Reviews
Così fan tutte, Garsington Opera review - gambling with the highest stakesFriday, 03 June 2022
The scene is Monte-Carlo, around the beginning of the last century: a carefully observed world of cloudless skies, glittering seas, high society and careless privilege shared with Death in Venice. John Cox’s staging works in cool harmony with the... Read more... |
The Midwich Cuckoos, Sky Max review - the 1957 sci-fi classic is given a contemporary spinFriday, 03 June 2022
If your memory of the 1957 John Wyndham novel about an alien invasion of an English village by chilling children with blonde pageboy hair is still pin-sharp, probably best to back-burner it before you watch Sky’s new adaptation of The Midwich... Read more... |
LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - four centuries of Italian music on paradeFriday, 03 June 2022
If you sought a spectacular shrugging-off of jubileemania last night, you could have done no better than this programme to coincide with Italian Republic Day from our own national treasures Antonio Pappano – Knight of the British Empire, if you’ll... Read more... |
Bergman Island review - Mia Hansen-Løve's joyful English-language debutFriday, 03 June 2022
French director Mia Hansen-Løve’s graceful, intriguingly open-ended seventh feature, and her English-language debut, is set on Fårö, the island that Ingmar Berman loved.“This is your landscape, Bergman. It corresponds to your innermost imaginings of... Read more... |
Parsifal, Opera North review - full focus and a dream line-upThursday, 02 June 2022
Wagner, in his medievalist, pan-European, 19th century way, wanted Parsifal to be a blend of abstract and religious experience for his audiences at Bayreuth, calling it a “festival play for a stage consecration”. Questions for those performing it... Read more... |
Carmen, Queen Elizabeth Hall review - a flawed but fascinating retreadThursday, 02 June 2022
When Natalia Osipova comes a-calling, a choreographer doesn’t say no. The Bolshoi-trained ballerina, having commandeered all the prime roles in her nine years at the Royal Ballet, is always looking to conquer new territory. In a string of self-... Read more... |
The Camera Is Ours - Britain's Women Documentary Makers review - four decades of directors rediscoveredThursday, 02 June 2022
The Camera Is Ours features films made from 1935-1967 by women like Marion and Ruby Grierson, Evelyn Spice and Margaret Thomson, whose names should be engraved in the history of British film-making.Ever heard of them? Probably not as, surprise,... Read more... |
Album: Wren Hinds - A Child's Chant for a New MillenniumThursday, 02 June 2022
Side Two of A Child’s Chant for a New Millennium opens with “Wrenbird,” a consideration of whether it’s possible to have a bird’s freedom of mobility. “Anywhere but here,” sings Wren Hinds. He may not be happy where he is, but the accompanying... Read more... |
ABBA Voyage, Abba Arena, London review - technical mastery and musical joyWednesday, 01 June 2022
he first part of one of ABBA’s most famous lyrics, “You can take the future, even if you fail”, has been bought to life in Pudding Mill Lane, in a musical event that has completely re-defined the possibilities of the future of live music – and has... Read more... |
My Chemical Romance, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - caring, sharing emo kings holler to the heavensWednesday, 01 June 2022
It is a testament to the enduring appeal of My Chemical Romance that this show was credited with having sold the most tickets in the OVO Hydro’s history, and yet still formed one of the group’s smaller dates on the UK leg of their reunion tour.Then... Read more... |
The Glass Menagerie, Duke of York's Theatre review - memories flare and fadeWednesday, 01 June 2022
The stage is cluttered with objects; a pianola sits stage left; a large cabinet, soon to be revealed as a display case for tiny glass ornaments, dominates the centre. A man, gaunt, in his 40s perhaps, wanders among this stuff.He is our narrator (... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Bergen: Nattjazz, Nutshell review - Norway makes the case that musical genres are obsoleteWednesday, 01 June 2022
Superless are playing live for the first time. Instead of being bottom of a bill, this quartet have a prime spot at Bergen’s Nattjazz festival. Given the eminence of who’s in the band, it makes sense. Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (bass), Eirik Hegdal (... Read more... |
