Reviews
aleks.sierz
Theatre can touch thousands of lives. But can it compete with the success of a bestselling book? First published in 1988, mountaineer Joe Simpson's Touching the Void has apparently sold more than a million copies, and it's been translated into some 20 languages. It tells the adventure story of how he, and Simon Yates, climbed the Siula Grande peak in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. Last year, David Greig's stage adaptation of the book opened at the Bristol Old Vic, and then went on tour. Now the much-praised show comes into the West End, and it's an odd mix of the vertiginous and the banal.Set Read more ...
Richard Bratby
The Beggar’s Opera: does any piece of music theatre promise more fun and deliver more tedium? Yes, it was the satirical smash of 1728; yes, it inspired Brecht and Weill; yes, with its combination of popular melodies and a topical script it was effectively the world’s first jukebox musical. I get all that. I'm fortunate enough to live with an historian of 18th century theatre. Seriously: we talk about John Rich and Colley Cibber over breakfast. Yet time and again, as another thicket of Georgian slang gives way to another blink-and-you-miss-it musical number, I’ve found myself thinking of David Read more ...
Tom Baily
Once again the whodunit becomes the whoforgedit in the newest installment of the Britain’s Lost Masterpieces series. Host and art historian Bendor Grosvenor introduces us to what is one of the most beautiful he’s ever seen: a Madonna and Child believed to have been done by Sandro Botticelli, one of the members of “painting’s Premier League”. Much sleuthing is needed to verify the work, and to satisfy Grosvenor’s appetite.Social historian Emma Dabiri delves into the background of the work’s previous owner, the wealthy Gwendoline Davies, who bequeathed it to Cardiff Art Gallery in 1952. Davies Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
For better or worse, because of Visconti’s classic film the Adagietto of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony now inevitably means Venice in its gloomiest moods. So there turned out to be a grim timeliness in a performance on an evening that coincided with the most devastating “acqua alta” to flood the city in half a century. Yet, in keeping with everything he does with the London Philharmonia Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski’s reading at the Royal Festival Hall made us think afresh about an iconic work and dispel its more hackneyed, reach-me-down associations.Not for Jurowski the languid late-Romantic swoon Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
Forty years after the classic, multi-Oscar winning Kramer v Kramer comes another divorce drama involving two young Americans and a son caught in the crossfire. And this one is even better. Marriage Story is a sublime film, a heart-breaking, intimate epic. It’s written and directed by Noah Baumbach, the New Yorker whose impressive back catalogue includes The Squid and The Whale (also about divorce), Greenberg and Frances Ha. His new film leaves no stone unturned in its dissection of marital upheaval. And it features superb, deeply moving Read more ...
Marianka Swain
It’s been 15 years since Cameron Mackintosh’s stage musical version of P. L. Travers’ Mary Poppins made its West End debut. Now, the magical nanny returns to the Prince Edward Theatre, with Zizi Strallen (who also headlined the UK tour) succeeding her sister Scarlett in the title role – all set to capitalise on the recent Emily Blunt-starring film sequel renewing our interest in the adventures of the Banks family.“I fear what’s to happen all happened before,” muses Charlie Stemp’s Bert at the start of the show. Well, yes and no. Fans of the original movie should be warned that the Disney Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke stars in this awkward but sweet Yuletide romcom as Kate, a chaotic, George Michael obsessed twenty-something in London who’s lost her way following a serious illness. A failed singer, she works in an all-year Christmas shop dressed as an elf, while alienating family, friends and long-suffering boss (Michelle Yeoh) with her boorish behaviour. The clouds lift with the appearance of bicycle courier Tom (Henry Golding, of Crazy Rich Asians), who begins to soften her cynical, self-loathing shell. But is he too good to be true? Given that this is co- Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Without further ado, slightly delayed by the sheer volume of releases at this year time of year, here is the latest edition of theartsdesk on Vinyl. You will not find a more extensive monthly report on the goodies newly available on plastic anywhere on the internet. Every conceivable genre is theartsdesk on Vinyl’s game so dive in and get involved!VINYL OF THE MONTHDallas Acid The Spiral Arm (All Saints)What do they put in the water in Austin, Texas? We need to dose the nation with it NOW so that millions of eyes turn upwards from the Daily Mail and look to the stars. Dallas Acid have worked Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
A tip of the hat to Julia Ormond for boldly going where many an actress might have chosen not to. In this new six-parter by Marnie Dickens, she plays Julia Day, a mother of three who’s just divorced her husband and is turning 60. Dickens’s objective, we may surmise, was to drive away the fog of invisibility which can descend irrationally upon mature women, however capable they may be, and demonstrate that age can indeed be just a number.Julia has reached a turning point, and is brooding over roads taken or not taken, and what her life is worth. As she puts it in a voice-over, “daughter, wife Read more ...
Peter Quantrill
Switch off for a phrase or two and it’s easy to miss the point in a Haydn symphony that makes each one of them odd and unique. In No. 74, played last night with understated class by the English Chamber Orchestra, that point occurs in the first movement, at the end of the second theme. All has gone just as you’d expect. A three-chord call to attention – only one more than the so-revolutionary Eroica – and straight to the business of the day, a worker ant of a melody, busying around with inscrutably purposeful energy. The second theme swoops in – then stops, like a sparrow at the end of a Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
For a sports movie to work for more than just the fans, it has to have drama off the pitch, track or field, with characters to root for, personal demons, a good underdog. Based on a true story that also involves high-speed danger and tragedy, James Mangold’s Le Mans ‘66 duly obliges.Christian Bale and Matt Damon – Batman and Bourne if you will – let their hair down as two motor-racing legends, to the extent that the racing drama doubles as a buddy movie. Unlike 2013's Rush, which covered the personal rivalry between Formula One drivers James Hunt and Nikki Lauda, this film Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
The Prague Symphony Orchestra are in town, their Cadogan Hall concert the London leg of a UK tour. It’s ambitious, including Mahler’s epic Third Symphony in five different cities, each with a local chorus. The orchestra itself, Prague’s second band, is a spirited and distinctively Central European ensemble. And they have an interesting conductor, the young Finn Pietari Inkinen, who, since taking charge of the Prague Symphony in 2015 has also added Saarbrucken and Tokyo orchestras to his portfolio, and was recently named as the conductor for Bayreuth’s new Ring cycle next year.Cadogan Hall isn Read more ...