Reviews
BonsaiTuesday, 27 March 2012
One of the most refreshing aspects of current Latin American cinema, most evident in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, is a particular brand of off-beat romantic comedy – one with echoes of the literate and quirky US independents of the Eighties and... Read more... |
Vera Vera Vera, Royal Court TheatreTuesday, 27 March 2012
There is nothing quite so exciting as witnessing the debut of a fresh new voice. But young writers can be rather frail creatures, and their exposure in the high-profile Royal Court Young Writers Festival might sometimes highlight their failings as... Read more... |
One Night, BBC OneTuesday, 27 March 2012
“Everything’s so bloody uphill, isn’t it?” whined kitchen salesman Ted (Douglas Hodge) upon realising that he’d left the charcoal for the evening's barbeque at the supermarket. But the charcoal wasn’t really the problem. There was the girl from the... Read more... |
Korn, Brixton AcademyTuesday, 27 March 2012
To dubstep or not to dubstep, that was the question perplexing the nearly 5000 metalheads jammed into the Brixton Academy to see Korn.The California four-piece made their name as purveyors of "nu metal" in the mid-Nineties (like old metal - but with... Read more... |
War Requiem, Philharmonia Orchestra, Maazel, Royal Festival HallMonday, 26 March 2012
In this, the work’s 50th anniversary year, there will be a lot of War Requiems. Benjamin Britten’s howl of Pacifist conviction has lost little of its poignancy since its composition – a period marked by the almost continuous military presence of... Read more... |
Titanic, ITV1Monday, 26 March 2012
Imagine my surprise when we weren't much more than halfway through this first episode, and the flipping thing hit the iceberg. But of course writer Julian Fellowes was way ahead of me, and his four-part series about RMS Unsinkable is evidently going... Read more... |
Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of LifeMonday, 26 March 2012
Into the Abyss sees celebrated German filmmaker Werner Herzog take a sharp turn away from those marvels of early man he so magnificently captured in the stereoscopic Cave of Forgotten Dreams to the shocking violence of which humanity is also capable... Read more... |
Vengerov, St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Temirkanov, Barbican HallSunday, 25 March 2012
Originally, this concert was to open with that mercurial wonder Martha Argerich playing an unspecified piano concerto. Then its first item became Martha Argerich not playing anything, for the good lady, almost as rare a visitor to Britain as the Man... Read more... |
Filumena, Almeida TheatreSunday, 25 March 2012
If it's possible to take a loving and empathic approach to decidedly intractable material, the director Michael Attenborough achieves precisely that with Filumena, in which Samantha Spiro follows on from (and surpasses) Judi Dench in author... Read more... |
JLS, O2 ArenaSaturday, 24 March 2012
The X Factor has made it far easier for fans to connect with artists from the get-go - as far as the viewer is concerned, the life story of each auditionee starts at episode one. Following JLS from that first audition to a third sold-out arena tour... Read more... |
The Girl in the Yellow Dress, Theatre 503Saturday, 24 March 2012
Ethnic tensions in France have been in the news this week, with the siege of the gunman Mohammed Merah, so award-winning South-African penman Craig Higginson’s new play seems really timely. First seen in this country at the Salisbury Playhouse, and... Read more... |
Classic Albums: Peter Gabriel - So, BBC FourSaturday, 24 March 2012
In the early Eighties Peter Gabriel was the ne plus ultra of arty, experimental margin-hangers, breaking cover occasionally with an improbable hit single before “retreating back into the bushes with my normal crowd”. His fifth studio album, So,... Read more... |
