Reviews
Richard Hawley, Royal Festival HallSunday, 24 January 2010
"So, we made it eventually." Having postponed this show two weeks ago due to the M1 doubling as a skating rink, Richard Hawley opened not with a song but an apology. It was hardly necessary. The sold-out Royal Festival Hall last night was prepared... Read more... |
Way to Blue: The Songs of Nick Drake, BarbicanSaturday, 23 January 2010
The dominant look among all ages of the sell-out audience at the Barbican Hall last night was distinctly “smart-Bohemian”, with plenty of thick-rimmed specs, duffle coats and subtly outré hairdos visible as they took their seats and gave one another... Read more... |
The Review Show, BBC TwoSaturday, 23 January 2010
“New programme, new set, new city,” said Kirsty Wark by way of introduction to the BBC’s new flagship culture programme, The Review Show. It replaces Newsnight Review and goes out after the current affairs programme that spawned it, but now in its... Read more... |
Brian Eno - Another Green World, BBC FourSaturday, 23 January 2010
I’ve never been quite sure whether Brian Eno is a musician, or somebody for whom music happens to be the end product of a chain of cognitive processes. Certainly it was music that powered him to prominence, either as the inventor of ambient music, a... Read more... |
War and Peace, Theatre Royal, GlasgowFriday, 22 January 2010
Two hundred costumes, over 60 solo roles and the world premiere of a great operatic composer's first thoughts: it's a task which would daunt the best-resourced opera company in the world. The fact that Prokofiev's initial, 11-scene meditation on... Read more... |
Giselle & Men Y Men, English National Ballet, ColiseumFriday, 22 January 2010
It's a short run, in London, but a sweet one. At the Coliseum, English National Ballet's revival of a 1971 Giselle is a showcase for a company on exceptionally calibrated form, offering audiences a taste of its myriad talent over six more shows... Read more... |
The Rake's Progress, Royal Opera HouseFriday, 22 January 2010
Not everyone was playing for the same team in last night's revival production of The Rake's Progress. On the one side were the conductor, choir and soloists, all focused in their service and submission to unravelling this quietly brilliant... Read more... |
The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters, Royal AcademyFriday, 22 January 2010
This exhibition may claim to reveal the real Van Gogh through his letters, but what of the Sunflowers, the Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear, oh, and Starry Night, with its roiling night sky and dark, mysterious cypress tree? What even of the dizzying... Read more... |
Bellamy's People, BBC TwoFriday, 22 January 2010
Born out of the spurious Radio 4 phone-in show Down The Line, created by Fast Show veterans Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson, Bellamy’s People takes bogus broadcaster Gary Bellamy out on the road and in front of the cameras to meet his public. On... Read more... |
BrothersThursday, 21 January 2010
Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Sam Shepard and, in a tiny role, Carey Mulligan: yes, yet again the stars are lining up to live through the agony of America's presence in Iraq and (here) Afghanistan. Closely based on Brødre, by the... Read more... |
My Dream Farm, Channel 4Thursday, 21 January 2010
Monty Don’s Fork to Fork is probably my desert island gardening book, while Don’s weekly articles in the Observer magazine are still sorely missed years after they last appeared. He is a marvellous writer, poetic and evangelical - although I’ve... Read more... |
The Little Dog Laughed, Garrick TheatreThursday, 21 January 2010
Tamsin Greig takes her mighty stage chops to a new level in The Little Dog Laughed, a minor Broadway comedy that gets a major star performance from Greig in her first West End role since God of Carnage. Tearing into a role that deservedly won... Read more... |
