Reviews
David Nice
A front-rank pianist only takes on Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in full confidence of being able to handle the massive bells and blazing chants of its grand finale, “The Great Gate of Kiev”. To risk it in a far from large café space adds to the element of danger and excited anticipation. Louis Schwizgebel, sonorous master of the house Bechstein – already an instrument designed not to overwhelm – carried it off with high radiance. It will be a long time before we can experience again the full orchestral blaze of Ravel’s peerless orchestration, so this was – despite even the pianist’s Read more ...
Laura de Lisle
Ah, 2015. Those halcyon days of packed theatres. Thank God the RSC had the presence of mind to film Polly Findlay’s production of The Merchant of Venice, now streaming on BBC iPlayer. Condensed into just over two hours, it’s a thoughtful take on Shakespeare’s most problematic of plays, with a blinding central performance from Patsy Ferran as Portia. The character of Shylock (played here by Arab-Israeli actor Makram J Khoury, pictured left) and the gentile characters’ hostile reactions to his Jewishness have always sat uneasily in the Shakespearean pantheon. As has the play itself Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It may be one of the first movies to be shown in cinemas post-lockdown, but Unhinged is a pale ghost of some much better movies. Its headlining hook is the presence of Russell Crowe in the central role of a road-rage vigilante itching to find victims upon whom to vent his spleen – at one point he gives his name as Tom Cooper, but it probably isn’t – yet Crowe is barely recognisable as the star who bossed Gladiator or rocked the house in LA Confidential. You could almost imagine he picked this role because they paid him to loom large on screen while having to learn hardly any dialogue.Director Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
Like a sub-par Natural Born Killers for Gen Z, director-screenwriter Joshua Caldwell’s latest film, featuring Disney-child-star-turned-porn-director Bella Thorne, tackles the perils of social media like a parent trying to navigate TikTok. Arielle (Thorne) is a provocative Florida teen whose sole desire is to become famous any way she can. After a video of Arielle beating up a girl in a night club goes viral, she sees her road to stardom lies in making videos of violent acts to boost her online profile. Having dragged reluctant ex-con Dean (Jake Manley) along for the ride, Read more ...
Kathryn Reilly
Be careful what you wish for. Turns out the dream that most bands yearn for isn't all it's cracked up to be. Fontaines DC's debut album, Dogrel went large (and won a Mercury Prize nomination and BBC 6 Music's Album of the Year). They toured like crazy and nearly imploded. But, just a year later, they're back. And this time it's personal. The title song perhaps explains the progression "that was the year of the sneer now the real thing's here".So you won't find the "post-punk bangers" of yore. Or tales of Dublin back streets. It's a completely different affair – bleak, bold and Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Prince of Wales, Prince Regent, and finally King: George IV, (1762-1830) was an unpopular and greedy ruler, but his compulsive collecting and passion for redecorating have made a huge contribution to the arts of the nation, and form a significant part of the Royal Collection. The elegant Queen’s Gallery has now re-opened with a sumptuous display of his over-the-top royal carry-on, spanning the aftermath of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.He was wildly and continually in debt, his coronation in 1821 costing many millions. After a decade of living at Carlton House, his debts were Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
We knew that Michael Sheen was a skilful and versatile actor, but lately he’s been getting dangerously good. Last year he roared into the third season of The Good Fight as the outrageous drug-fuelled lawyer Roland Blum, like an explosive fusion of his fellow-Welshmen Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins. Now, after wickedly impersonating Chris Tarrant in ITV’s Quiz and indulging in some comical actor-baiting in the BBC’s Staged, he arrives in Sky 1’s new US import Prodigal Son as the brilliant Dr Martin Whitly.But behind his suave and charming exterior, Dr Whitly is a profoundly deranged serial Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
On one level this documentary could be summed up as “parents have baby”, but since the parents in question are “Britain’s most prominent transgender couple”, it was a lot more complicated than that. Jake Graf used to be a woman and his wife Hannah was previously a man, and the path to having their first child caused them considerable soul-searching.You might ask why they would want to have a Channel 4 film crew pursuing them during a stressful year in which they searched for a surrogate mother and tracked down a suitable sperm donor. Perhaps they considered it a way of demonstrating to a Read more ...
Veronica Lee
After drive-ins, now come Covid-secure outdoor shows as the comedy industry tries to find its way back to normality. Battersea Arts Centre is utilising its hitherto unused courtyard for a season of outdoor comedy, during which Al Murray and Russell Howard will perform.The courtyard accommodates fewer than 50 people – about 30 seated, the rest standing – and the audience had to wear masks throughout. We were encouraged to laugh rather than smile by MC Luke Kempner as we sat like a “bunch of assassins”.Fortunately there was a lot to laugh at. The comic, as well as being a jovial host, is a Read more ...
David Nice
There is genius not only in the rainbow hues of Pavel Kolesnikov’s playing but also in the way his chosen programmes resonate. He’s given us interconnected wonders from across the centuries, but chose to focus on the greatest of composers for the piano in only his third such recital. His first all-Chopin concert was given in sentimental homage to his birthplace, Novosibirsk; the second was a BBC Lunchtime Prom of Mazurkas; and this third, under circumstances even more exceptional than the Prom, brought light to his first UK audience after lockdown – a privileged 25 of us each evening.In Read more ...
Graham Fuller
It’s no accident that the eponymous young antihero of Coincoin and the Extra-Humans loses his virginity to the daughter of a French white nationalist in a field close to a sewage farm. The stench of racism pervades the hilarity of Bruce Dumont’s follow-up to his 2014 miniseries Le P’tit Quinquin, which happily features the same principal cast members. Available in four 52-minute episodes but more hypnotic when watched in one sitting, Coincoin is a deceptively gentle polemical comedy so rich in ideas it deserves its own sequel. Hopefully, the story of the Pas-de-Calais farmer’s son Read more ...
David Nice
Things fell apart; the Centre Right could not hold. Anne Applebaum knows it from the inside. A Reaganite with whom I imagine a civilized conversation would have been possible even in former times married to a Polish politician, now MEP, Radek Sikorski, whose many good deeds speak louder than his views, Applebaum has produced a concise, lucid and very readable summary of how it all went wrong. She reminds us of key happenings in the unhappy chronology while summoning up a range of figures on the scene, now so-called populists and including erstwhile friends, to root it all in the specific.The Read more ...