Reviews
Jonathan Geddes
When Yard Act headlined the O2 Academy in Glasgow back in 2023, they might have thought returning there as a support act would indicate a career that had taken a wrong turn. That’s where they found themselves on this jaunt with the Hives, though the reality was less a reflection of their status as a band and simply that what was announced as an arena tour for the Swedish garage rockers had been downgraded to a more modest setting. Not that the Leeds quartet seemed affected by it. Singer James Smith was typically verbose as ever, praising his band, their music and Glasgow itself before Read more ...
Clare Stevens
Since 1981 Ryedale Festival has presented a mouthwatering array of concerts in picturesque churches and glorious stately homes in North East Yorkshire, characterised by interval drinks and picnics in lovely gardens or sunny terraces on long summer evenings. This year it took a short, sharp dive into a very different seasonal atmosphere, presenting its first Winter Weekend from 21 to 23 November, with just four events in the charming market towns of Pickering, Malton and Norton.Pianist Ethan Loch, who won the keyboard final of BBC Young Musician in 2022, set the scene in his opening recital on Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
The battle of the Scrooges is fast becoming an unofficial London theatrical tradition, as – for the third year – audiences must choose between the mince-pie-laden delights at the Old Vic and the atmospheric ghostliness of Ally Pally. Jack Thorne’s spikily imaginative, sumptuously staged version has been winning hearts and minds since 2017, but in 2021 Mark Gatiss, king of the ghost story, began his bid for Dickens devotees with an adaptation that’s Christmassy and crepuscular in equal measure. Since Gatiss’s deliciously ectoplasmic take is – comparatively – the newest kid on Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Even people who are unfamiliar with Kneecap’s sharp but raucous music may well be aware of the legal issues that have beset the Irish-English bilingual rappers over the last eighteen months. As support for the oppressed people of Palestine has caused them no end of grief in the UK, the USA and beyond.Fortunately, this has done nothing to tame this mouthy and opinionated trio, and with a partisan crowd which included many who loudly proclaimed themselves to be part of Birmingham’s Irish community, they dedicated “Get Your Brits Out” to “all the paedophiles in the Royal Family”. Similarly, Read more ...
David Nice
Even top conductors can have difficulty with Elgar’s late romantic suppleness. Vasily Petrenko of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Santtu-Mattias Rouvali of the Philharmonia have made a heavy meal out of the “Concert Overture” (= symphonic poem) In the South (Alassio). Not Edward Gardner with his London Philharmonic players, strings on top, glowing form, woodwind hyper-sensitive, in a perfectly paced journey of a soul.Elgar took his melancholic as well as his boisterous side on holiday in Italy. Gardner’s trajectory was one of restlessness and unease eventually erupting in a vision of Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
She’s still best remembered for her portrayal of Carrie Mathison in Homeland, but Claire Danes is an actor with plenty of moves up her sleeve. In this eight-part drama penned by Gabe Rotter, she plays author Aggie Wiggs, renowned for her book Sick Puppy but now crippled by writer’s block. This is in the aftermath of her break-up with wife Shelley (Natalie Morales), following the death of their young son Cooper in a road accident, leaving Aggie living in splendid isolation in a mini-mansion in leafy Oyster Bay, Long Island. Indeed, this locale is so upscale that it has tempted real estate Read more ...
David Nice
Bah-humbuggers like me are happy to pass over seasonal fare, maybe excepting a Messiah or Christmas Oratorio, and look ahead to the birds that sing in the spring. That was the theme for this light-of-touch rattlebag, with versatile top quality on display from all performers.Maybe parts of it smacked of a tantalising taster menu. Violinist Braimah Kanneh-Mason came on at the start, advertised only through the first of Fantasia mover and shaker Tom Fetherstonhaugh’s short speeches, to twitter with leader Millie Ashton in the opening Allegro of Vivaldi’s “Spring” Concerto - so fresh and buoyant Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
If you’re old enough to remember LPs and the lost art of reading sleeve notes (let alone writing them), this one’s for you. The titular session man is the fabled keyboard player Nicky Hopkins, whose teeming creativity and dancing digits left their indelible mark across an extraordinary swathe of records from the golden age of rock’n’roll.Among Hopkins’ most recognisable feats are his Jerry Lee Lewis-style romp through the Beatles’ "Revolution", contributions to several tracks on John Lennon’s Imagine including "Jealous Guy", rollicking ivory-tickling on George Harrison’s "Give Me Love", his Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Seemingly shot in a snow globe containing haunted mountains and a neo-noirish Alpine ‘burg, The Ice Tower is the most expressionistic but relatable of the French-Bosnian director Lucile Hadžihalilović’s eerie oneiric fables involving endangered motherless children.It’s also the prettiest and the queasiest, a glittering alt-Gothic showcase for Marion Cotillard as a toxic lynx-eyed movie diva. The long-damaged Cristina van der Berg, who as a girl was objectified and unhappily groomed for stardom, preys on the smitten adolescent orphan Jeanne (stealthy newcomer Clara Pacini) while acting – and Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Mrs Bluebird” is one of the great singles. Released in May 1968, it is airy yet lush. The filigreed harmony vocals are like velvet, the rhythm is insistent but soft. Overall, there is a sense of distance; that what’s heard is not quite within reach. When a guitar solo comes, it is sharp but muted. This is archetypal American harmony pop – but with a distinct freeze-dried character.It was the top side of the third single by Eternity’s Children, and made 69 in Billboard’s singles chart. It got to 54 in the Cash Box ranking. A UK release of “Mrs Bluebird” suggested there was chance this Read more ...
Guy Oddy
It’s not often that a band manages to get a Birmingham crowd dancing from the front of the stage to the back of the hall. However, Lambrini Girls achieved this feat on Saturday evening – from the very first bars of their set until they finally exited the stage after an encore of the lairy “Big Dick Energy”.It’s not even as if Phoebe Lunny and Selin Macieira-Boşgelmez have had a great deal of time to build their audience either. Lambrini Girls only formed in 2019 but they’ve certainly grabbed the zeitgeist by the short and curlies in that time and in doing so have attracted a seriously diverse Read more ...
Sarah Kent
A lone slice of cherry pie sits on a plate inside a glass case (pictured below), waiting to be released from its solitary confinement and guzzled by a hungry diner. There it is again, in an eye-watering display of sickly offerings (main picture). This time, four slices are lined up alongside their chocolate, pecan and lemon meringue counterparts. The display goes on and on, for as far as the eye can see.At first glance, Wayne Thiebaud’s pictures of cakes, pies, hot dogs, ice creams and gob stoppers look like euphoric celebrations of abundance; but gazing at this glut of comfort food soon Read more ...