. With his associate Ike Turner, he brought Jackie Brenston’s “Rocket 88” to the world in 1951. He may or may not have known it then, but Phillips had set the template for what would become rock ‘n’ roll. Then, in quick succession, he disseminated the message via Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis. By the end of 1956 rock ‘n’ roll was, indeed, here to stay. The world would never be the same again.Then there’s the Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Another day, another murder to solve on ITV. Broadchurch, Endeavour and Foyle’s War all having recently ended, the channel has been in dire need of a fresh supply of corpses since, ooh, Monday morning. To the rescue, on consecutive nights, has come another brace of crime dramas. Both set in the past. With lady crime-solvers in play. All sorts of boxes ticked.First, to the 1980s, where Hayley Atwell has donned a copper’s uniform so that she can step into her late father’s shoes. Disappointingly, this mainly seems to involve being groped by drunken colleagues and blushing slightly when balled Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
The return of the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music to London each year always heralds the beginning of summer. Granted this beginning is usually damp and decidedly chilly, but there’s a hopefulness in the air that things might be about to change. And this sense of hopefulness doesn’t end with the weather. Under Lindsay Kemp the festival’s programming is reliably wide-ranging and joyful, a proper celebration of the landmarks and the paths-less-trodden of the baroque repertoire.Last night’s concert had the appeal of being both a major work and one decidedly neglected in contemporary Read more ...