Reviews
Chagall: Modern Master, Tate LiverpoolWednesday, 12 June 2013
“Charming” is undoubtedly a double-edged word. Along with its perfumed allure, it carries a whiff of insincerity, of something slick and not quite earned. Add “whimsical” and you know you’re in danger of saccharine overload. Chagall is both,... Read more... |
Child Genius, Channel 4/Agnetha: Abba and After, BBC OneWednesday, 12 June 2013
Nobody said it was easy being an infant prodigy. Take Hugo, ranked in the top 0.4 percent of the population. He knows everything there is to know about train engines, train stations, rail networks etc, has them committed to his photographic memory.... Read more... |
Death in the Making: Photographs of War by Robert Capa, Atlas GalleryWednesday, 12 June 2013
How writers change their tune. When Robert Capa died in Vietnam in 1954, having trodden on a landmine, Ernest Hemingway was chief among those paying tribute. “It is bad luck for everybody that the percentages caught up with him,” he wrote. “It is... Read more... |
PARADISE: LoveWednesday, 12 June 2013
The likelihood of leaving a screening of PARADISE: Love without feeling either queasy or at least a little off balance is low. This realist-styled portrayal of middle-aged Teresa’s excursion to Kenya to seek intimacy and, inevitably, sex is awkward... Read more... |
The Fall, Series Finale, BBC TwoTuesday, 11 June 2013
In the end, it was always going to come down to the last episode whether The Fall was powerful female-driven drama or, to quote another writer for theartsdesk, “misogynistic torture porn”. That conclusion, however, was as elusive as the ending of... Read more... |
Stuck in LoveTuesday, 11 June 2013
People genuinely care about words in Josh Boone's directing debut, Stuck in Love, and that's as might be expected from a film that went by the name of Writers when it premiered in Toronto last autumn. So the first thing to be said is that this... Read more... |
Songlines Encounters FestivalTuesday, 11 June 2013
This is the third Songlines Encounters festival at Kings Place. Wednesday’s programme featured Balkans, Polish and Georgian music, Thursday had Egyptian Baladi Blues and Louisiana’s Sarah Savoy, and Friday featured West Africa, Spain and Palestine.... Read more... |
Precision: The Measure of All Things, BBC FourTuesday, 11 June 2013
Given the breadth of Marcus du Sautoy’s cultural scholarship, it was a small surprise that British poet Andrew Marvell wasn't name-checked at the start of the presenter’s new three-parter Precision: The Measure of All Things. “Had we but world... Read more... |
Mission Drift, National TheatreTuesday, 11 June 2013
One of the promises of artistic director Nicholas Hytner when he took the helm of this flagship 10 years ago was to stage new and innovative musicals. His problem, of course, is that these don’t grow on trees. So after the triumph of Jerry Springer... Read more... |
Anthony Caro: Park Avenue Series, Gagosian GalleryTuesday, 11 June 2013
Sir Anthony Caro, OM, is wowing them in Venice with his masterly retrospective, but for those of us who can’t get there, there is a generous helping of his characteristic late work in his first show in Gagosian’s airy large gallery. Late Caro (he’s... Read more... |
RLPO, Petrenko, Liverpool Philharmonic HallMonday, 10 June 2013
With the Albert Dock just a few hundred yards down the road, and Liverpool the launchpad for two centuries of Atlantic crossings, it’s perhaps not too shocking to hear Wagner’s intercontinental Ride of the Valkyries resound round Philharmonic Hall.... Read more... |
The Returned, Channel 4Monday, 10 June 2013
"Maybe everything that dies someday comes back," Bruce Springsteen posited in "Atlantic City". The residents of the French Alpine village at the centre of The Returned may conclude that he had a point. The Returned (Les Revenants in the... Read more... |
