Reviews
caspar.gomez
Soft Cell have been teasing us for almost three hours. “I think we might have forgotten to do one, Dave,” says Marc Almond, pacing the stage, a wry smirk on his face. His protégé, Dave Ball, is next to him, ensconced behind a corral of old analogue synthesizers. The song lyrics descending down two gigantic screens behind them illustrate the burlesque of it all. Then they smash into the queasy battering electronic opening, Almond still a mischievous sprite, something Hispanic, impetuous, hysterical about the way he delivers a lyric. 20,000 join him, roaring it, “Sex Dwarf, isn’t it nice, Read more ...
Peter Quantrill
Not all composers require the finger of mortality pointing at them to develop what becomes a late style. Charges of detachment and even indifference have been levelled at the B flat major Piano Concerto K595 which Mozart completed early in the year of his death, but Mitsuko Uchida’s playing of it on Saturday night was as refined, as weightless and translucent as her trademark silk tops.Recent analysis of the manuscript source has suggested that in fact Mozart completed most of the concerto three years earlier, around the time of the last three symphonies. Without introducing a note of false Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Following the runaway success of Bodyguard, Jed Mercurio is no doubt popping more champagne and saying “follow that”. Stepping up to BBC One’s Sunday 9pm slot is The Cry, which transports us from suicide bombs and political intrigue and instead immerses us in the emotional plight of new mother Joanna (Jenna Coleman) and her partner Alistair (Ewen Leslie).Adapted from Helen FitzGerald’s novel, The Cry is going to be a dark and tortured journey into failed relationships, parenthood in crisis, accusations and loss, and this first of four parts set the ball rolling ominously. Screenwriter Read more ...
Steve O'Rourke
Reinventing the wheel is no easy task, yet EA, the powerhouse publisher behind the multi-decade long FIFA series, manages to pull the digital rabbit from the hat year after year. The majority of the on-pitch action hasn’t changed in iterations, and nor does it really need to; it’s a slick, great-looking and responsive playing experience. But if you plan to get casual gaming football fans to part with the best part of 50 quid every year, you need to do more than offer updated team-sheets and kit selection. We’re very much in the world of refinement, not revolution. We gain little touches Read more ...
David Nice
Siegfried is usually the problem with Siegfried. Even Stuart Skelton, top Tristan and currently singing an acclaimed Siegmund in this last revival of Keith Warner's rattlebag Ring, won't touch the longest, toughest heroic-tenor role in Wagner, the protagonist of his third opera in the tetralogy. Stefan Vinke, singing his 100th Siegfried during this Royal Opera run, is a true hero, still sounding as fresh as - well, not exactly a daisy, more like a magnolia grandiflora. His stamina gave us not only the most thrilling of climaxes to Act One, where the fearless lad reforges his father's Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Gary Burton fans with an eye for detail will know that “Fly Time Fly (Sigh)” from his second album, 1962’s Who Is Gary Burton?, had a writer credit of “Gibbs”. The American vibes-ace’s next album, 1963’s 3 in Jazz, a collaboration with Sonny Rollins and Clark Terry included another song by Gibbs. Burton’s follow-up solo album, Something's Coming! (1964), featured two Gibbs compositions. In 1967, half the tracks on Burton’s Duster were written by Gibbs.Gibbs was trombonist/composer Michael Gibbs. He did not play on Burton’s recordings and, perhaps belatedly, issued his first solo album in 1970 Read more ...
David Nice
Sibling incest among the symbolic clutter of the Royal Opera Ring on Wednesday, last night necrophilia and a bit more incest – mother and daughter this time, courtesy of the director's imagination – in a stone-cold ENO Salome. Adena Jacobs' credentials were promising, not least her time at Sydney's cutting-edge Belvoir Theatre. That this would be a Salome unlike any other was a given. But throw out the essential interplay between the characters of Wilde's ornate play as filtered through the insidious colours of Richard Strauss's ever-amazing score, and you have to find an equally feverish Read more ...
Robert Beale
The Stoller Hall, the modest-size auditorium inside Chetham’s School of Music, is really proving itself to be the venue Manchester has long needed this season. Two concerts on successive days, each the first of a series and both making something of a statement, proved that.On Thursday Psappha opened its Manchester season there (the remaining performances are at St Michael’s Ancoats) with three guest singers and a second half that was as much music theatre as concert. "Four iconic works from the 20th century" was the subtitle, but the initial focus was on two pianos and two pianists, as Paul Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
"I’m not a number, I’m not a grade, and I’m not a failure." The 17-year-old girl stands in front of the small class, who gaze at her goggle-eyed. "A robot factory. That’s all you’ve got here." The teacher’s response is caustically admiring. "Why are you here, Alisha, if that’s what you’re capable of? Why didn’t you do that last year?" This is the school - not so much of hard knocks as of tough skins – for those who have been treated badly by the world, and have a strong suspicion that things won’t get much better. Richard Molloy’s Every Day I Make Greatness Happen in Hampstead Theatre's Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Writers need to write, or so goes the unimpeachable argument that underpins The Wife, which is being strongly touted as the film that may finally bring leading lady Glenn Close an Oscar in her seventh time at bat. Close is terrific, as she almost always is, but this film from Swedish director Björn Runge is in no way her match, and it would be a shame if the Academy were to honour the screen (and stage) veteran for purely sentimental reasons, having bypassed her in far-superior movies along the way. The source is a novel by the American writer Meg Wolitzer, but much of The Wife Read more ...
Sarah Kent
There are some wonderful things in Space Shifters, the Hayward Gallery’s autumn exhibition. The selection of work plays with one’s perceptions of space and everything in it. You look through, round or over these sculptures and installations rather than at them, since they direct attention more to the act of seeing than to the work itself. Some date back many years and are as inspiring as the day they were made, but others have been eclipsed by their many offspring.Richard Wilson’s 20:50 was on display in London almost continuously from 1991, when it was installed at Charles Saatchi’s Gallery Read more ...
Heather Neill
Ten years after Harold Pinter's death, Jamie Lloyd has set about honouring the 20th century's outstanding British playwright in an ambitious West End season of his shorter works at the theatre which now bears his name. Lloyd, already recognised as a skilled Pinter interpreter, has grouped the 20 pieces into seven programmes and attracted a starry array of actors to the project. Still to come are the likes of Tamsin Greig, Martin Freeman, Penelope Wilton, Mark Rylance, Janie Dee, Rupert Graves, Danny Dyer, Jane Horrocks and Celia Imrie.Pinter 1 and Pinter 2 are already launched, featuring Read more ...