Reviews
Saskia Baron
The animation may be stunning, but in every other department, Lightyear is a disappointment. It’s a crying shame for anyone who loved the original Toy Story and its (mainly) excellent sequels. If you were expecting a buzz from Pixar’s origin story, brace yourself instead for a damp squib. We’re told in a caption that what we're about to see is the sci-fi movie that Andy watched back in 1995, the thrilling adventure that inspired him to jettison his beloved cowboy figure Woody in favour of macho astronaut Buzz Lightyear. But something went wrong in Angus MacLane’s Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Renowned for an impressive body of work that includes This House, Quiz and Brexit: The Uncivil War, playwright and screenwriter James Graham has looked inwards and backwards for his new six-part series Sherwood.Set in a former mining community in Nottinghamshire, based on the author’s own home town, Sherwood (BBC One) charts a story of increasing violence and bitterness, based on real-life incidents that took place in the miners’ strike back in 1984.The historical background is evoked by newsreel footage from the Eighties of lines of police battling miners, and Prime Minister Margaret Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Sitting in a huge marquee on a June evening, with the sun peeking through every gap in the canopy, it is quite a stretch to imagine yourself in the remote countryside of rural Russia. But this new production of Eugene Onegin manages that, and with a minimum of means.This performance was the first from the Young Artists team at Holland Park. The main cast premiered the show on 31 May, but two performances and two school matinees, are being given by this completely separate line-up, with its own cast, director and conductor. The aim is artist development, and it is an impressive programme, now Read more ...
Saskia Baron
French filmmakers do family dramas so well, and none better than François Ozon when he is on form, as he is on Everything Went Fine.André (veteran charmer André Dussolier) is a wealthy industrialist and art dealer who, after suffering a debilitating stroke at the age of 85, has no wish to live a diminished life. His two daughters try to persuade him that the future still holds many pleasures, but over several months Emmanuèle (Sophie Marceau) agrees to make the covert arrangements for her father to travel to Switzerland. Assisted suicide is outlawed in France.The legendary Fassbinder Read more ...
Sarah Kent
If you need an excuse to spend a day in the charming seaside town of Whitstable, the Biennale is it. After a four-year hiatus, the festival is back with a somewhat edgy, apocalyptic feel.For instance, Webb/Ellis’ film This Place is a Message (St John’s Methodist Chapel, pictured below) features a group of teenagers hanging out in a disused chalk quarry in a part of the country long listed for the burial of nuclear waste. What symbol would they choose to warn future generations of the presence of this hazardous residue?It’s a bit like a philosophy class that includes communicating with beings Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Nobody could ever force guitarist Pat Metheny into doing the touring schedule he imposes upon himself. The 67 year-old still does well over 100 concerts a year. The current European tour alone, which started at the end of April and finishes in 10 days' time contains no fewer than 44 dates.And there is no holding back with the length of the sets either. An enquiry to the promoter prior to last night’s London concert at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith revealed that his team were expecting him to do a single two-hour set without a break. In the event, the set was just over two and a half hours Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
According to the programme, La bohème is (probably) the most performed opera, by the most performed operatic composer. Ever. So, what is it about this piece that continues to enthral, inspire and intrigue artists and audiences alike?Perhaps it’s that the characters – a group of young Parisians in the mid 19th century – are so relatable to so many, regardless of age, class or nationality. Or perhaps it’s the nostalgic pining for youth that seems to echo throughout the piece (Puccini was nearly 40 by the time he finished composing the work). A more pertinent question, however, may be “how does Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
A guessing game could be played prior to Harry Styles taking to the stage at this gig, the first night of his UK tour and, as he later noted, his first stadium show as a solo act. There were ripples of excitement whenever anyone was near the stage as devoted fans tried to work out if that was the man himself getting ready to appear, and given that some fans had been camping out overnight in Glasgow just to be near the front, you can understand such feverish anticipation. When Styles finally strolled out, clad in a sequinned yellow and blue outfit that suggested he was just off the ranch, a Read more ...
Katie Colombus
Ever since his re-staging of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Matthew Bourne has managed to update the art of storytelling through dance steps and gesture in a way that others have struggled to achieve.This new re-working of his 2000 dance-noir, The Car Man, has been adapted for the Royal Albert Hall with a catwalk stage that allows the audience to get up close and very personal with the dancers.In "Harmony, population 975", a mysterious stranger (Will Bozier as Luca) arrives in answer to a sign that reads "Man Wanted", and carnal havoc ensues. Lana, played seductively by Zizi Strallen, grows into Read more ...
Maria Stuarda, Irish National Opera review – two queens sing for the crown, with spectacular results
David Nice
You don’t plan a production of a Donizetti opera without having top voices in mind. For what, after all, is his simplification of Schiller’s Mary Stuart but bel canto business as usual with a bit of high drama attached? Internationally celebrated Irish singers Tara Erraught and Anna Devin (Amy Ní Fhearraigh at some performances) are the royal cousins at deadly loggerheads. They don’t disappoint; nor do the rest of the cast, orchestra and chorus.If director Tom Creed and designer Katie Davenport throw in more than a dash of camp around the central conflict, that’s mostly par for the course. Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Like her first two features, Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Earwig is an oneiric coming-of-age drama that uses body horror imagery as a metaphor for the daunting unknowns – sexual and emotional – to be encountered in adulthood.Eschewing narrative logic, which some viewers will find frustrating, it depicts the ordeal of a little girl who has failed to develop secondary teeth. The unexplained involvement of her protector with a waitress, which is limned with erotic violence, intersects with the girl’s story. It dilutes the maturation theme, but amps up the movie’s power by adding layers of Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In 1966, the combo fronted by French sax player Barney Wilen issued an album of musical interpretations of each sign of the zodiac. In the US in 1969, Mort Garson released 12 albums, each dedicated to a single sign. Two years earlier Garson was behind the one-sign-per-track Cosmic Sounds album, credited to The Zodiac. Back in 1945, bop pianist Mary Lou Williams made an album – over six 10-inch discs – titled Signs Of The Zodiac.Taking inspiration from the signs of the zodiac wasn’t unusual. But Wilen’s album approached what could have been cheesy from a perspective acknowledging that this was Read more ...