Reviews
Classical CDs Weekly: Roxanna Panufnik, Penderecki, eXSaturday, 01 February 2014
Roxanna Panufnik: Tallinn Mass - Dance of Life Patricia Rozario, Jaak Johanson, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra/Mihhail Gerts (Warner)Roxanna Panufnik's Tallinn Mass is an occasional piece, written to celebrate the city's spell as European Capital... Read more... |
Jansen, LSO, Pappano, BarbicanFriday, 31 January 2014
There were, it seemed, enough trumpets to serve Gabriel throughout eternity - and, as fanfares go, this one was stretching a point and then some. LSO On Track had commissioned it from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and, true to the spirit of this... Read more... |
Men in Motion III, London ColiseumFriday, 31 January 2014
Two years, nearly to the day, since its first London outing, Ivan Putrov’s all-male ballet showcase, Men in Motion, is back in town. Does the damning of that 2012 première as too slight still sting Putrov? Men in Motion III seems designed to... Read more... |
Aisling Bea, Soho TheatreFriday, 31 January 2014
Young Irish actress and comic Aisling Bea made a tremendous debut with C'est la Bea at last year's Edinburgh Fringe, where she was deservedly nominated for best newcomer in the Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Awards. Now she is performing a short run at... Read more... |
Acis and Galatea, Mid Wales Opera, CardiffFriday, 31 January 2014
Handel’s “little opera”, as he called Acis and Galatea when he was composing it in 1718, probably survived while his true, full-length operas vanished from sight precisely because it was little, compact and manageable, like Purcell’s Dido or... Read more... |
ConsortiumFriday, 31 January 2014
You are staring at your computer screen; you are literally you. And now, through the wonder of modern technology, you can jump into the mind of, and take over, the security head of a near-future corporation's flying fortress. You control his speech... Read more... |
Dan Snow's History of the Winter Olympics, BBC TwoThursday, 30 January 2014
The programme blurb says: “Dan Snow looks back at 90 years of the Winter Olympics and shows how the political upheaval of the 20th and 21st centuries has impacted on the Games". Instead we got a mish-mash of archive clips, a potted history of the... Read more... |
The Good Wife, Series 5, More4Thursday, 30 January 2014
The annual reappearance of The Good Wife is always a cause for celebration. Why they persistently park it in the twilight zone of More4 remains one of the enduring mysteries of our era, since it's one of the best shows on TV, but the only question... Read more... |
Peter Grimes, English National OperaThursday, 30 January 2014
“Mind that door.” With the hurricane howling outside it’s no wonder the locals gathered in Auntie’s pub are yelling... but there is no door. Instead, a stage-wide sheet of corrugated iron rears up to let in Stuart Skelton’s storm-tossed Peter Grimes... Read more... |
Boris Charmatz/Musée de la danse: Enfant, Sadler’s WellsThursday, 30 January 2014
At first the machines are in control. A crane drags the inert body of a woman across the floor, lifts her up and leaves her dangling from the waist. A man follows, dragged by one foot and suspended upside down. The two bodies rise and fall or swing... Read more... |
The Armstrong LieThursday, 30 January 2014
Lance Armstrong is a Hollywood villain who just happens to be real. He bullies, lies, manipulates, cheats and destroys lives until righteous crusaders hunt him down and drive a stake through his heart. And that, more or less, will be the plot of the... Read more... |
Outnumbered, BBC OneWednesday, 29 January 2014
As the Brockman family returns for a fifth and final series of Outnumbered, some viewers will find their hackles standing to attention at the family's extraordinary distillation of middle-class characterstics. There’s the enviable middle-class... Read more... |
