Reviews
Daphne, Scottish Opera, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - Strauss’s translucent hymn to natureMonday, 11 December 2023
On an Edinburgh afternoon of torrential rain close to the winter solstice, what ecstasy to be transported to an ancient Greek midsummer day, a Claude landscape with shepherds calling across the hills, painted in the most translucent colours by... Read more... |
Pacific Overtures, Menier Chocolate Factory review - lesser-known Sondheim scores afreshMonday, 11 December 2023
This is, by my reckoning at least, the third major London production over the years of Pacific Overtures, Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's dazzling curiosity of a show first seen on Broadway in 1976 and reappraised ever since in stagings... Read more... |
Gogol Bordello, O2 Institute, Birmingham review - an incendiary performance by Eugene Hütz’ gangMonday, 11 December 2023
Gogol Bordello’s gig in Birmingham this week took place on the evening of Shane MacGowan’s funeral and inevitably turned into something of a celebration of that great poet and songwriter’s life. But then, with the raucous folk music on offer, it was... Read more... |
Anselm review - post-war German reckonings in 3DSunday, 10 December 2023
Water glassily reflects in a bridal train, the sun moves between trees, giving way to metal book-leaves, and inside a warehouse so vast he cycles through it, stored cliffs of Anselm Kiefer’s work loom over him. Wim Wenders’ 3D cameras bring you... Read more... |
Talking About the Fire, Royal Court review - urgent and informativeSunday, 10 December 2023
Let’s start with what we know: the climate emergency is the single most burning question facing the planet. Our life on earth depends on tackling it. Right? Well, maybe not, argues theatre-maker Chris Thorpe in his new one-man show, Talking About... Read more... |
I Fagiolini, Hollingworth, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - it's not the Messiah...Sunday, 10 December 2023
“Nobody likes a Messiah…”, deadpanned Robert Hollingworth, with the timing of a practised stand-up. After a pause, “…more than I do.” At St Martin-in-the-Fields on Friday evening, however, the seasonal blockbuster did not, just for once, feature on... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Chelsea - The Step-Forward YearsSunday, 10 December 2023
On 21 June 1977, listeners to John Peel’s radio show heard a song titled “Pretty Vacant.” It wasn’t a preview of the forthcoming Sex Pistols single of the same name, which would be in shops on 2 July, but a different song. The band lifting the title... Read more... |
Please Don't Destroy: Treasure of Foggy Mountain review - Dude, where's our map?Saturday, 09 December 2023
Despite an ominous title, there’s always fair weather in the debut comic adventure film featuring Please Don’t Destroy, a NYC sketch comedy trio that’s hit it big with viral videos and on the long-running NBC series Saturday Night Live. (So long... Read more... |
Wonka review - a confusingly mixed bag of bonbonsSaturday, 09 December 2023
As the 117 minutes of Wonka tick by, the question it poses gains momentum: who is this film actually for? Children of all ages?It’s an “origins” story, standard now for all manner of film character, showing the sunnier side of Roald Dahl’s eccentric... Read more... |
Smyrna review - Greece at twilightSaturday, 09 December 2023
The Smyrna Catastrophe of 1922, in which tens of thousands of Greeks and Armenians were slaughtered by Turkish soldiers, is a topical subject for our dark times. Unfortunately the intervening century hasn’t put an end to ethnic cleansing or to... Read more... |
The Peasants review - earthbound animationSaturday, 09 December 2023
After a few years of cinema, the wow factor of seeing actual things moving about on a screen wore off a bit and showmen saw that jump cuts and stop-motion – the dawn of animation – could lift audiences some more. The liberation from gravity, in fact... Read more... |
Mathias Énard: The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers' Guild review - a man of infinite deathSaturday, 09 December 2023
"Death, as a general statement, is so easy of utterance, of belief", wrote Amy Levy, "it is only when we come face to face with it that we find the great mystery so cruelly hard to realise; for death, like love, is ever old and ever new". In Mathias... Read more... |
