Reviews
aleks.sierz
Playwright Simon Stephens has made a long journey. Starting off as a young in-yer-face writer, then pausing to mellow over slices of life, then winning awards with state-of-the-nation family dramas and teen plays, he has ended up by brilliantly adapting The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. And yet. Ever since his Three Kingdoms was staged here in 2012, in his heart has been the desire to be a Continental playwright – and Continental playwrights love to mess with, sorry deconstruct, the classics. So his latest, Carmen Disruption, is a free adaptation, billed as a re- Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Remember the Hitler diaries? Stern and the Sunday Times were so eager for them to be true they went ahead and published even after historian Hugh Trevor Roper had changed his mind about their authenticity. Such was the hunger for stories about Nazis. It’s still there, but Die Welt was on firmer ground when – to accusations of sensationalism – last year it published extracts from the cache of letters, diaries and memos in the hand of Heinrich Himmler.These were of more certain provenance: they were found in the house of Himmler by US Army troops. Authenticated by the German Federal Archives, Read more ...
Marianka Swain
The 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s seminal novel has inspired a raft of commemorative works, from Damon Albarn and Moira Buffini’s musical Wonder.land to Holland Park opera and Glastonbury’s surrealist haven; Disney’s film sequel arrives next year. Les Enfants Terribles’ contribution takes a literal trip down the rabbit hole, guiding audiences into the depths of Waterloo Vaults.“Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end,” counselled the King of Hearts, so Anthony Spargo’s adaptation commences with Carroll’s dusty treasure trove of a study. From there, our paths diverge Read more ...
graham.rickson
CPE Bach: Symphonies Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Rebecca Miller (Signum)Think of musical perfection and you think of JS Bach. Every note perfectly placed, every harmonic sequence pleasing in its logic, every extended structure immaculately organised. Crucially, Bach's music never sounds boring or dutiful. You wonder what facial expressions he'd have pulled when listening to these five symphonies composed by his second son Carl Philipp Emmanuel, whose career blossomed during a 28-year spell under the employ of Frederick the Great in Berlin. They're all three-movement works, Read more ...
David Nice
When does a Gilbert and Sullivan chorus make you laugh, cry and cheer as much as any of the famous set pieces? In this case when Major-General Stanley’s daughters “climbing over rocky mountain” wear pretty white dresses but turn out to be gym-trained showboys from the waist up, with their very own hair. That’s already one extra dimension to an operetta gem, but there’s so much more to enjoy around the crisp delivery of Gilbert’s undimmed lyrics.After plentiful touring, not least to Cate Blanchett’s Sydney Theatre, the business of Sasha Regan’s All-Male The Pirates of Penzance, to give this Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Lest the BBC Four imprint prove not strong enough a signal, I'll say it loud and clear: don't go into this expecting Strictly, kids. On the evidence of last night's contemporary dance showdown, the first of four section finals, the brand new BBC Young Dancer competition is light years from the razzmatazz, sparkling scoreboards and celebrity judge infighting of the BBC One dance flagship.The first minutes offered the briefest sketch of contemporary dance's history and a couple of major choreographers as talking heads: distinctly more documentary than docu-soap. The ever-thoughtful and Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Visits by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra are always an adrenaline boost for musical life in London, and yesterday evening was no exception. The first concert in their brief residency took in Finnish, French and German music (plus one Russian piece – the big Swan Lake waltz for an encore), all presented with a distinctly American accent. This is an orchestra that trades in big sounds, delivered with clarity and confidence. It is a seductive combination, and while subtleties were often overlooked, they were rarely lamented for long, as the sheer joy of the music-making swept you along.Esa- Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
In 1803 they called it Filly me Gardy. Today British ballet lovers refer to it by a single coded syllable: “Fee”. But translating its title is, for audiences at least, the only hard thing about this three-act romcom by Frederick Ashton. The rest is pure pleasure, and pure Englishness, in what must be the happiest work in the repertoire.The sugar-averse may wish the choreographer had done without the (real) Shetland pony and (human) chorus line of chickens. Discovering that Ashton's cockerel was doing the John Cleese walk 20 years before John Cleese doesn’t mitigate the feeling that it’s not Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Novelty and rapture are rare commodities in Shoreditch these days, where everything has already been tried, and nothing surprises. But Australian post-jazz trio The Necks, ending their European tour at Village Underground last night, mesmerised the audience into dumbstruck awe with their slo-mo ambient improvisation. It’s an act they’ve been polishing since the late 1980s, and for a crowd that has the patience to allow the hypnotic weave of minutely manipulated cycles of minimalist phrasing, building to an organic dramatic shape, it’s utterly engrossing. The trio, of Chris Abrahams ( Read more ...
David Nice
Russia isn’t the only country where violations of personal freedoms and censorship seem to be mounting by the day, but it’s surely the most confused: ask any of the persecutors what they hope to achieve, and you won’t get a convincing answer. Moral topsy-turvyness and unforeseen consequences are very much at the heart of what Cheek by Jowl’s director Declan Donnellan, its designer Nick Ormerod and their Russian actors seem to be aiming for, whether with intentional links to the host country or not it’s impossible to say, in a relentless but also unpredictable take on one of Shakespeare’s Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
"There is no murder in paradise" is the official line of the authorities in 1950s Russia, but nevertheless Child 44 is the blood-drenched tale of a hunt for a mass-murdering paedophile in Stalin's deathly shadow. The source novel was the first in Tom Rob Smith's trilogy about Russia during and after the Great Dictator, and Smith based it on the real-life killer Andrei Chikatilo, the "Rostov Ripper".Director Daniel Espinosa has done a powerful job of rendering the misery and horror of the USSR in the early 1950s, where your best friend or the work-mate at the next desk may be an informer for Read more ...
Simon Munk
I've got blood in my eyes… no, hang on a second, it's OK, it's not blood – it's brains and a bit of severed spinal column! Mortal Kombat X is one of the most gleefully violent and bloody videogames ever.It may not technically offer the best in fast-paced tactical combat (or kombat even). Nor does it feature the best visuals. And it certainly doesn't offer a smooth learning curve for novices. But for sheer bloodlust, Mortal Kombat X sticks true to the series' roots and carves itself a niche, with a serrated military knife, in the body of classic fighting games.The Mortal Kombat series has long Read more ...