Reviews
The Lighthouse, English Touring OperaFriday, 12 October 2012![]() Confinement is a thread running through English Touring Opera’s autumn season. In Albert Herring it is in the priggish village; in The Emperor of Atlantis it is in the circumstances of its creation within the Terezín concentration camp; in The... Read more... |
LFF 2012: Dead EuropeFriday, 12 October 2012![]() The title couldn’t be more resonant, as the economic crisis makes the one-time First World visibly slip another notch. But in Tony Krawitz’s adaptation of Christos Tsolkias’s novel, the meaning is also literal: this is a bloody continent of unquiet... Read more... |
All That Fall, Jermyn Street TheatreFriday, 12 October 2012![]() Samuel Beckett recalled sinking into a "whirl of depression" while writing All That Fall. Audiences at this production - those, that is, who have managed to score a ticket for this short, sold-out run - are unlikely to emerge into Jermyn Street in a... Read more... |
Michael Mittermeier, Soho TheatreFriday, 12 October 2012![]() There must be something on the air; a few foreign comics (including Edinburgh Comedy Awards newcomer winner Daniel Simonsen) were performing in English at this year's Edinburgh Fringe and now one of them, Germany's Michael Mittermeier, has brought... Read more... |
Ruby SparksFriday, 12 October 2012![]() From the makers of Little Miss Sunshine comes a funny, ethereal love story in the same vein as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Sunshine’s not all they have in common.Calvin Weir-Fields (smash the surname and you get Weirds) is a bestselling... Read more... |
Desire Under the Elms, Lyric HammersmithFriday, 12 October 2012![]() Pity the A-level English student: for them the “rarely seen masterpieces” that creep onto the curriculum and into the theatres. Judging from the frequently giggling reaction of the audience last night of around 100 17- and 18-year-olds, Eugene O’... Read more... |
LFF 2012: UndergroundFriday, 12 October 2012![]() As Julian Assange continues to hold the world’s authorities at bay behind embassy doors, this new biopic offers Young Assange: a Melbourne teenager among the first generation of computer hackers, who cracked the Pentagon’s code on the Gulf War’s eve... Read more... |
XCOM: Enemy UnknownFriday, 12 October 2012![]() In the event of an alien invasion it really is important to learn to prioritise. And to juggle. In XCOM: Enemy Unknown you are plunged into the middle of just such an invasion. As the commander of an elite anti-alien unit you are responsible for the... Read more... |
LFF 2012: Normal SchoolThursday, 11 October 2012![]() Argentine Celina Murga’s two feature films to date, Ana and the Others and A Week Alone, mark her out as one of the most original voices in a country chock full of talent. Those films are concerned with individuals – respectively, a young... Read more... |
Swan Lake, Royal BalletThursday, 11 October 2012![]() The Royal Ballet’s autumn season began on Monday, but this was the eagerly awaited Swan Lake. Natalia Osipova, ex-Bolshoi, now principal with American Ballet Theater and the Mikhailovsky in St Petersburg, was making her debut as a guest with the... Read more... |
William Klein + Daido Moriyama, Tate ModernThursday, 11 October 2012![]() William Klein’s exhibition opens with Broadway by Light (1958), a celluloid elegy to advertising made in the days before neon. Myriad bulbs flash the names of brands like Coca Cola, Camel, Budweiser and Pepsi across New York’s night sky. Silhouetted... Read more... |
DCI Banks, Series 2, ITV1Thursday, 11 October 2012![]() Charm, politeness and glittering repartee are clearly not considered important qualities for the Yorkshire-based policepersons who work alongside DCI Banks. TV coppers are rarely a barrel of laughs but for this bunch, spitting, snarling and glaring... Read more... |
