Reviews
fisun.guner
Television schedules seem not to matter much any more, since we can now watch on repeat more or less any time we choose. But it still seems strange that the BBC are airing their new five-part period drama, which is part-funded by the HBO network to the tune of £12 million, on a Friday evening in the middle of August – even though it’s turned out to be ideal weather for staying in. And Parade’s End ticks all the right boxes, too – all bar one, perhaps: it’s lovely to look at, it features a top-drawer British cast, and there’s the screenplay by Tom Stoppard.In other words it reeks of serious Read more ...
Veronica Lee
James Acaster: Prompt, Pleasance Courtyard *** James Acaster has certainly been studying his craft since he made his Fringe debut with an unmemorable show last year, and it shows in Prompt. Lots of comedy tropes are utilised, some of them to great effect, while others feel simply mechanical. He uses repetition, callbacks, audience participation in a show full of whimsy and the most surprising subjects for comedy.The callbacks - lots of them – join seemingly unconnected stories, such as his study into different kinds of bread, taking one's partner to a club - “like taking an apple to an Read more ...
graham.rickson
Théodore Dubois: Piano Concerto no 2, Ouverture de Frithiof, Dixtuor Les Siècles/François-Xavier Roth (Musicales Actes Sud)François-Xavier Roth’s period band have already given us invigorating takes on Stravinsky and Saint-Saëns, and now turn to the music of Théodore Dubois (1837-1924). Barely known outside France, Dubois was known as an organist and as director of the Paris Conservatoire at the turn of the century. The weightiest work here is the Piano Concerto no 2. Immediately engaging, this is a fun listen – though you’re constantly reminded of concertos by other composers with Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The fright wig is instantly recognisable. Even with her back turned, it’s obviously Tina Turner on stage. Except it isn’t. It’s actress Emi Wokoma playing the singer in a performance virtually guaranteed to turn her into a star. Casualty and EastEnders will soon be distant memories for Wokoma. Good for her, maybe, but she’s the best thing about the otherwise wafer-thin Soul Sister.Soul Sister could have been a game of two halves. The first on the Ike and Tina partnership, his abuse of her and their divorce; the second beginning with her 1983 comeback and solo career. Instead, the solo years Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Tony Law: Maximum Noonsense, The Stand Tony Law, Canadian by way of Trinidad and Tobago, has been kicking around the comedy circuit for several years with a style of madcap humour that many have delighted in but others have found self-indulgent. But with Maximum Noonsense he has retained all the free-flowing joy of his comedy while reining in some of the slacker elements. It's a marvellous concoction of silliness and sly humour.He starts with his “banter” section, wherein he ignores the women in the room and talks only to blokes about women and their weird attitudes to things such Read more ...
Kimon Daltas
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ Ninth Symphony, completed in 2012 and heard in London for the first time in this concert, is dedicated to the Queen on her Diamond Jubilee. Those are not words to strike eager anticipation into my heart , though I’m happy to say that being Master of the Queen’s Music doesn’t appear to have dulled the composer’s powers in the way the equivalent title seems to nobble poets. Indeed, the dedication is merely that, and the work is no winsome tribute.The 25-minute single-movement symphony is modelled, Davies’ programme note explains, on the idea of a church with a central Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Recent Iranian cinema has seen the best of times - and the worst of times. From the 1990s onwards the phenomenon of the "Iranian New Wave" has captured worldwide festival attention, with directors like Abbas Kiarostami, and father and daughter pair Mohsen and Samara Makhmalbaf among the leaders of the list of those who brought a new view of their nation to international eyes.The worst of times came with the declaration at the end of last year that the country’s professional film body, Tehran’s House of Cinema, was illegal; director Jafar Panahi, banned by the authorities from making films, Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
Singing camels, paddling trombonists, airborne string quartets and a libretto so barmy it makes David Icke sound like Richard Dawkins. Birmingham, welcome to the world of Karlheinz Stockhausen. The German composer devoted 25 years of his life composing his giant, seven-day, operatic cycle Licht. We in Britain have only ever had the chance to see one segment when in 1984 Donnerstag aus Licht was premiered at the Royal Opera House. The rest have slowly reached the light of day. Mittwoch aus Licht finally received its world premiere last night. But it has been a tortuous path for Read more ...
emma.simmonds
For all that’s been said about Orson Welles – usually focusing on his towering genius and sizable ego - he was above all a great contrarian. In interviews he was often genial and self-effacing and of course a scintillating raconteur. During his later years he could be avuncular, entertainingly unpredictable and very funny, like a mischievous lecturer. His The Lady From Shanghai (1947) is so loaded with eccentricity it’s positively cock-eyed and Welles was of course an outcast in Hollywood, that is until he cast himself out. So while those familiar with the legend alone might find F for Fake ( Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Since 2004, the Ambassador Group’s Trafalgar Studios has done sterling work in staging West End transfers for some of London’s most promising fringe talents. Kieran Lynn’s An Incident at the Border arrives in the centre of town from the Finborough Theatre, where it was seen in July. It has a good cast and, because of its sceptical attitude to the pervading aesthetics of naturalism in contemporary playwriting, lots of promise. But can it live up to expectations?One sunny afternoon, twentysomething couple Arthur and Olivia go to a park. They feed the ducks in the pond and have a cuddle on a Read more ...
Kimon Daltas
It is a rare treat for Londoners to have the CBSO with Andris Nelsons in town, and the Albert Hall was, if not fully sold out, then certainly well stocked. It would be fair to assume that the main draw was Shostakovich’s giant and much-debated Leningrad symphony after the interval; but first up was Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila overture and the UK premiere of Emily Howard’s Calculus of the Nervous System. Both together they added up to a mere 20 minutes and we were out in the interval in the blink of an eye: such are the challenges of programming around a 75-minute symphony. In its short span Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who think The Three Stooges are funny and those who just don’t get it. People in the first category are much better people. In real life, The Three Stooges were three vaudevillians - Moe Howard, Curly Howard, Larry Fine and latterly Shemp Howard, Joe Besser and Curly Joe DeRita - famous for what is now called "extreme slapstick". Their career ran from approximately 1930 to, in various incarnations, the 1970s and their short films have not been off American TV since they first were broadcast in 1958. So, for the generations who grew Read more ...