Reviews
Jasper Rees
In traditional drama, actors are vessels for the written word. They do the looks, the sex, the tears - the dynamics: they perform. But the words are supplied by the writer. True Love gives the mummers the opportunity to go the extra mile. A series of five half-hour films going out across the week and set in a seaside town, it is the latest work from the defiantly lo-fi director Dominic Savage.At a time when drama departments were mostly commissioning cop shows, Savage made his reputation with a loose trilogy of films that descended circle by circle into an inferno of social deprivation. Nice Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
Just as the most impeccably aristocratic families have the shabbiest homes, so the oldest and most prestigious orchestras frequently deliver the most scrappy performances. Trying too hard is so arriviste. King of this insouciant shabby chic are the Vienna Philharmonic. It's almost as if at some point the orchestra got bored of playing well. One hundred and sixty years at the top delivering the world's warmest, plushest, most sophisticated sound must get repetitive. That's not to say that we didn't get some glorious Viennese cream. We did. But we also got a deliberate untidiness that Read more ...
Ismene Brown
The Japanese dance public is overwhelmingly female, so it’s not surprising that Pina Bausch’s paean to Saitama, Ten Chi, is so girly. The fourth in the series of “World Cities” that’s sold out London’s two great dance centres, the Barbican and Sadler’s Wells, this late Bausch (2004) is pregnant with wish-fulfilment, gorgeous young men doing sexy things like watching while women bathe or disrobe, while a vast, muscular whale’s tail plunges erotically into the earth and soft plucking music washes through the darkness."Ten Chi" means, I understand, Heaven and Earth, and this is a safe escapist Read more ...
philip radcliffe
The exceptionally moving and heartwarming story of more than 10,000 mostly Jewish children being brought to the safe haven of these shores between December 1938 and September 1939 to rescue them from being victims of the Holocaust, Kindertransport, has oft been told. But now we hear it afresh through the voices of children in a dramatised re-telling. The coincidence of composer Carl Davis’s interest in this extraordinary experience and the Halle’s desire to commission new work for their children’s choir has resulted in Last Train to Tomorrow.“I wanted to focus on the journey before the Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Male dancers are a puzzle to British audiences, where they are an uncomplicated, taken-for-granted treasure in Latin or Slav countries. I point this out gratuitously, as it's a point that wasn't touched upon by Melvyn Bragg's film about three iconic men of ballet, Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Carlos Acosta.But this was not a historical survey of attitudes to male dancers and how Oliver Cromwell messed with British heads - that interesting possibility remains unrealised on TV. This was about the act of fleeing slavery to find freedom, from constricted motherland to liberated Western Read more ...
fisun.guner
What a mismatch of ambitions was unearthed in this Culture Show special on the ArcelorMittal Orbit. Boris Johnson admitted that he’d wanted slides on it, joking heartily that “there’s nothing too vulgar for me”, whilst Anish Kapoor wished for it to be “up there with the gods”, and mused that it had moments that were meditative and contemplative. Meanwhile, the artist expressed sheer horror that the Olympic Authorities where keen to call it “an attraction”, despite the public’s insistence on calling it a helter-skelter. Then there was some lofty talk of it representing the nature of flux in Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“This is such fun”. Martin Horntveth, Jaga Jazzist’s drummer, can’t contain his excitement. Standing up behind his kit, he radiates joy. Considering that he and his band are Norwegian, typically not given to overstatement, what he describes as fun would be off the pleasure scale by non-Nordic standards. The meeting of Jaga Jazzist and The Britten Sinfonia was an unqualified success, one of those rare one-off concerts where band and their temporary collaborators seamlessly connect.The Norwegian instrumentalists and the British ensemble came together at The Barbican last night as part of the on Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Best Coast has always been the quintessential California band, an identity the duo has embraced so fully that the artwork for their latest album features the bear that is the state’s mascot. It would be clichéd to remark on the unsuitability of the band’s sun-kissed fuzz-pop for the sort of damp, drizzly evening that soaks through three layers, so it was a relief that frontwoman Bethany Cosentino did it for me. “We thought we’d bring you some sunshine,” she said, introducing “Summer Mood” from buzzworthy 2010 debut Crazy For You, “but I guess not. We like it though.”But then, that’s the Read more ...
theartsdesk
Can: The Lost TapesKieron TylerDespite being compiled from previously unreleased material, the extraordinary The Lost Tapes is as wonderful as last year's 40th Anniversary edition of Tago Mago. This archive trawl outpaces previous exhumations like Limited Edition, Unlimited Edition, Delay ‘68 and Prehistoric Future by a very long distance. Not because it’s a three-CD set, but due to the sheer quality of what’s heard. Can still had material on the shelf equalling what they issued. Little is from the post-Damo Suzuki configuration of the band (it’s roughly half-and-half between the Suzuki and Read more ...
graham.rickson
Britten: Serenade for tenor, horn and strings; Nocturne; Finzi: Dies Natalis Mark Padmore, Britten Sinfonia/Jacqueline Shave, with Stephen Bell (horn) (Harmonia Mundi)Britten’s Serenade and Nocturne are still indelibly associated with the voice of Peter Pears. His tenor, undeniably characterful, could never be described as a thing of beauty, and his 1960s recordings of both works show him sadly past his prime. Mark Padmore’s new recording is terrific - his voice is expressive, beautiful and terrifying by turns. Britten’s unique talent for word-setting deployed unnerving skill in the Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Mary Shelley and all her works have dogged the footsteps of contemporary theatre — in a way that’s a bit reminiscent of her most famous creation. Last year, there was Frankenstein at the National and this year a revival of Howard Brenton’s Bloody Poetry (about the Shelley/Byron ménage) on the fringe. Now, following the success of their Brontë, Shared Experience theatre company are back in London with a new Mrs Shelley docudrama.The good news is that Mary’s story is a perpetually interesting one. Born in 1797, she was the daughter of the radical philosopher William Godwin and Mary Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Sex Pistols played their final live show on 14 January 1978 in San Francisco. According to the third and final programme in the Punk Britannia series, “for many, it would be the end of punk”. It certainly was for ex-Pistol John Lydon, who'd form Public Image Ltd. Taking on the task of tracing what happened next was a challenge. Nothing was neat. Loose ends, new strands and evolution of the existing meant it couldn’t be. If this programme succeeded, it was in portraying the turmoil that came in punk’s wake.Bringing order where there is chaos is always difficult. As an overview of the Read more ...