Reviews
David Nice
No picture of a musician tells more of a story about 2020 than the above image of cellist Steven Isserlis, stepping out on 8 July to play, what else but Bach, to his first live – albeit small – audience in just under four months. At that point it took a rare missionary to check out government guidelines on concert presentation and dare to bring back live music to London. The missionary in question was Raffaello Morales of the Fidelio Orchestra Cafe in Clerkenwell. His programmes lasted while the rules said they could, adapting to earlier closing times (no spontaneous music-making from the Read more ...
Saskia Baron
It’s dangerous territory, remaking a classic British film as a TV mini-series. In 1947 when Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger created Black Narcissus, a heady adaptation of Rumer Godden’s 1939 novel, they never set foot in the Himalayas. But somehow, out of glass painted backdrops, cinematographer Jack Cardiff evoked the vertiginous, intoxicating landscape that overwhelms an order of nuns sent to do God’s work among the natives.Cardiff won an Oscar for his dazzling Technicolor work on the sound stages of Pinewood; those are quite some footsteps for Danish cinematographer Charlotte Read more ...
Matt Wolf
"Goodbye": The single word lingered heavily in the air last March 16, as the scripted closing both of the terrific Southwark Playhouse revival of The Last Five Years and as an ancillary farewell to live theatre. Late afternoon on that same day, in response to the gathering spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, a decision had been taken to shut theatres down, but the Jason Robert Brown two-hander (plus band) decided to go ahead anyway for the simple reason that the talent were already assembled in the building.And so it was that an audience sat held both by the musical's depiction of marital woe Read more ...
David Nice
Surreal fantasy came off best this year, before and after the fall. It seems like a decade ago when audiences of all ages were packed tight to crack up - or not get it - at Covent Garden for the UK stage premiere of Gerald Barry's Alice's Adventures Under Ground in a tirelessly resourceful production by director/designer Antony McDonald. Another brief flourish to a much smaller Royal Opera House audience in October reached many more spectators online with the realisation of the house's new Director of Opera Oliver Mears' idea for staging song cycles/cantatas in the dazzling 4/4 sequence.In Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In 2020, one archive release exerted a more forceful presence than any other. Live At Goose Lake August 8th 1970 caught The Stooges as they promoted their second album Fun House. The source was a previously unknown, professionally recorded tape documenting the whole album as it was played live, in its running order. Iggy Pop and the band were hard yet sloppy, tight yet rough, always blazing. Wonderful – and a reminder that musical surprises still crop up.While contemplating what’s been covered in this column over the last year, the feeling that archive releases can shift perceptions rises to Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
I gave a rare five stars to the first half of the Voces8 LIVE From London Christmas online festival and the second five concerts matched the first in their vitality, virtuosity and variety. It is astonishing how many different approaches there can be to the basic template of a filmed chamber vocal ensemble concert, which made each episode a treat in its own right, and the festival as a whole a complete triumph. From Bach to Bo Holten, from traditional Irish folk music to newly composed carols, from young choristers to vastly experience professional singers, there was a range and depth that Read more ...
theartsdesk
It all started so promisingly. Parasite's triumph at the Oscars was a resounding response to 2019's saccharine and problematic Green Book. Art house was in and here to stay. And in some ways, this came to pass - with cinemas caught in a cycle of opening and closing, the blockbusters were nowhere to be seen. Instead, it's been the indies and the streamers keeping us entertained through these days of isolation.This year's Best Of selection reflects the strange and diverse release calendar of 2020. Film has proved to be resilient, and a sparser schedule allowed for some hidden gems to shine Read more ...
Barney Harsent
It’s become something of an end-of-year list cliché to say that 2020 has been a great year for music despite being a catastrophic shitstorm when judged by any other metric you care to mention.“Ah!” says 2020, “but clichés are clichés because they’re true,” and sits back smugly, arms folded, conveniently forgetting that this is a cliché in itself and so leading us into a whirlwind of circular reasoning. That’s just so 2020, right?Whatever, the sheer volume of staggeringly good albums released means that honourable mentions go to records that would have walked it in years gone by. Untitled ( Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
They say "never meet your heroes". That may be true, but it forms the premise of a new TV drama concerning two of the world’s most famous children’s authors – Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl – who encounter each other at opposite ends of their life. Dahl has made headlines in recent weeks with his estate apologising for his antisemitic views, most famously, "there is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity”. The family have quietly expressed regret on their website. Like it or not, it casts a shadow over David Kerr’s drama which sees Dahl as a young boy (Harry Tayler) Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
At first glance you might mistake Bridgerton (Netflix) for the latest effusion from the pen of Lord Fellowes, since it conforms so closely to the Fellowesian pattern of manners, money and mores among the English aristocracy. Even the title sounds like a mashup of Downton and Belgravia.But no. The show is based on the historical romances of American novelist Julia Quinn, and has been masterminded by producer Shonda Rhimes, of Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal fame. Much of the pre-publicity has focused on Bridgerton’s so-called colour-blind casting, though that isn’t quite an accurate description. Read more ...
David Nice
So Hansel and Gretel can’t cuddle up together in the dark forest, Musetta doesn’t fall into long-suffering lover Marcello’s arms and there’s no audience to play to (as there would have been three days earlier). No matter: the Christmas-tree-grown-enormous from the stalwart production of The Nutcracker keeps us gaping, the singers young, established and old duly deliver and Mark Wigglesworth elicits sweep and brio from a substantial Royal Opera Orchestra.Up to this point, Royal Opera film presentation in its streamed events has been impeccable. Filming and lighting are once again first rate, Read more ...
Laura de Lisle
Edition 2 of Living Newspaper: A Counter Narrative, an experimental new piece of online theatre from the Royal Court, doesn’t mess around. Within minutes, a cry of "Tory scum" is echoing around the Jerwood Theatre – the refrain of an anarchic musical number presided over by a mannequin painted blue, wearing a shaggy blond wig. “Kids cant eat but They’re tryna tell/You its the statues that need saving?” raps grime producer Jammz, setting out exactly where the 27 creators of Living Newspaper stand. Those seeking apolitical escapism should look away now. But everything is political, Read more ...