Reviews
Hanna Weibye
One of the secrets to enjoying life is mastering the creative use of disappointment. Many in the Covent Garden audience last night were no doubt deeply disappointed not to be seeing Natalia Osipova's legendary portrayal of the title role in Giselle, injury having removed the Russian superstar from the opening night cast. If Royal Ballet regulars they might have been even more disappointed to realise they would therefore be seeing two of the company's more underpowered actors, Sarah Lamb and Matthew Golding, headlining this most dramatic of ballets.All credit to Lamb and Golding; considering Read more ...
Matt Wolf
A prevailing sense of farewell ripples through this closing production in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse's hugely welcome season of Shakespeare's final quartet of plays. That valedictory feel is traditionally true of The Tempest, a text commonly regarded as Shakespeare's own leave-taking and one that here also marks the final staging after a decade at the helm of the venue's sure-to-be-missed artistic director Dominic Dromgoole, who now hands over the reins to Emma Rice.It's tempting, of course, at such moments to view the staging itself as some sort of summary achievement whereby a director's Read more ...
Tim Cumming
The Gloaming’s return to the Union Chapel in north London is a packed-out affair – and with good reason. Their British debut here, before the first album was released back in 2013, was a revelation. Few knew what to expect as Clare fiddler Martin Hayes, New York pianist Thomas Bartlett, Dublin-born viola and hardanger fiddle player Caoimhin O Raghallaigh, Sean Nos singer Iarla O Lionaird and Chicago guitarist Dennis Cahill launched into the epic "Opening Set" from that debut album.Over the next 20 or so minutes they astonished all who were there with the space, dexterity, lightness and Read more ...
David Nice
Brand-new youth operas tend to fall into two types. One is hugely rewarding for the participants, a skill learned and a treasurable group experience to be remembered for the rest of their lives, as well as for their friends and family in the audience. The other, a rarer breed, does all that but also takes a gripping subject transformed by that strange alchemy of operatic setting, stunningly well performed by singers and players alike, and sears everyone who sees it with its special intensity. Nothing fits the latter bill like no other work of its kind I've seen.That's saying Read more ...
Mark Sanderson
It was all a far cry from the Leeds Piano Competition. Shunted on to BBC Four after the disappearance of BBC Three to online, Eurovision: You Decide nevertheless remained true to its new channel’s original remit. In today’s no-brow, morally neutral multiverse it would be churlish to point out the thoughts that it encouraged were entirely dirty ones.The show was opened by last year’s winner of the world’s largest – in terms of viewing figures – music competition: Mans Zelmerlow and Chalk Boy performing "Heroes" (nothing to do with Bowie). The sexy Swede had swapped his tight leather Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
Shakespeare’s plays have proved remarkably resilient to everything that’s been thrown at them down the years, including – in the case of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with its flowery bowers and fairies – cloying Victorian whimsy. Peter Brook’s white box production in 1970 effectively Tippexed out that option for the late 20th century. In turn, this version by the touring company Filter has put down a marker for the 21st.Premiered at the Lyric in 2012, and now back there after a long tour, it shows, as never before, how hootingly funny this play can be – and not just in the Mechanicals’ scenes. Read more ...
graham.rickson
Louis Aubert: Sillages, Violin Sonata etc Jean-Pierre Armengard (piano), Alessandro Fagiuoli (violin), Olivier Chauzu (piano) (Grand Piano)Louis Aubert's piano work Sillages is ranked alongside Ravel's Gaspard in the sleeve notes to this disc, and one source places him among the greatest of French composers. It's impossible to judge on the basis of one 70-minute CD, but the four works by Aubert played here are exceptionally good and don't deserve to have slipped through the cracks. You suspect that bad luck is at the root of his neglect. Born in 1875, Aubert sang the “Pie Jesu” as a boy Read more ...
Marianka Swain
Theatregoers suffering from First World War fatigue may want to pass on Jonathan Lynn’s merely competent historical drama about two mythic figures: Charles de Gaulle and Philippe Pétain. It’s a fascinating subject – de Gaulle had his former mentor tried for treason in 1945 after Pétain led France into Nazi collaboration – but Yes Minister co-creator Lynn, who also directs, seems unsure whether it warrants winking satire or solemn historical re-enactment, settling for a fitfully engaging hybrid.The relationship began in 1913, with de Gaulle supporting Pétain's (Tom Conti) unpopular Read more ...
Thomas Rees
“I can’t believe it. Free jazz in Old Street tube, how cool is that?” It’s a relief to hear this kind of thing from passersby, because Empirical’s attempt to bring jazz to the people, to reach new audiences and develop their music through an experimental, week-long residency in a London tube station, could so easily have gone wrong.When I spoke to bassist Tom Farmer about the project, the MOBO-winners, due to release their fifth album, Connection, in March, seemed well aware of the risks. Commuters might hate it, or worse, keep their heads down and ignore it altogether. (“Don’t make eye Read more ...
David Nice
From working-class hell via convent purgatory to Florentine comic heaven, the riches of Puccini's most comprehensive masterpiece seem inexhaustible. In a production as detailed in its balance between the stylised and the seemingly spontaneous as Richard Jones's, first seen in 2011, there are always going to be new connections between the three operas to discover. Some things are stronger, some weaker second time around, but you still come away convinced that each work glows best in its original context, and that none should be prised away.Two of the three leading ladies are new to the revival Read more ...
mark.kidel
Alan Mahon’s Hamlet in Andrew Hilton’s production for Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory bristles with teen spirit and this is no bad thing. The Prince of Denmark, even before his father dies, is beset with the angst that goes with the territory of late adolescence. The production presents, on one level, a tragic coming of age drama, one in which the young heroes are consumed by madness and caught in the political and sexual machinations of their elders.This is production that builds, from a slightly underpowered first half to an emotionally overwhelming dénouement. During the first Read more ...
Stuart Houghton
How difficult should a game be? How fine should the line be between frustration and reward? Crashlands is a game designed to err on the more comfortable side of that line, steadfastly refusing to punish you too severely for making mistakes while still attempting to offer a challenge.A colourful and laid-back antidote to the grim meathook survival sim genre, Crashlands is partly an exercise in resource management and crafting but the game is more concerned with helping you enjoy its story than in making you starve to death for want of a scavenged mushroom.That’s not to say 'Crashlands' is easy Read more ...