Reviews
David Nice
Trouble? What trouble? There may be the odd reader who doesn't get past the Austerlitz sequence of War and Peace, and many who don't brave the master's last big novel questioning church and state, Resurrection, but that's their problem, not Tolstoy's. He is indeed - as Professor Anthony Briggs, the other star of this two-part documentary, states - the God of the novel. As a man, he was troubled to his dying day, and eventually a trouble to the state. Yet while "what is life for?" is not a phrase I like to hear fall from Alan Yentob's lips, I can't fault this beautifully filmed Read more ...
graham.rickson
Bradford, once the worsted capital of the world, now employs fewer than 1,000 workers in the textile industry. Some of the disused mills have been transformed into tourist attractions – nearby Salts Mill has a huge collection of artwork by David Hockney and a posh bistro. Drummonds Mill has lain silent since closure, to be reopened temporarily for Freedom Studios’ production of The Mill – City of Dreams. Drummonds Mill is just north of the city centre. It’s a huge hulk of a building. You step carefully over the cobbles, and weeds, before being directed in through a back door by smiling Read more ...
Russ Coffey
After a couple of false starts, former Beautiful South frontman Paul Heaton’s last solo album finally received the high critical praise of the old days. But at 49 you can’t imagine him really caring too much about anyone else’s approval. This is the ex-alcoholic, after all, whose last tour was conducted by bicycle around the pubs of the North of England, who unashamedly told the world he was once a football hooligan, and who once set up a community bike park in Hull. When they made Heaton, they sure as hell broke the mould.Stylistically, Acid Country, the new(ish) album, finally echoes much Read more ...
graham.rickson
This week, we’ve a Russian flavour – historic, idiomatic performances of Tchaikovsky symphonies, and exciting readings of Shostakovich piano concertos. And there’s a sackbut recital…Shostakovich, Piano Concertos, Piano Quintet, Martin Helmchen (piano), London Philharmonic Orchestra/Vladimir Jurowski (LPO)
Start with the coupling, a studio recording of Shostakovich’s 1940 Piano Quintet, a perfectly balanced blend of wit, poise and profundity. From the opening neo-classical flourish to its haunting, drily ironic close, this performance impresses. Martin Helmchen takes the work seriously and Read more ...
bruce.dessau
One of my most enjoyable gig-going experiences last year was seeing Mick Jones guesting with Gorillaz at the Roundhouse. The former Clash guitarist was clearly loving every minute of it. So much, in fact, that shortly afterwards he decided to reform his second-best band, Big Audio Dynamite, for a short UK tour, including the first of two London dates last night. But after two decades since this original line-up played together, the burning question was would this be a cynical, pension-funding slog, an arthritis-fuelled embarrassment, or something special?Within the first few beats and Read more ...
fisun.guner
A cult suggests unhealthy worship, and there’s more than a whiff of that in the heady decadence of the V&A’s latest art and design blockbuster, The Cult of Beauty. This is an exhibition which examines how the influence of a small clique of artists grew to inspire ideas not only about soft furnishings and the House Beautiful, but to influence a whole way of life, teaching the aspiring Victorian bohemian how, in the words of Oscar Wilde, “to live up to the beauty of one’s teapot”. And as one might expect, the exhibition is beautifully designed, in a way that suggests you might have stumbled Read more ...
Jasper Rees
There are certain film-makers who like to give themselves a headache. Buried confined its only character to a coffin. Phone Booth stuck Colin Farrell in – what else? – a phone booth. Essential Killing imposes another kind of confinement on its main character: it maroons him in silence. It could be argued that cinema has long experience of keeping its mouth shut. They did without dialogue until 1927. But give or take the odd bravura exception – say, the eloquent first 15 minutes of Once Upon a Time in the West - film has lost the habit of making do without words.The actor tasked with carrying Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Often at gigs by bands of a certain vintage, the fans can look like they're on a special awayday: like they've dug their T-shirts out of the back of the drawer and geared themselves up for one last canter round the paddock. Not so for Killing Joke. At the Royal Festival Hall last night, a very large section of the crowd had the look of still actively living very rock'n'roll lives, and of having done so for at least the last 30 years. “How many times have you seen them?” asked a shaven-headed gent in the seat next to me. “This'll be my 46th Joke gig,” he continued with obvious pride. This is Read more ...
David Nice
What's this? Goosebumps? Tears? Surely not in the usually brittle world of the Savoy operas. Yet handle Sullivan's pathos with tenderness, make everyone believe in a recognition scene between a sinning fairy and her preening peer of a husband, and the spectators will be putty in your hands. It helps that they've already been softened by top-notch baritones, tenors and falsettists, tickled by dance routines and amazed by the freshness of Gilbert's lyrics - all suffused by the glow of Wilton's Music Hall, which can incline us to take even a spoof fairyland a little seriously. Lloyd Webber, eat Read more ...
howard.male
Thank goodness for selective memory, because although I remember that pop music had something of a mid-life crisis between the sequin explosion of glam rock and the spittle tsunami of punk rock, I had been blissfully spared comprehensive recall of all the grizzly details. That is until I watched what turned out to be another of those cheap-to-make caffeine-charged documentaries which goes off on so many tangents that it’s hard to recall what it was meant to be about in the first place. For last night’s look at what was described as a pivotal year for the BBC’s once-essential weekly viewing Read more ...
David Nice
If you're going to put on a show about putting on a show, you gotta get a gimmick, as a wise man not unconnected with the late Jack Rosenthal's autobiographical comedy once wrote. Put it another way: if the show/film/TV series depicted is compromised, you need something or someone off-centre to stand out from the crowd. In Barton Fink, it was a hotel corridor and what the Coen Brothers did with it; in BBC Two's Episodes, it's Tamsin Greig's low-key, ironic bewilderment. Here it takes the shape of a five-minute comic turn from Carrie Quinlan as Mancunian room service.Let's not labour the point Read more ...
emma.simmonds
Matthew Bissonnette’s third feature Passenger Side is a mellow, honey-hued road movie which sees two discordant brothers combing the streets of Los Angeles with an initially mysterious purpose. A likeable diversion, for the most part it’s a nicely played two-hander depicting the rekindling of a sibling bond.The reluctant but ultimately obliging driver is Michael (Adam Scott), the older brother of Tobey (Joel Bissonnette), who takes his seat on the passenger side. Michael has agreed to chauffeur Tobey around for the best part of a beautiful sun-blushed day, without knowing why, and they make Read more ...