Reviews
Tom Birchenough
Calcutta director Satyajit Ray was a colossus of cinema whose work often bridged the gap between his native Indian – specifically, Bengali – culture and that of Europe. He wrote that his 1964 film Charulata (alternatively titled in English “The Lonely Wife”) was his favourite, saying “it was the one film I would make the same way if I had to do it again”. Ray’s script is based on a novella, “The Broken Nest”, by one of the most profound cultural influences on the director, Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore.Charulata is a film of intimate concentration, as well as an immaculate recreation of Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
It sure feels like longer than three weeks since the Mariinsky rolled into town – at least if you’re one of London’s ballet fans. Non-balletomanes might be wondering whether the feverish intensity with which the company’s doings are followed, its form analysed, its health diagnosed, is disproportionate, a case of collective hysteria stoked by cultural stereotypes about Russians and the absence of other ballet offerings in late summer.After all, most touring companies are seen for what they are, a collection of more or less good artists, under a more or less good artistic director with a more Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
The best thing about The Great War: The People’s Story is the variety of intonations and accents that reveal the characters of the individuals whose letters, memoirs and diaries are collected in the programme. Last week’s opening episode caught all the gung-ho excitement that followed the declaration of war as men streamed along to join up. This second one brought us something darker, as we moved forward to 1915, with the “machine of death” already reaping its toll.The People’s Story will run to four episodes, each of which concentrates on four individuals whose stories last as long as their Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Wire: Document and EyewitnessEven when taking account of the elasticity brought by punk splintering into the myriads of left turns, new directions and dead ends of what became post-punk, the trajectory of Wire was eccentric. Document and Eyewitness was the final and fourth album they issued before their reformation in 1985, having first split up in 1980. Ostensibly a live album, Document and Eyewitness captures Wire’s final show, on 29 February 1980, at Camden’s Electric Ballroom. It was an evening which continued what they had begun during a residency at The Jeannetta Cochrane Theatre Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Adam of the Riches, Pleasance Dome ****No one is safe at an Adam Riches show from being grabbed to take part in his frantic sketch comedy; each skit in this hour of anarchy involves audience participation, from using someone's mouth as a cocktail mixer (compete with half a banana shoved in his gob) to having gents of a certain age “strumming” each other's hair, as if a harp.The latter happens during a long, multi-layered opening sketch in which Riches is Sean Bean, “Britain's most modest actor” who implores us to support “the straight-to-video market”. Riches creates a nicely cruel overview Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
An expectant audience isn’t the only thing which can be seen from the main stage of Helsinki’s Flow Festival. Janelle Monáe, Manic Street Preachers and OutKast are also greeted by a gas holder looming ominously before them. This brooding remnant of the festival site’s former use as a gasworks brings a unique flavour to Flow. The setting and site are unlike that of any other festival.In its 11th year, Flow 2014 balanced big international names against edgier artists and Finns of all shapes, sizes and styles. With great food, a kid-friendly third day and art installations, the festival is a Read more ...
Christopher Lambton
Twenty years ago Ute Lemper came to the Usher Hall to sing Kurt Weill. The young pretender to the Lotte Lenya throne performed then on a bare stage with little more than a piano as accompaniment. Last night, she swept onto a platform crammed with a massively augmented Scottish Chamber Orchestra, with saxophone, guitar, banjo, rhythm section, accordion, grand piano, and a squadron of percussion. Microphones, foldback, and towers of gently whirring loudspeakers filled any remaining space. Seductive lighting dappled the walls.In her cabaret repertoire of Weill, Eisler, Marlene Dietrich and Read more ...
Jasper Rees
You could be forgiven if the name had slipped off your radar. Neutral Milk Hotel were indie contenders formed in Athens, Georgia back in the day. There were two full-length albums – On Avery Island and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea – in the second half of the Nineties which intrigued a loyal fanbase with crashing chord structures, instruments plucked from a cabinet of curiosities, and opaque lyrics. And then the rest was silence. Frontman Jeff Mangum retreated from the limelight and the band vanished off the map. For 15 years the closest anyone could get to worshipping at the altar was Read more ...
Marianka Swain
It is no mean feat to turn an audience against idealistic, painfully young marines heading for the nightmarish hell of Vietnam, but Dogfight comes perilously close to achieving that undesirable goal in the manner of their introduction. The band of brothers have just one night of freedom in San Francisco before deployment, and how do they wish to spend it? Competing to see which of them can recruit the least attractive date in a so-called "dogfight", with the winner – if there can really be a winner in such a contest – pocketing a wad of cash. On the Town it is not.In fairness to Peter Duchan Read more ...
caroline.boyle
Like a canny political campaigner, the Edinburgh Art Festival offers “something for everyone”. In this singular year for Scotland, the festival weaves together strands concerning the independence referendum, the Commonwealth and the centenery of the beginning of the First World War. It also provides an introduction to a host of other ideas and artistic worlds. It's contemporary art that takes centre stage and its flagship is Generation. This multi-venue show takes over the imposing rooms of the Royal Scottish Academy and the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art and is part of a Scotland-wide Read more ...
Marianka Swain
If comedy is tragedy plus time, either too much has elapsed since the fictional events of Jezebel, or not quite enough. Newcomer Mark Cantan's uneven screwball comedy pitting a methodical couple against a scatter-brained opposite with wacky misunderstandings aplenty, lacks the emotional heft to be more than genially inconsequential. And it's too enamoured of the old-fashioned TV sitcoms it references to subvert rather than merely replicate their well-worn tropes. Add a classic living-room set, direct address to camera - sorry, audience - and audible pauses for laugh track, and you get Read more ...
Stuart Houghton
Geometric shapes move towards a coloured ball. You just have to move the ball and dodge the shapes. Easy. Were it not for one tiny detail, Duet might be almost too simple.Except.. there are two balls. The clue is in the title and the way you beat each level has as much to do with choreography as it does with lightning-fast twitch reactions.Your two balls, red and blue, are fixed on opposite sides of a thin ring and they move in concert. You rotate the ring clockwise or anti-clockwise by tapping and holding a finger on either side of the screen. In each level, white shapes move slowly towards Read more ...