Reviews
joe.muggs
Dinosaur Jr never change. Formed in 1984, the trio added a heavy dose of rock classicism to the then-current sound of US hardcore, inadvertently inventing grunge in the process. Since then, members have come and gone around lead singer/guitarist J Mascis – eventually returning in 2005 to their original lineup featuring Lou Barlow (also leader of Sebadoh and Folk Implosion) on bass and “Murph” on drums – and the Mascis has calmly watched scenes come and go.Hardcore, grunge, nu-metal and emo all rose and fell, but Dinosaur Jr just kept on keeping on with their formula of Mascis's plaintively- Read more ...
james.woodall
Bertolt Brecht was probably made for them: Deborah Warner directing Fiona Shaw in Mother Courage and her Children is as desirable a coupling, surely, as the Warner-Shaw Richard II or Happy Days, both immensely satisfying showcases for the director's imaginative reach and the actress's fabled versatility. Brecht's saga of the Thirty Years' War demands a challenging cross between Shakespeare's rich historical dramaturgy and Beckett's relentless density; so the must-see urgency of the German-speaking world's best-known play at the Olivier by two such - well, is it rude to call them veterans? - Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The departure from the Oval Office of George W Bush was a catalyst for much street festivity over the water, for inappropriate hugging of strangers and random multi-ethnic high-fiving. Of course whole tranches of the all-American demographic were somehow able to contain their excitement at the coming of Obama – among them oil profiteers, health insurers, people whose recreation includes shooting other people in the head. But none mourn Dubya like American comedians. And no American comedian mourns him more than Rich Hall. There aren’t so many jokes in the audacity of hope.So where does a Read more ...
Ismene Brown
A modern choreographer has arrived when he gets to run two companies in parallel, the institution that appoints him director, and - as a sort of personal couture line - his own group. Wayne McGregor does it with the Royal Ballet and his Random Dance, now it’s Rafael Bonachela who took on Sydney Dance Company at the end of last year, while retaining his own Bonachela Dance Company at the South Bank Centre. Going by last night, I don't think living a bi-hemispheric existence is aiding his powers to entertain.Bonachela's talent is slim - nice, but slim. A decade ago it was interesting to see him Read more ...
gerard.gilbert
David Mitchell’s smarty-pants TV panel show ubiquity – over-exposure even by Stephen Fry’s standards - may have started eroding the goodwill built up over five series of Peep Show, but all is forgiven once he’s safely re-garbed in the horribly plausible, drab office-wear of nerdish flatmate Mark. It’s difficult to imagine any other comic actor giving quite the same defeated peevishness to the line: “A new boiler... surely the least enjoyable way to spend a thousand pounds.”The gag belongs of course not to Mitchell but to Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, the writers who have worked miracles to Read more ...
edward.seckerson
The Bruckner half of the programme appeared to have come early as Bernard Haitink and the Chicago Symphony sternly, doggedly, processed through the introduction of Haydn’s Symphony No.101 ‘Clock’. It was a portent of things to come. The prognosis was not good. A case of terminal seriousness would eventually render the performance irreversibly moribund.Haydn thrives – no, depends – upon a light touch. Furthermore his wit is built upon an element of surprise. Neither was forthcoming as Haitink’s Chicagoans launched somewhat poker-faced into the main presto of the first movement. A steady tempo Read more ...
sheila.johnston
Mobile phones aren't usually allowed at film previews. Usually, hard-working hacks trying to earn a crust are relieved of such items at the cinema door lest they record the movie and pirate it on the Internet. But at last night's British premiere of Rage, Sally Potter's satirical thriller about the fashion industry, Blackberries and laptops were positively welcomed. Especially if they were switched on.There was a bid to make the evening a bit of a conventional do, with champagne first, an after-party afterwards, a scattering of stars, both corporeal and virtual (more of this shortly) and the Read more ...
joe.muggs
Orbital occupy a singular position in the pantheon of Nineties dance live acts that made it to arena-show status. Paul and Phil Hartnoll's trademark shaved heads and specs-with-headlights gave them a massively spoddy image that belied an everyman quality to their music, but although their early releases unquestionably helped form the distinctively British sounds of rave and hardcore, they never quite became part of those scenes.On the other hand, if their insistence on remaining vocalist-free meant they couldn't match the Chemical Brothers, Underworld or The Prodigy for hit singles after the Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Behold the gleaming dark. At one point in this spirited and imaginative revival of Philip Ridley's 1992 play, The Fastest Clock in the Universe, one of the characters says, "We're all as bad as each other. All hungry little cannibals at our own cannibal party. So fuck the milk of human kindness and welcome to the abattoir!" Yes, well. As welcomes go, this is about as pleasant as a razor blade hidden in a cupcake - and perfectly apt for this sharp slice of East End gothic.Set in a disused fur factory deep in darkest London, Ridley's play begins by portraying the tangled domestic arrangements Read more ...
james.woodall
Nine years ago, historian Jan T Gross published a book called Neighbours. It chronicled, and tried to analyse the reasons for, the massacre of 1,600 Jews in a north-eastern Polish village, Jedwabne, in July 1941. That was a month after Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, into which, in 1939, this bit of Poland had been absorbed by Stalin. The unexamined historical assumption had been that, like so many similar east European communities, Jedwabne simply fell victim to the by then efficiently exercised Nazi lust for Jewish annihilation.Gross suggested otherwise – that half of Jedwabne’s non- Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Strolling into the Royal Festival Hall's private function room on Level 5 last night, I naturally expected it to be crammed with freeloading hacks such as myself on the trail of free drinks, but the room was mostly populated by corporate types in suits. If you want to pull together a menu of prestigious international orchestras in these straitened times (particularly those elusive American ones), you can't hope to do better than enlist the support of a multinational oil company, and this was the opening night of the RFH's Shell Classic International season.
The occasion demanded a Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Talent, Victoria Wood’s first play, premiered at the Sheffield Crucible in 1978 and was made into a television drama the following year for ITV. Roger Glossop asked Wood to revisit the work for a festival he runs at the Old Laundry Theatre in Bowness-on-Windermere and last night it transferred to the Menier Chocolate Factory in south London, another delightful small powerhouse that punches well above its weight in the arts world.We are in Bunters, a "niteclub" in Manchester where a talent show is taking place. Ageing, unfunny turns, a seedy compere and talentless musicians all make their Read more ...