Reviews
Bernard Hughes
Unlike the other two Proms I’ve reviewed this season, last night’s by the Philharmonia did not have any bells and whistles when it came to the staging, nor did it explore the edges of the repertoire. But the repertoire choices were good: progressing from the chamber orchestra forces of the first two pieces to finish with Mozart’s last and beefiest symphony, although Mozart at his beefiest is still no Bruckner.The originally-billed Esa-Pekka Salonen withdrew from the concert and his late replacement was Paavo Järvi (pictured below). He clearly enjoyed himself, conducting with a wry smile Read more ...
Markie Robson-Scott
Not to be confused with Savages, the Oliver Stone film of 2012 about marijuana smuggling, Savage is a story of New Zealand street gangs: how to join and how to escape, which, when you’ve got the words Savages and Poneke (the Maori name for Wellington, where the film is set) tattooed on your face, like Danny, aka Damage (Jake Ryan), is not going to be easy.There’s a lot of standing around in the dark beside fires in braziers in scabby back yards, beer-drinking, claw-hammer-wielding and endless grunting of the F and C words. Most of the gang-members, impressive though they look (many of them Read more ...
mark.kidel
Based on a novel by Jerzy Kosinski, The Painted Bird is an extraordinarily powerful chronicle of a young Jewish boy’s survival in Eastern Europe, the scene of some of the most terrible violence, inhumanity, and depredation during the Second World War. The Czech director Vacláv Marhoul worked on the project for more than 10 years. It's a labour of very dark love.The child, separated from his parents, wanders through a horrific landscape, inhabited by peasants whose lives have barely changed since the Middle Ages, Soviet and Nazi troops ravaging the land as if possessed by all the most Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
I’ve been missing the sound of applause. That realisation dawned on me on the couple of occasions when it broke out spontaneously in last night’s Prom. There was no audience at Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff Bay, so these particular bouts of hand-clapping were coming from the orchestral musicians of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. And it definitely wasn’t that slightly precious, tapping-on-the-music-stands thing (where did that ever come from?) It was sincere, real, loud and strong – and truly touching. One occasion that it happened was when the musicians showed their appreciation for Read more ...
David Nice
In the course of this short (65 minute) film, 15-year-old Sócrates wanders around Santos, in the state of Brazil’s São Paolo, and the nearby coast after the death of his mother, rejected at one point or another by everyone with whom he comes in contact, just as he rejects the worst options. There’s no happiness to be found here – the boy smiles, winningly, maybe twice in the entire film – but some redemption in the passing beauty of the skilful filmmaking and the charisma of the leading actor, Christian Malheiros.The harsh lessons here are no doubt true to life: the film was made by Alexandre Read more ...
David Nice
Blessed are the players and musical organisations who adapt and innovate, for they shall inhabit the post-lockdown landscape. And while we appreciate the difficulties any orchestra faces in terms of re-opening logistics and costs, livestreams have their limit. Kings Place, under the aegis of which this event was held, Snape Maltings, Bold Tendencies in Peckham's Multi-Storey Car Park, Scottish Opera, Battersea Park Bandstand Chamber Music, the Fidelio Orchestra Cafe and the Wigmore Hall, admitting a public very soon, are the heroes now.Even the thrill this audience member got from the first A Read more ...
David Nice
Let’s start by echoing Simon Rattle’s sense of “how lucky we are”, in our case to be able to share with a 75-piece City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra its centenary to the very day, and celebrate the programme, the performers, the front man too (that superlative actor Adrian Lester, born in Birmingham to Jamaican immigrants). The overall presentation, alas, not so much. The welcome presence of Midlander Sheku Kanneh-Mason as soloist in Saint-Saëns' First Cello Concerto (pictured below) only reminded some of us how he was filmed playing the same work (don’t orchestras compare notes?), just Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
In what would have been the year her father, the legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar turned 100, sitarist and composer Anoushka Shankar pays tribute to him and builds on his legacy in this online Prom. The pre-recorded first half saw Shankar collaborate with electronic producer, composer and performer Gold Panda for a half hour long continuous piece, Variations. Written in response to her experiences of her father as a teacher, recordings of Ravi Shankar’s instructions on how to perform ragas were sampled, with Anoushka’s playing demonstrating his insights. The piece soon evolved into a Read more ...
Laura de Lisle
A woman sits on a bench. She’s got a song stuck in her head – she can’t remember how one of the lines ends, so it keeps going round and round. It mingles with birdsong, idle musings on whether birds look down on us (figuratively as well as literally), and worries about the strange pain in her chest. The woman’s name is Sarah (Laura White), and she’s not speaking out loud. Luckily, all of us audience members can hear what she’s thinking.This is the conceit of the beautifully, gently bonkers C-o-n-t-a-c-t, a new promenade show from Musidrama that ran in France earlier in the year. It’s entirely Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s Prom was a sombre contribution to an otherwise upbeat season. The mood was reflective – looking back on lockdown. The concert was given at City Halls, Glasgow, where the privations of social distancing were also more keenly felt than in the Albert Hall. Where London orchestras are able to spread out into the choir stalls, the BBCSSO had to severely restrict their numbers, even with the stage expanded significantly into the stalls. The result was a chamber orchestra programme, dominated by string elegies.Thomas Dausgaard had been due to conduct, but the Read more ...
Christopher Lambton
Picture the scene. A vast steel gazebo covers a nondescript parking lot next to an industrial unit in Glasgow. With a clear plastic covering, it is the most rudimentary of shelters, sides open to admit the roar of the M8 and the wailing of sirens, carried on a keen autumnal breeze. About 100 people, all wearing masks, are seated at a random scattering of mismatched but carefully distanced chairs and tables, loosely grouped around a central stage. Around the perimeter, a scattering of tents, shipping containers, and flatbed lorry trailers, one of which is furnished to look like a dilapidated Read more ...
Saskia Baron
The only thing confusing with Les Misérables is its pointedly provocative title, as there are no costumed urchins and no singing involved. Searching online to find the UK cinemas where it’s playing this week entails a trek past the execrable 2012 musical of the same name, but it’s well worth tracking down a screen that's showing this exhilarating and intelligent new film.Les Misérables 2019 won festival prizes last year and was a box office hit in France and Hong Kong before covid delayed its UK opening. The action is set over two days in Montfermeil (the location shared Read more ...