Reviews
Helen Hawkins
The indomitable Nicolas Kent has devised a new theatre piece to prick our consciences and refocus our minds, after his sterling work on the ugly underbelly of the Afghan wars and the Grenfell inquiry, inter alia. This one is less polished though not lacking in grit.Originally a project much like Kent’s The Great Game, a loose assemblage of full-length plays from leading writers about invasions of Afghanistan over the centuries, this has emerged as five much shorter plays about different aspects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The series has a chronological sweep, starting with Jonathan Read more ...
Simon Thompson
Pretty much any performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony is a special occasion, but this one perhaps more so than most. For one thing, it was a landmark event in the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s 90th anniversary year - the only concert this season that saw the return of Sir Donald Runnicles, their Conductor Emeritus. Runnicles’ Mahler performances were always highlights during his time in charge of the orchestra, and this is a special work for him, not only one of the pieces that persuaded him to become a conductor, but also one in which he sang as a young member of the Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Mark Simmons is, in the nicest possible way, an old-fashioned comic, in that he tells jokes. Puns, one-liners, slow-burners, delayed payoffs as well as visual and physical gags, he’s got them all, lots of them, and they’re all rather good.His craftsmanship has been recognised by colleagues and audiences alike; he was voted UK comics’ comic in 2022 and in 2024 won Dave’s best joke of the Edinburgh Fringe for "I was going to sail around the globe in the world’s smallest ship, but I bottled it.” Now he’s on his debut UK tour, which I saw at Winchester Theatre Royal.As he comes on stage Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The brainchild of Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee, this is a strange and tortuous tale which defies easy categorisation. There’s plenty of humour in it but it isn’t a comedy, and it also lays out a long trail of tragedy and pain spanning generations. You might argue that there’s a bit of redemption on offer, but then again you might not.Anyway, the narrative revolves around three women in their late thirties, Saoirse (Roisin Gallagher), Dara (Caoilfhionn Dunne) and Robyn (Sinead Keenan), close friends from childhood and now living in Belfast. Their old bonds are rekindled when they’re invited Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The title comes from the August 1965 Paul Revere & the Raiders single “Steppin' Out,” a paint-peeling stomp which just missed the US Top 40. While it wasn’t a massive hit – a UK release made no mark at all – the track can be taken as helping to define a strand of American pop which is, well, identifiably American. It didn’t matter that “Steppin' Out” was released by a major label: it’s directness, heft, reductiveness, snotiness, unbridled pep and lack of sophistication positioned it as garage rock.“Steppin' Out” is one of the great Sixties singles. So are The Beach Boys’ “I Get Around,” Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
Almost everything about Piotr Anderszewski's Wigmore Hall recital pleased, intrigued and even thrilled – except, perhaps, the order of the works. The Polish-born pianist opened with his selection of a dozen of Brahms’s late solo pieces, from the Op. 116 to 119 sets, and returned after the interval with the thunderous heavy cavalry of Beethoven’s final sonata, Op. 111. Compare, and contrast, the supreme leave-takings of both poets of the piano.Now, Anderszewski’s arrangement and performance of the Brahms works – several of them far from “miniatures” – lends them a dramatic and architectural Read more ...
stephen.walsh
The BBC NOW called this concert Echoes of France, which was both an understatement and a partial misnomer. Cardiff’s St David’s Hall being currently out of action, the orchestra is playing its regular concerts in the much smaller Hoddinott Hall, but with no concession to the acoustical trivia of decibels, balance and blend. Misnomer? We heard Ravel and Chausson - French certainly - but Sibelius’s Pelleas and Melisande incidental music is French only in the language of the play, which is by the Belgian Maeterlinck. It’s strange how that play captivated composers on either side of the year Read more ...
Jon Turney
Two centuries ago, New York City was a tangled collection of streets on the narrowing southern end of Manhattan island. Expansion pointed only one way, and in 1807 a three-person team proposed it be organised on a grid. They sketched ranks of rectangular city blocks reaching eight miles north, up to 155th street. And with a few alterations of detail – Central Park did not appear on their map – present-day New York displays exactly that rectilinear array.That satisfying shift from idea to reality makes the New York Commissioners’ plan “the most courageous act of prediction in Western Read more ...
James Saynor
Cinema has a deep distrust of the devout. Even though many movie types are tied up in all sorts of personal spiritual pursuits, organised religion often gets a rough ride in Hollywood and beyond. Lately, though, characters of faith have been getting better PR. In the recent Argentine film Belén, the protagonist – a battler against abortion injustice – nods repeatedly to God. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery endorses the deep grace of a young priest as virtually its controlling idea, while even Avatar: Fire and Ash has its own woo-woo supreme being.And now there’s The Testament of Ann Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
Famously Handel and Bach never met, despite being born in the same year in the same country. So it was fun to see the programme for the English Concert’s delightful, vivacious performance in St George's Hanover Square playfully pit the two composers against each other by presenting works that they both composed in their thirties.When he wrote his Chandos Anthems, the still relatively fresh-faced Handel was working for the fiercely ambitious James Brydges, first Duke of Chandos, who established a chamber ensemble that became known as the Cannons Concert at his estate in Middlesex. Though there Read more ...
James Saynor
We’ve heard of dad rock, but how about dad techno? This Spanish movie, directed by the French-born Oliver Laxe, immerses us in one of Europe’s more curious subcultures – ravers who decamp by the horde to North Africa to party day and night in the desert. But these are not a familiar Ibiza crowd: most are 30-plus, and one or two look as though they might go back to the Second Summer of Love of the late 1980s.We’re invited to join their generous vibe, backed by a battered sound system, the odd laser and enough deep bass pulsing to rattle the roof of your local Odeon. You might feel the odd curl Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Things do not look promising at 8.55 PM. Half the 1500-capacity Engine Shed is curtained off. The venue is still far from full. The crowd is mostly between their 30s and their 50s, lots of couples. The lights are on. The vibe is lacklustre. Mumbled chat and pints. It’s ex-Kasabian frontman Tom Meighan’s acoustic RAW show and it doesn’t seem likely he’ll be able to turn this around. But, within ten minutes of hitting the stage, he most certainly has.Guitarist Chris Haddon, appears first, then Meighan, a wiry, bewhiskered figure in black, cropped hair, a padlock on a chunky chain around his Read more ...