Reviews
David Nice
"Sounds like an opera by Handel," said a friend when I told him that I was going to see Vanessa at Glyndebourne. Possible – the name first appeared in print as "invented" by Jonathan Swift in 1723 – had Handel not stuck to mythological and Biblical subjects, The title in fact has an incantatory ring in an overheated piece of hokum concocted by Samuel Barber and his long-term partner Gian Carlo Menotti for the Met in 1958. Glyndebourne often felt too small a space for its blowsy histrionics, but conductor Jakub Hrůša, director Keith Warner and a splendid team of singers did it proud. I won't Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
The post-modernists have taken over the asylum. At least, that's what I thought twice this week. Once when I saw Vlad Putin on YouTube doing karaoke to an adoring audience. The other was seeing Brazil’s latest contenders BaianaSystem, who played to a sweaty packed-out house at the Village Underground. "Post-modern" in the sense of beyond defineable genre and with a dose of irony thrown in, and not quite beleiving what is in front of your eyes.Of course, there have always been interesting musical mixes in Brazil, especially in Bahia in the North-East where they come from. The state has been a Read more ...
David Kettle
Ulster American ★★★★★ David Ireland’s brand new, brutally incendiary black comedy gleefully tosses a grenade into any lazy liberal sensibilities at the festival (and, let’s face it, there are plenty of those). Race, gender, rape, prejudice, all and more are mercilessly prodded, provoked and picked apart in this viciously hilarious farce of ideas.Timid director Leigh (a wonderfully nervy, squirming Robert Jack) has miraculously enrolled obnoxious, swaggering Hollywood A-lister Jay (Darrell D’Silva) to star in the West End premiere of a shocking new play on the Troubles. But its Read more ...
Katherine Waters
“When you were our age, how did you imagine your life? What did you hope for?” It is a video of a classroom south-east of the Périphérique separating Paris from the working-class suburbs. The students are mostly girls between fifteen and sixteen and they wear make-up, jewellery, low-cut tops – we understand they’re sexy, confident, cool. Several are African, North African, Caribbean. When the teacher laughs, which is often, it bears vestiges of the provincial attitude of “a young girl who acknowledges her lack of importance,” though it’s unclear whether the students notice for she Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although Gary McFarland’s 1965 album The In Sound had the Samba and Bossa Nova influences which were colouring the sound of American jazzers from around 1962, it was on the button for the year it was released. This despite sporting a pop art sleeve evoking those of the swing-based easy listening albums from Enoch Light and Terry Snyder issued by the Command label in 1959.The In Sound’s sensitivity to a then-current zeitgeist is confirmed by its fast-on-the-uptake version of “(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction”, which The Rolling Stones released as a US single on 6 June 1965 – the album was Read more ...
David Nice
Sometimes the more modestly scaled Proms work best in the Albert Hall. Not that there was anything but vast ambition and electrifying communication from soprano Anna Prohaska and the 17-piece Il Giardino Armonico under Giovanni Antonini, making that 18 when he chose to take up various pipes (★★★★★). By contrast the big BBC commission from Joby Talbot to write a work for much-touted guitarist Miloš Karadaglić and orchestra in the evening's first Prom left very little impression. Praise be, then, to Glinka and Tchaikovsky for showing what glittering substance is all about, and to Alexander Read more ...
Heather Neill
Any actor playing Lady Bracknell must dread the moment when she (or, indeed, he) has to deliver that unforgettable line about a significant piece of hand luggage. Since Edith Evans's wavering, vibrato, multi-syllable version of "a handbag?", audiences have waited to see how it will be dealt with this time. Sophie Thompson's solution is to pause knowingly then say the word quickly, almost dismissively, and regard her own modestly-sized reticule. It works a treat as part of a beautifully modulated exchange with Jacob Fortune-Lloyd's Jack about his suitability – or lack of it, in view of his Read more ...
Laura de Lisle
Claire van Kampen has a history of providing roles for her husband, Mark Rylance. He starred in her critically acclaimed Farinelli and the King three years ago, and now she directs him as Iago in the Globe's production of Othello, with Moonlight actor André Holland as the eponymous general.Rylance (pictured below) has much more Globe experience, but Holland's Shakespearen pedigree is strong too – he's a veteran of New York's Shakespeare in the Park, so very much at home delivering iambic pentameter in the open air. His soft Alabama accent serves to separate him from the rest of the cast, Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
In the days around WOMAD there have been plenty of media about how the “hostile environment” towards migrants has created all sorts of problems for artists attempting to get here from around the world. Certainly, we are being denied some of the hottest new acts - like the wild blue-haired Moonchild Sanelly from South Africa or the hottest new act from Nigeria, Chicoco Sounds. WOMAD have just signed a new 12-year deal at Charlton Park, however - and if you wanted to find the spiritual centre for the liberal, tolerant, positive globalism currently under threat, WOMAD would be a Read more ...
Jasper Rees
They don’t make boxers like Freddie Mills any more. A granite lump of grinning charisma, he had a brow and jawline straight from a kids’ cartoon and, despite his humble origins and thuggish contours, a charmingly well-to-do voice. Mills was light heavyweight world champ for a time, then drifted into showbiz and, eventually, running a nightclub in Soho. Then he died in sudden and mysterious circumstances.His body was found in the back of his Citroen on the night of 24 July 1965. There was a single shot from air rifle through his right eye, from which dangled a lone blob of congealed blood. The Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Add Katherine Parkinson to the top rank of theatre performers in a town where talent abounds. As Judy, the retro-minded housewife at the bruisingly comic heart of Laura Wade's National Theatre/Theatre Clwyd collaboration Home, I'm Darling, Parkinson is nothing less than perfection in a role written with her in mind. Some may note a fall-off in the second half of a play that turns speech-heavy and baggy after the interval, but Parkinson remains a revelation throughout. Look for her to lead Tamara Harvey's smart, sprightly production to the West End and very possibly beyond. Parkinson Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
If you were looking for the antidote to Love Island, this might be just the job. Instead of airbrushed 20-something Instagram fanatics flaunting their “gym-honed” physiques in the Mediterranean sun, in Age Before Beauty (BBC One) writer Debbie Horsfield (Poldark, Cutting It) brings us mid-life angst and middle-aged spread amid the lipgloss and face-peels of the tacky Mirrorbel beauty salon in Manchester.Largely, it’s a family affair. Bel (Polly Walker) used to run the salon, but gave it up to raise her kids with husband Wesley (James Murray). Now the offspring are starting courses at Leeds Read more ...