Reviews
Mad Dog: Gaddafi's Secret World, BBC FourTuesday, 04 February 2014
Three years ago this month, the first protests against the brutal dictatorship of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi broke out. On October 20 2011, the tyrant was finally caught, and mobile phone footage of his bloody and abused last minutes went viral. His... Read more... |
The Domino Heart, Finborough TheatreTuesday, 04 February 2014
Canadian playwright Matthew Edison's award-winning 2003 play The Domino Heart receives its European premiere in rather reduced circumstances. As a Sunday to Tuesday production at the Finborough (directed by Jane Jeffery), it takes place on the set... Read more... |
Taylor Swift, O2 ArenaMonday, 03 February 2014
When the red curtain opens - or drops with delicious melodrama - on the second night of Taylor Swift’s residency at the O2 Arena, the first thing you notice is her eyes. We’re a crowd of thousands, packed into the second largest stadium in the UK,... Read more... |
Vengerov, LSO, Pappano, BarbicanMonday, 03 February 2014
An all-British programme – with plenty of Italian flavours – opened to a sold-out Barbican Hall with the overture In the South (Alassio), composed by Elgar during a stay on the Italian Riviera. It isn’t one of his most memorable scores, but it still... Read more... |
Stroke of Luck, Park TheatreMonday, 03 February 2014
In 2011 Tim Pigott-Smith gave us an impressive, humane King Lear at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Here he is again, a patriarch learning how "sharper than a serpent's tooth" it is to have thankless children, but this time his character decides to do... Read more... |
Lift to the ScaffoldMonday, 03 February 2014
A woman tramps the streets of Paris looking for a man. It’s night. It’s raining. She pops into bars asking for him. Everyone knows who he is. He’s been seen, but not recently. Earlier, early in the evening, she was supposed to meet him but he hadn’t... Read more... |
Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, Assembly Hall, WorthingSunday, 02 February 2014
Kitty Lux is one of the founders of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. Her performance of Lou Reed's "Satellite of Love" sums up their wonderful act. Sat strumming stonily stationary, clad in black with a red scarf around her short dark hair... Read more... |
The Bridge, Series 2 Finale, BBC FourSunday, 02 February 2014
The Saga saga is over. An eco-terrorist plot to kill off the top tier of Europe’s environment ministers has been foiled, with nails bitten to the quick. Various Nordic marriages are in tatters, like a boxed set of Strindberg. Justice has been done... Read more... |
Making Painting: Helen Frankenthaler and JMW Turner, Turner ContemporarySunday, 02 February 2014
Helen Frankenthaler is often presented as being both a stepping stone between art movements and as an artist who fell – because such things matter in the tidy narratives of art history – between the cracks of various American isms.... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Seeds, The Dream SyndicateSunday, 02 February 2014
The Seeds: Raw & Alive / The Dream Syndicate: The Day Before Wine and RosesTwo live albums. Both by bands rooted in psychedelia and based in Los Angeles. Each recorded in a studio rather than on stage. One, by The Seeds, from 1968. The... Read more... |
Lloyd Cole and the Leopards, Shepherd's Bush EmpireSaturday, 01 February 2014
Last night Lloyd Cole arrived on stage with a similar suede-and-corduroy air to that of his Eighties college-rock hits. Yet something was different. Over the last few years he has developed a real gravitas. It showed in the lines on his face and... Read more... |
Scholl, Academy Of Ancient Music, BarbicanSaturday, 01 February 2014
As a generalist (or dilettante) who writes about world, jazz, pop and classical music, I have no doubt that 10 years ago Andreas Scholl was one of the great voices of the planet alongside names like Abida Parveen from Pakistan and Caetano Veloso... Read more... |
