Reviews
The Place Prize for Dance/ Cinderella, Royal BalletThursday, 07 April 2011
Reports of ballet’s death are greatly exaggerated, but I’m not equally sanguine about the craft of choreography. Having sat dumbstruck through the four limping dogs masquerading as finalists in The Place’s prize “for dance” [sic] on Tuesday, I... Read more... |
Room at the Top, BBC FourThursday, 07 April 2011
Another week, another northern novel about working-class libidos adapted for BBC Four. One is still catching one’s breath from the festival of copulation that was Women in Love. Spool forward a few decades - or a week in television scheduling... Read more... |
2001: A Space Odyssey with live score, Philharmonia, de Ridder, Royal Festival HallThursday, 07 April 2011
Imagine a special two-hour-plus resurrection of that wannabe extravaganza Stars in Their Eyes. "So, young maestro André de Ridder, who are you going to give us?" "Well, in addition to showing my special flair for contemporary music in Ligeti, I'm... Read more... |
The Kennedys, HistoryThursday, 07 April 2011
It's unlikely that this soap-esque miniseries about America's most notorious political clan will stir up the kind of furore in Britain that has engulfed it in the States. Over there, merely to mention the Kennedys seems to conjure up visions of a... Read more... |
Bryony Kimmings/ Shazia Mirza, Soho TheatreThursday, 07 April 2011
At first sight there seems to be little to connect these two comics - one a performance artist who spends much of her show in her underwear, the other a self-described 34-year-old virgin - who are touring with their 2010 Edinburgh Fringe shows,... Read more... |
Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2011, Ambika P3Thursday, 07 April 2011
You hardly expect to turn out for an exhibition of cutting-edge photography because of what the images are of. You go for the style, for the technique, for what’s being said about the medium and the, er, beauty. Yet at least one of the nominees for... Read more... |
Brontë, Tricycle TheatreWednesday, 06 April 2011
“Too fat, too miserable, too pinched” for love and life, the Brontë sisters famously made a kingdom out of their dingy rectory home in rural Yorkshire. Denied not just a room but an existence of their own, these three Victorian spinsters found... Read more... |
McCoy Tyner, Ronnie Scott'sWednesday, 06 April 2011
Inspired to take up the piano by his neighbours Bud and Richie Powell, Philadelphia’s McCoy Tyner made jazz history as a member of the early-1960s John Coltrane quartet before emerging as a leader at Blue Note records. If his voicings seem any less... Read more... |
Daniel Linehan, Sadler's Wells, Lilian Baylis TheatreWednesday, 06 April 2011
Photography is linked closely with memory. Photographs help us recall family, friends, holidays, and it can attest to an event. But one could argue that it actually serves a purpose of forgetting. As we are immersed in a digital age, the photograph... Read more... |
Keren Ann, Jazz CaféWednesday, 06 April 2011
Keren Ann’s new album, 101, might showcase her new-found pop smarts but last night’s hour-and-a-half set ranged through her whole catalogue taking in country-flavoured balladry, early Velvet Underground chugging and introspective singer-songwriting... Read more... |
The Crimson Petal and the White, BBC TwoWednesday, 06 April 2011
Playing a prostitute on film has been big career business for some very famous actresses, not least Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Taylor and Julia Roberts, but it hasn't worked quite the same way on TV. Unless you count Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Or Moll... Read more... |
Campus, Channel 4Tuesday, 05 April 2011
Let us begin with the nots. Fashionably weird is not enough. Edgy, whatever that means, is not enough. The repeated use of the word “vagina” is not enough and semi-improvised ensemble acting is not, in itself, quite enough. These were just some of... Read more... |
