Reviews
graham.rickson
Prokofiev: Symphonies 4 (Op.47) & 5, Dreams Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Kiril Karabits (Onyx)Prokofiev was adept at recycling good ideas. His Symphony No. 3 is linked thematically to the opera The Fiery Angel, and the less abrasive No 4 shares some ideas with the ballet The Prodigal Son. The piece was radically revised in 1947 and became Prokofiev's Op 112, though I've always preferred the more compact earlier version. Composed in 1929, it's full of delectable ideas, the lyricism anticipating the scores written after his return to Russia in the mid-1930s. Like the beautiful woodwind Read more ...
Matt Wolf
London property prices could well plummet, not to mention James Franco's ever-wayward career, if enough people see Good People, a staggeringly inept London-set gorefest that casts James Franco as an expat London property developer and Kate Hudson as his schoolteacher-wife who likes buying major appliances for friends as gifts. But since Danish director Henrik Ruben Genz's English-language feature film debut is likely to sink without a trace, the reputations of all involved should suffer scant permanent damage, and there may even be those who take solace in the news that Hollywood hunks Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
When the Royal Opera House told Kenneth MacMillan that Mahler was unsuitable for ballet, he went – where else? – to Germany. Though the success of MacMillan's Lied von der Erde for Stuttgart Ballet led to its happy adoption into Royal Ballet repertoire, making ballet to Mahler still seems to draw German companies more than others – whether because the orchestras, audiences, or state subsidies are better, who knows?But the company visiting the Edinburgh International Festival last night was not that familiar Mahler-exponent, Hamburg Ballet, whose director John Neumeier has tackled eight of the Read more ...
David Nice
Praise be to Carl Nielsen. Praise always, of course, to one of the greatest symphonists, and happy 150th birthday (again), but gratitude on this occasion is due to a programme mostly lining up Nielsen works rare and familiar, for getting me to the Albert Hall to witness a surely unsurpassable performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto. The sound quality, the near-perfect intonation with which Nikolay Znaider wields his Kreisler Guarneri “Del Gesù” is only the half of it; hearing such close work with an orchestra and conductor equally alert to every small detail without ever losing sight of Read more ...
Simon Munk
Sneak in, get the jewels, don't be seen. It should all be so simple. No, it really should be all so simple – because Mike "Thomas Was Alone" Bithell's second solo game does best when it keeps things simple and sticks to its purist gameplay guns. The problem is on top Bithell has layered phoned-in A-list celeb voice-acting, top-heavy thematic concepts and an attempt to retell the Robin Hood story in a YouTube and Twitch age.The play's the thing – and Volume does that superlatively. Taking clear inspiration from Metal Gear Solid's virtual reality missions, it presents sparse and stylised Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
A few months ago I saw a documentary called Ming of Harlem: Twenty-One Storeys in the Air, about a man who kept a tiger and an alligator as pets in his tiny New York apartment. It was a staggering thing to comprehend, not just because of the logistics involved, but the blithe cruelty in doing that to an animal, even a savage one. Then I saw The Wolfpack.No, this doesn’t concern cruelty to wolves, but to children, and not just any children, but a man’s own. I’m beginning to wonder what they put in the water in Manhattan.This is a fascinating film, often difficult to believe, about six brothers Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Heaven, or a lot of pagan gods at least, may know what was in the air 2500 years ago. Bettany Hughes has just finished her trilogy of philosophers from that millennium, and now we have Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill taking us genially around Athens, founded – you guessed – 2500 years ago and providing the template for cities ever since.The televisual essay is now an integral part of popularising ancient history. And what could be more persuasive (and helpful to the tourist industry) than visits to two great ancient cities – Rome follows next week – with a pat on our heads to remind us of Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
It is an axiom of Israel Galván criticism to say the Spaniard is wired differently. He's the "Bowie of flamenco" - leggy and intense, unpredictably sparky, intemittently brilliant, and sometimes incomprehensible. His new show, Lo Real/Le Réel/The Real which had its UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival last night is about gypsies under Nazism and in the Holocaust, but it approaches its subject in an impressionistic, roundabout way that during the performance feels a lot more like a journey into Israel Galván's oddball consciousness than a history lesson.Of course, that is a kind Read more ...
David Nice
Drawing an audience of five and a half thousand in to listen intently is harder than pushing out into the vasts of the Albert Hall. Yet it’s what seems to work best in this unpredictable space, and last night masterful veterans Elisabeth Leonskaja and Charles Dutoit knew exactly what to do. The results were romantic introspection in Mozart - an unfashionable but valid alternative to authentic sprightliness - and a Shostakovich Fifteenth Symphony that was more skull than skin, but a compellingly decorated skull for all that.The quietly commanding tone of the evening, in marked contrast to the Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The Kinsey Sicks, Gilded Balloon **** The Kinsey Sicks, a four-piece drag a cappella act, were formed in 1993 and have played off-Broadway and Las Vegas; this is their UK debut. Their name is a play on Kinsey 6, the point in the scale of sexual attraction as exclusively homosexual, and they bill themselves as “Barbarella meets beautyshop”, or “chicks with shticks”.The set-up for the story is that they are taking part in a television reality show - America's Next Top Bachelor Housewife Celebrity Hoarder Makeover Star Gone Wild!, as the show title has it - where they are all girly smiles, Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
What’s it really like to be a dictator? Or president, if we put it more circumspectly, as Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf does in his new film of that name – though this President clearly believes he’s of the “for-life” variety, if not even a rung higher given that the mode of address in this contemporary court is, “Your Majesty”.In fact the plans for dynasty are well in place, as the first scene of The President nicely illustrates. Its eponymous hero (Misha Gomiashvili) is taking a break from signing death warrants to take his young grandson (Dachi Orvelashvili) over that familiar lesson Read more ...
David Kettle
It was the first major casualty of the 2015 Edinburgh International Festival. Global superstar pianist Lang Lang was stuck overseas, forbidden from flying by his doctor because of an ear infection, and therefore unable to perform Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra as planned (it had been an enticing prospect). But fear not, Lang Lang lovers – word is that he’ll be recovered in time for his solo recital of Bach, Chopin and Tchaikovsky on Friday 21 August.It was sad to see a few noticeable gaps among the Usher Hall’s seating, especially when there was an equally Read more ...