America
Country Music by Ken Burns, BBC Four review - grand history of fiddlers on the hoofSaturday, 23 November 2019
Ken Burns is the closest American television has to David Attenborough. They may swim in different seas, but they both have an old-school commitment to an ethos that will be missed when it’s gone – the idea that television is a place to communicate... Read more... |
Harriet review - potentially stirring biopic proves a slogSaturday, 23 November 2019
A defining chapter in American history is all but sold down river in Harriet, director Kasi Lemmons' tubthumpingly banal film about the extraordinary bravery and courage of the American freedom fighter, Harriet Tubman. Telling the same story more... Read more... |
Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi review, Royal Festival Hall - musical togethernessSaturday, 23 November 2019
Leonard Bernstein talked about “the infinite variety of music” and the late maestro would have been thrilled by the variety on display at the Royal Festival Hall where Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi were as exciting and exhilarating as... Read more... |
Greener Grass review - American suburbia goes haywire in surreal dark comedyFriday, 22 November 2019
The pink, turquoise and orange world of Greener Grass is a riot of derangement. Here is the suburban dream gone haywire, where, out of politeness, a woman gives her baby to her friend because she admires it. Every adult wears braces, hair... Read more... |
21 Bridges review - police corruption thriller sets a cracking paceWednesday, 20 November 2019
Thanks to a powerful cast and crisp direction from Brian Kirk (Game of Thrones, Luther), 21 Bridges drives home its story of good cops, bad cops and a Big Apple rotten to the core with bulldozing force. Centre stage is Chadwick Boseman as Andre... Read more... |
Dear Evan Hansen, Noël Coward Theatre review - this social outcast will steal your heartWednesday, 20 November 2019
Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s Tony and Grammy Award-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen is an institution in the States, running on Broadway since 2016 and currently on its second year of a national tour. It also made a star... Read more... |
The Report review - searing political dramaSaturday, 16 November 2019
It should come as no surprise that the writer of Side Effects and Contagion, Scott Z. Burns, is capable of directing a whip-smart drama like The Report. Known for his collaborations with Steven Soderbergh, most recently on... Read more... |
Marriage Story review - superior weepieThursday, 14 November 2019
Forty years after the classic, multi-Oscar winning Kramer v Kramer comes another divorce drama involving two young Americans and a son caught in the crossfire. And this one is even better. Marriage Story is a sublime film, a... Read more... |
Roméo et Juliette, LSO, Tilson Thomas, Barbican review - surprisingly sober take on Berlioz epicMonday, 11 November 2019
So much was fresh and exciting about Michael Tilson Thomas's years as the London Symphony Orchestra's Principal Conductor (1988-1995; I don't go as far back as his debut, the 50th anniversary of which is celebrated this season). Carved in the memory... Read more... |
Midway review - gung-ho heroes battle moribund scriptFriday, 08 November 2019
Director Roland Emmerich has been trying to make this movie since the 1990s, and battled hard to raise its $100m budget from individual investors. But why? The result is an old-fashioned war film in praise of the heroic American servicemen who... Read more... |
The Antipodes, National Theatre review - mysterious and gently momentousWednesday, 06 November 2019
The National Theatre is forging its own special relationship with American playwright Annie Baker, having now produced three of her plays within four years, all in their smallest Dorfman space. The result has allowed a gathering acquaintance... Read more... |
Rich Hall's Red Menace, BBC Four review - laconic comic referees the Free World versus CommunismWednesday, 06 November 2019
Who won the Cold War? Nobody, according to comedian Rich Hall in this 90-minute film for BBC Four. His theory is that after the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago, Russia and America merely “flipped ideologies”. The US government now... Read more... |
