Reviews
Markie Robson-Scott
Cassandra and her sister – or perhaps they’re friends or lovers – seem extraordinarily in tune. Like choreographed dancers, they move precisely in unison, down to tripping over their scarves at the same moment or flopping drunkenly into bed together while a cell phone buzzes beside them unanswered, on and on into the night.Slowly, however, it becomes apparent that actually there’s only one Cass and, flipping the idea of actors playing their own twins on its head, she’s played by two women: Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, who co-wrote and co-starred in their acclaimed original two-hander play Read more ...
David Nice
It seems right that (arguably) the greatest orchestra in the world has (unarguably) the best livestreaming and archive service. Thanks to a vital musicians’ Covid testing set-up, the Berlin Philharmoniker is even more supreme online now that it can field a full team for a work as opulently hard-hitting as Prokofiev’s Sixth Symphony, without distancing – pairs of string players share stands – even if also, still, without a live audience. The programming has been uncommonly interesting lately, with a "Golden Twenties" series featuring rich and rare repertoire, but even a one-off guest Read more ...
India Lewis
Unsettling, unremitting and psychologically stark, Klara and the Sun has all the hallmarks of a traditional Ishiguro novel. Dealing with his familiar themes of loss and love and the question of what makes us human, the book follows the "life" of an Artificial Friend (AF) called Klara, taken from her store of robot compatriots and left to navigate the complex world of human emotions. These AFs are companions for the children of this world, there throughout their infancy and then discarded as they reach maturity. Set against this background, the AFs' devotion to their children points to the Read more ...
Jessica Duchen
Sergey Prokofiev died on 5 March 1953, on the same day as Stalin. Perhaps that uncomfortable coincidence makes March the perfect time for a festival of Russian music. Pushkin House, the Russian cultural centre based in a Georgian villa in Bloomsbury, is holding one right now. Filmed in their empty salon, their chamber music and solo recitals are online to view for several weeks, the concerts released one at a time on designated days, and offering some familiar music, but focusing on much that is unexpected and occasionally revelatory. After an engaging introductory talk by the festival Read more ...
Lydia Bunt
Katherine Angel borrows the title of her latest book, Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again, from an essay by Foucault. The phrase parodies the supposed sexual liberation on the horizon in the ‘60s and ‘70s, picking apart the notion that sexuality and pleasure are intrinsically linked to some future freedom to speak. For Angel, too, there is no single place or time where desire will be perfect; the notion is, rather, a perpetual work in progress. Accordingly, in the ironically titled Tomorrow, she challenges the notion that consent means good sex. Sometimes, women do not know exactly what they want Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Viscaynes ought to have been a footnote. A minor footnote. From Vallejo in north California, they were one amongst many early Sixties vocal groups giving it a shot. Some were lucky and had hits. The Earls, The Impalas and Randy & The Rainbows did. Like The Marcels, who charted with “Blue Moon”, they were all rooted in the doo wop sound. Despite their three singles – including the Marcels referencing “Yellow Moon” – The Viscaynes did not break through to national success.Nonetheless, Yellow Moon – The Complete Recordings 1961–1962 is a meticulous 19-track compilation dedicated to what Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
Hot on the heels of her 2019 triumph Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma’s fifth feature continues a perfect track record; this is yet another gorgeous and perceptive film, told from a determinedly female perspective but with a wisdom that is all-embracing. Having started her career with films about children (Water Lilies, Tomboy), before moving to teenagers (Girlhood) and then adults (Portrait), Sciamma now takes on three generations at once – a girl, her mother and grandmother – to consider the threads of memory, personality and time that connect them. Her approach is Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Joerg and Anna Winger’s gripping drama of East Germany, a loose portrait set over the final decade of that country’s existence, has reached its culmination, and this first episode of Deutschland 89 landed us right in the unpredictable maelstrom of history. Following on from Deutschland 83 and Deutschland 86, the thriller and espionage elements of those two predecessors have been folded with true aplomb into the real-life events that reached their unforeseen conclusion with crowds of East Germans breaking through the Berlin Wall – or the “Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart”, as it’s occasionally Read more ...
Saskia Baron
There was always something a little diffident about teenage Marion Elliott-Said, who created her on-stage persona Poly Styrene after putting together her band X-Ray Spex from a small ad in the back pages of the NME in 1977. Male fans and the music press wanted her to be a punky sex kitten thrashing around on stage, but she was always more thoughtful in her lyrics, which touched on slavery, gender stereotypes, genetic engineering and our limitless hunger for shiny plastic goods.Born in ‘57 and raised on a council estate in South London by her English mother, she didn’t see much of her Somalian Read more ...
David Nice
In amongst the heavy-hearted duty of supporting orchestras by watching their concert streamings – not something I’d do by choice – there are two real joys here. One is the discovery of Austrian composer Franz Schreker’s Chamber Symphony of 1916. The other is witnessing the London Symphony Orchestra's co-principal oboist Juliana Koch playing to an audience – obviously not a group of lucky people sitting upstairs, as we were allowed to do in better times, but her fellow players, most of whom she’s allowed to face, thanks to the special distribution of the LSO in St Luke's.Koch’s is, in any case Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Eddie Murphy – one of the biggest stars of the 1980s – has taken his time in making a sequel to the enormously successful Coming to America, which was released in 1988. In that film, directed by John Landis, Murphy played another of his cheeky, quick-talking and knowing comedy roles; as Akeem, a prince from the fictional African nation of Zamunda.It was an amusing fish-out-of-water, culture-clash comedy, as Akeem escaped an arranged marriage and, with his best friend Semmi (Arsenio Hall), fled to Queens, where he fell in love with Lisa (Shari Headley), who loved him for himself and not his Read more ...
Saskia Baron
Can a film be both too long and too short? If so, Into the Darkness definitely fits the bill. Anders Refn’s long-nurtured family epic follows Karl Skov (Jesper Christensen, more famous as a Bond villain), a self-made Danish industrialist who struggles with his conscience when his country surrenders to Germany in 1940. Should Skov refuse to manufacture the goods required by his new masters and risk losing not only his comfortable home but also deprive his loyal workers of their livelihood too? And what choices should his sons and daughter make about who they consort Read more ...