Reviews
I Am Nicola, Channel 4 review - not really love, actuallyWednesday, 24 July 2019
It’s a bold idea by director Dominic Savage, to create three improvised dramas for Channel 4 depicting women confronting different forms of crisis. To make it work he needed brave and powerful performers, and this first one starred Vicky McClure (... Read more... |
The Bridges of Madison County, Menier Chocolate Factory review - Iowan romance fizzlesWednesday, 24 July 2019
Robert James Waller’s bestselling, though critically panned, 1992 romance novel was reincarnated in the Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep-starring film, and then again in Jason Robert Brown and Marsha Norman’s Tony-winning 2013 musical – both... Read more... |
Josh Ritter, Union Chapel review - strong songs and a boyish smileTuesday, 23 July 2019
Josh Ritter is in his early forties. He has a two-decade career with 10 studio albums (and, incidentally, a First World War novel) to his name. He has come a long way from trying out open mic nights in Providence, Rhode Island. His albums now... Read more... |
Il Segreto di Susanna/Iolanta, Opera Holland Park review - superb singing, mixed stagingTuesday, 23 July 2019
Secrets, and the voluptuous, sensory pleasures they conceal, may unite Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di Susanna and Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, but far more divides two works that make awkward bedfellows in Opera Holland Park’s latest double-bill.Wolf-... Read more... |
Prom 3, CBeebies: A Musical Trip to the Moon review - a celebration of the Apollo 11 landingMonday, 22 July 2019
This year’s Proms for children were entitled “Off to the Moon”, and audiences were invited on a musical space voyage to mark the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. The format was a mix of orchestral music, kids’ programmes on big screens and CBeebies... Read more... |
Helen Schjerfbeck, Royal Academy review - watchful absences and disappearing peopleMonday, 22 July 2019
Light creeps under the church door. Entering as a slice of burning white, it softens and blues into the stone interior, seeming to make the walls glow from the inside. Beneath the lintel, a milder slot of sun pours upwards. To the right, a... Read more... |
Lights, Camera, Malta!, BBC Concert Orchestra, Malta review – a spectacular celebration of film historyMonday, 22 July 2019
With sapphire blue waters, year-round sun and architecture that spans centuries and cultures, it’s little wonder that Malta is a favourite location for Hollywood. To celebrate its long featured history, Radio 2 brought the BBC Concert Orchestra to... Read more... |
Prom 2, Bell, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Hrůša review – Bohemian rhapsody, and refinementSunday, 21 July 2019
Eighty years ago this summer, Neville Chamberlain’s indifference to the peoples of Czechoslovakia – “a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing” – reaped its harvest of total war. These days, we have no excuses for not... Read more... |
Vic Marks: Original Spin review - trouble in TauntonSunday, 21 July 2019
In cricket, timing is everything. Played a fraction early and that silky cover drive finds a batsman out to lunch as the ball cannons into his stumps. Too late and it dribbles uselessly to mid-off.Ex-cricketer turned journalist Vic Marks has made it... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Peter LaughnerSunday, 21 July 2019
“As much as I love New York City, it’s all too obvious that Cleveland is about to become the musical focal point that the Big Apple has been on and off since the beginning of the century,” wrote Peter Laughner in October 1974. “I want to do what... Read more... |
Gossip, SWG3, Glasgow - a reunion tour worth celebratingSunday, 21 July 2019
If there was a downer during the giddy, gleeful Glasgow stop of Gossip’s recent run of shows, it was only when front woman Beth Ditto introduced the band as being “not really together but we’re here”. The dance-punk trio - joined, for this short run... Read more... |
Prom 1, BBCSO, Canellakis review - space-age First NightSaturday, 20 July 2019
A new commission, a Romantic tone poem and a choral spectacular – standard fare for the First Night of the Proms. Traditionally, the First Night sets out the themes for the season ahead, but the rationale behind much of this programme was paper-thin... Read more... |
