Reviews
Rebecca Ferguson, Symphony Hall, BirminghamFriday, 28 March 2014
As anyone who has a television will know, Rebecca Ferguson is a graduate of The X Factor – having come runner-up in the 2010 competition. In fact, with her heavily-promoted back story of overcoming heart-ache and disappointment, it looks as if... Read more... |
Captain America: The Winter SoldierFriday, 28 March 2014
The first outing of the re-tooled Captain America in 2011's The First Avenger was a bit of a hoot, thanks to its carefully-wrought 1940s setting and Stanley Tucci and Hugo Weaving portraying contrasting varieties of Teutonic craziness. Bringing the... Read more... |
David Sedaris, Cadogan HallFriday, 28 March 2014
If such a thing were to exist, then American essayist, humorist and raconteur David Sedaris would be a Radio 4 superstar. His broadcasts on the channel receive hit numbers and are repeated regularly, and he's a permanent fixture on those parts of... Read more... |
Out ThereFriday, 28 March 2014
In the animated cutscene that begins Out There, the game lays out its basic premise. You are an astronaut frozen in cryonic sleep and then sent wildly off course by some mysterious event. You awake in an unfamiliar solar system with limited supplies... Read more... |
Believe, Watch / Person of Interest, Series 2, Channel 5Thursday, 27 March 2014
As pedigrees go, beat this - Believe [***] is the brainchild of Alfonso Cuarón, director of the Oscar-plundering Gravity, and JJ Abrams, mastermind of Lost, Fringe and the made-over Star Trek. This debut episode didn't live up to expectations, but... Read more... |
Josefowicz, BBCSO, Oramo, BarbicanThursday, 27 March 2014
Depth, height, breadth, a sense of the new and strange in three brilliantly-programmed works spanning just over a century: all these and a clarity in impassioned execution told us why the BBC Symphony Orchestra was inspired in choosing Finn Sakari... Read more... |
I Can't Sing!, London PalladiumThursday, 27 March 2014
The names have been changed to protect the guilty but half the fun of I Can’t Sing! - the so-called X-Factor musical - lies in the relentless spoofing of a show we love to hate and a format so unremittingly predictable that its contestants, judges,... Read more... |
Goldfrapp, Symphony Hall, BirminghamThursday, 27 March 2014
Goldfrapp have already toured new album, Tales of Us, having hit the road in the UK and Europe last autumn. However, they are back for some more and on the first date of the spring leg of their live shows, Alison Goldfrapp and her five-strong... Read more... |
The Prince of the Pagodas, Birmingham Royal Ballet, London ColiseumThursday, 27 March 2014
When three good choreographers can’t get a ballet right, there must be something wrong with either the story or the music. In the case of the Prince of the Pagodas (a Poirot mystery waiting to be written, that, but I digress), it’s hardly the music... Read more... |
Dark Vanilla Jungle, Soho TheatreWednesday, 26 March 2014
How do you explore extremes of feeling on stage? In cult pen-master Philip Ridley’s new play, a 75-minute monologue that won plaudits in Edinburgh last year, he takes us by the hand and throws us into a universe of pain. His mouthpiece is comedian... Read more... |
Fatal Attraction, Theatre Royal HaymarketWednesday, 26 March 2014
Just before the curtain came up for the second half of Fatal Attraction, a chap sitting behind me told his companion, “All I remember is that it ends quite badly.” It may seem like a cheap shot, from me, but the comment was apposite in so many ways... Read more... |
L’Ormindo, Royal Opera, Sam Wanamaker PlayhouseWednesday, 26 March 2014
The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the new indoor Jacobean theatre at The Globe, is an absolute jewel of painstaking historical research and craftsmanship. It is small, seating around 350, and with its thrust stage lit by around 100 candles (with electric... Read more... |
