The opening track is Hoyt Axton’s “Evangelina.” After first appearing on the 1976 album Fearless it was re-recorded and issued as a flop UK single in July 1980. The new version had also been an OK-selling US single in 1980. The reason this deeply atmospheric, velvety, yearning country marvel had UK sales potential after it came out on minor-league British imprint Young Blood was due to radio play: radio play on the BBC’s Radio 2.“Evangelina” illustrates exactly what Wednesday Morning 6AM - Radio Hits From The Small Hours 1970-1983 is about: the musical continuum defined by a maverick aspect Read more ...

Time is a terrifying force in Romeo & Juliet, and Robert Icke's headlong production never lets playgoers forget that fact. Returning to a tragedy he first directed for Headlong touring company 14 years ago, Icke reprises many of the conceits deployed first time round, this time wedded to a starry company headed by Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe that, in the first act at least, gives pride of place to his supporting players.Some may resist the apparent tricksiness of devices that include repetitions or reprises of scenes, as often as not accompanied by searing flashes of light separating out Read more ...

Just a year after the first series, Your Friends & Neighbours returns to titillate and amuse us with the escapades of the moneyed but never satisfied burghers of Westmont Village. This mythical community somewhere in New York’s Hudson Valley has everything that money can buy, and probably a bit more, but does this make the locals happy and well-adjusted? Well obviously not.Jon Hamm returns to reprise his role of Andrew “Coop” Cooper, the former Manhattan financier who was axed from his job and is now pursuing an imaginative new career in burglary, while trying to be a responsible father Read more ...

Science on stage is quite the thing at the moment with a revival of Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen opening at Hampstead Theatre next week and Lifeline, a British musical, injected into Southwark Playhouse for a six-week residency.It’ll be interesting to track the difference between the reactions of audiences and the critics as too many journalists dismiss anything beyond a bunsen burner or a percentage calculation as a matter reserved for boffins. Being proudly ignorant of such subjects appears to be on the person spec for a job at the BBC, but the explosion of science-based podcasts and YouTube Read more ...

If ever there was a piece that epitomised the view that villains are infinitely more fun than heroes, it would be Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s epistolary novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses and its subsequent adaptations. The amorality at play is positively delicious, not least when the culprits feast on each other. But how does that appeal work, as entertainment, at a time when real-life morality is under more constant, and more rigid scrutiny? Will Christopher Hampton’s celebrated stage adaptation become darker, more powerful, or simply leave a bad taste? I’m not suggesting that this latest Read more ...

There was something incongruous about seeing Basement Jaxx in a venue best known for regularly playing host to the likes of Scotland’s national orchestra and the roots and trad music of the Celtic Connections festival. Admittedly a chunk of seating had been removed to create a dancefloor down the front, but a sweaty club it is not, and waiting for the arrival of one of the UK’s preeminent dance acts while gazing around at rows of seats still felt strange. Perhaps it was simply an acknowledgment of the passing of time, given Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe have been doing this for over Read more ...

François Ozon’s film of Albert Camus's The Stranger, one of the most iconic works of French existential literature, is as well-paced and restrained as the minimalistic novella from which the director faithfully adapted it.Set in bustling 1940s Algiers, where escaping the fierce sunlight and oppressive heat is impossible, the movie was photographed by regular Ozon collaborator Manu Dacosse in gleaming black and white with dabs of chiaroscuro, but not to the extent that the atmospherics are fetishised.It becomes clear almost instantly how the story is going to end. It will be in the darker Read more ...

The baldness of the titles the writer-director Stefan Golaszewski gives his TV series — Him & Her, Mum, Marriage and now Babies — is a misleading guide to the subtlety of their contents. These are, admittedly, Marmite dramas; but for those who love them, they are also finely crafted forays into the everyday existence of most humans today.Marmite actually features in Babies, in a scene midway through its six hour-long episodes in which Stephen (Paapa Essiedu) is munching one of the many slices of toast he gets through, this one smeared with Marmite. Which his wife Lisa (Siobhàn Cullen) Read more ...

The title doesn’t refer to a void into which detectives disappear, but to Harry Hole, the fictional Norwegian sleuth created by novelist Jo Nesbø. Netflix’s nine-part series is derived from his book The Devil’s Star, adapted by the author himself. Getting the casting of the tormented but insightful Hole right is crucial, and they’ve done themselves some favours here by picking Tobias Santelmann for the job.Grizzled but capable of empathy, and ruggedly single-minded enough to ignore the threats and scepticism of senior officers, Hole is a classic bloody-minded loner, and Santelmann Read more ...

VINYL OF THE MONTHBorokov Borokov World War Too (Rotkat) Image Belgian duo Borokov Borokov are described by one source as “weirdcore”. Their gumbo of lo-fi funk, indie-electronica, and games soundtrack synth burbling does, indeed, frolic into purposeful silliness, as on the entertaining “Slippery”, a dry disco-flavoured ode to improper lust (including repeated outraged shrieks of “It was an accident!”). There are moments when they remind of a much more cantankerous and crudely formed Chromeo but their latest, limited to 300 on vinyl, also Read more ...

I’ve always liked to think that, when it comes to artistic performance, comparisons are odious (or oderous, as Dogberry had it). There is one glory of the sun and another of the moon, etc. A performer should be judged on what they do on one occasion, how it speaks to their audience, and not by saying that they’re better or worse than someone else.And yet we do it all the time. We compare X’s performance with Y’s – reviewers do it constantly – and we may have one in mind from the past, or a recording, that’s our benchmark for everything else. And today’s world of classical music, including Read more ...

It’s hard to describe this hot mess of a film without divulging the entire plot. And even if you did, you’d struggle to convey the scabrous psychosexual atmosphere, or summarise the thematic currents that swirl beneath the surface. As director Peter Medak says in one of the interviews on this typically well-stocked BFI disc, “It's too complicated to explain."The basic setup is simple, though: Theo (Peter McEnery, pictured below right) and Vivien (Glenda Jackson) live above Theo’s father’s antiques shop in a down-at-heel corner of West London. They pass the time by indulging in what today Read more ...