Reviews
Magnetic Man, HeavenThursday, 04 November 2010![]() Rave music, in its many ever-mutating forms, is now more than a generation into its existence. Many, possibly most, of the crowd pushing into Heaven, under Charing Cross station, weren't even born when acid house fully hit the UK in 1988, but none... Read more... |
Sylvia, Royal BalletWednesday, 03 November 2010![]() Places, please, deliciousness, please. This is Delibes, a man whose music goes with delectable disbelief, and this is that zany thing, a Fifties nymph ballet, so let us sip hallucinogenic Arcadian cocktails and leave normality at the cloakroom. But... Read more... |
Another YearWednesday, 03 November 2010![]() Mike Leigh's Another Year traverses the four seasons beginning with spring, and yet the mood is autumnal throughout. People don't sunbathe or picnic or build bonfires or for the most part respond in any particular way to the passage of time. Instead... Read more... |
Due DateWednesday, 03 November 2010![]() Todd Phillips’s interest in road trips as a hook for 90 minutes of male bad behaviour continues with this virtual remake of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. For mismatched couple Steve Martin and John Candy, read Robert Downey Jr and Zach... Read more... |
The Price of Everything, Stephen Joseph TheatreTuesday, 02 November 2010![]() The TMA regional theatre awards are about to be announced, which makes it perfect timing to visit a nominee - one of the UK’s most influential venues, the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. The SJT was the country’s first... Read more... |
Emanuel Gat Dance, Sadler's Wells/ Henri Oguike Dance, TouringTuesday, 02 November 2010![]() How do young modern choreographers engage with their audience? With references from the street - motion that the audience knows and recognises? With musical expressiveness? With the development of a technical style that has a language of its own?... Read more... |
The Trip, BBC TwoTuesday, 02 November 2010![]() There’s an interesting back story to The Trip. Before Rob Brydon was “discovered” by Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow production company in 2000, he was a workaday comic and Coogan was then at the height of his Alan Partridge-induced success. Since then... Read more... |
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, The GarageTuesday, 02 November 2010![]() Bounding on stage in a purple version of the man dress pioneered by Mick Jagger at The Stones’s 1969 Hyde Park concert, Ariel Pink looks like a mistranslated version of what a late-Sixties rock star should be. His long hair is dyed blonde. The roots... Read more... |
Novecento, Trafalgar StudiosTuesday, 02 November 2010![]() Offbeat in more than just their rhythms, jazz musicians have always had an affinity to the extraordinary, living lives syncopated against the regular tread of society. Maybe it was the informality of their training, or the influence of brothels,... Read more... |
The Little House, ITV1Tuesday, 02 November 2010![]() I realise actors must be prepared to suffer for their art, but it was truly heroic of Francesca Annis to allow herself to be made up to resemble Cherie Blair after a bout of electro-convulsive therapy compounded by a facelift by Dr Mengele... Read more... |
Frankie Boyle, Hammersmith ApolloMonday, 01 November 2010![]() The last time I saw bouncers standing at the foot of the stage at a comedy venue was at a Roy "Chubby" Brown gig. Back then, I remarked how nicely behaved his fans were, as indeed were Frankie Boyle’s last night; however, another quality the two... Read more... |
Let Me InMonday, 01 November 2010![]() By the standards of contemporary horror movies, Let Me In has several things going for it. It isn't about somebody being tortured to death, its leading characters aren't played by the usual vapid twentysomething actors pretending to be high-school... Read more... |
