Reviews
Prime Target, Apple TV+ review - the appliance of scienceThursday, 23 January 2025
An opening sequence of a drone flying over a busy street in Baghdad, followed by a huge explosion that leaves many casualties and a gaping hole where a row of buildings used to be, suggests that Prime Target is going to be another special forces,... Read more... |
Giltburg, Pavel Haas Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - into the labyrinth of a Martinů masterpieceThursday, 23 January 2025
Serious realisation of the seven often thorny Martinů string quartets is a major undertaking. When I spoke to Veronika Jarůšková and Peter Jarůšek after an East Neuk Festival concert, they said they intended to do it slowly, with absolute commitment... Read more... |
Amelia Coburn, Komedia, Brighton review - short set from rising Teeside folk sensation hits the sweet spotThursday, 23 January 2025
The quandary is this. Middlesbrough singer Amelia Coburn made one of my favourite albums of last year, her debut, Between the Moon and the Milkman, and I hear she’s playing live near me on the south coast, not something that happens every day.Then I... Read more... |
The Brutalist review - we're building to somethingThursday, 23 January 2025
There’s a moment, as we build to a climax in Brady Corbet’s first film, The Childhood of a Leader (2015), when a servant at a grand house unwittingly nudges a candle into the path of a dangling curtain pull. The tassel ignites, unseen by gathering... Read more... |
Album: FKA Twigs - EusexuaThursday, 23 January 2025
It would be really easy to get hung up on the definition for this album. Is it a new sexuality term? A holiday genre of technopop? A planet that will align with the others on January 29th?English singer Tahliah Debrett Barnett, aka FKA Twig,... Read more... |
Out There, ITV1 review - drugs and thugs disfigure the Welsh landscapeWednesday, 22 January 2025
If nothing else, ITV’s new thriller Out There is a fabulous advertisement for the Welsh countryside. Many scenes were shot in Brecon and the Black Mountains, amid acres of wild, rambling moorland and majestic hillsides. But it’s not always a happy... Read more... |
William Tell review - stirring action adventure with silly dialogueWednesday, 22 January 2025
Despite Rossini’s banger of an overture and a Looney Tunes cartoon starring Daffy Duck as William Tell, I’ll wager that few non-German-speakers can recite the precise details of the Swiss folk hero’s legend. Beyond, that is, describing him as a... Read more... |
Tiffin Youth Choir, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, Jurowski, RFH review - perfect detachment suits public statementsTuesday, 21 January 2025
When Vladimir Jurowski planned this typically unorthodox programme, he could not have known that a disaster even greater, long-term, than 9/11 was going to befall the USA two days after the concert. There is no bad time for a tricky commemoration of... Read more... |
Celtic Connections: Orchestral Qawwali Project, GRIT Orchestra review - two concerts showcasing the cross-genre power of an orchestraTuesday, 21 January 2025
Once again, Glasgow’s annual winter festival of traditional music from all parts of the world is formed of an astonishingly packed programme of music, dance, trails and poetry in venues throughout the city. This year’s opening weekend saw two... Read more... |
Kyoto, Soho Place Theatre - blistering, darkly witty play raises more questions than it answersMonday, 20 January 2025
It took a while for journalists to identify the chain-smoking, Machiavellian figure who was a permanent presence at early international gatherings to hammer out a strategy on climate change. When Time Magazine nominated “endangered” Earth as its... Read more... |
A Good House, Royal Court review - provocative, but imperfectMonday, 20 January 2025
Most Brits don’t know much about South Africa today, but we do know about house values, so this new comedy by South African playwright and screenwriter Amy Jephta is comprehensible – even in its incoherent moments (of which there are several).... Read more... |
Ben Elton, Duke of York's Theatre review - big subjects, big laughsMonday, 20 January 2025
Ben Elton loves a scrap. The Motormouth of yesteryear, who made his name attacking Margaret Thatcher and her policies (and being attacked by the right in turn) now wades into so many frothing hot topics – gender politics, assisted dying and the age... Read more... |
