Reviews
Reissue CDs Weekly: The ShaggsSunday, 09 October 2016
“The Shaggs are real, pure, unaffected by outside influences. Their music is different, it is theirs alone.” So began the liner notes to Philosophy of the World, The Shaggs' sole album. Not many people read the words or heard the music when it was... Read more... |
The Passion of Joan of Arc, Wells CathedralSunday, 09 October 2016
Wells Cathedral, masterpiece of Gothic architecture, is distinguished by relatively intimate scale: a perfect place to present Carl Dreyer’s 1928 classic and visually arresting account of the trial and burning of Joan of Arc. The screen was hung in... Read more... |
Trevigne, CBSO, Chauhan, Symphony Hall, BirminghamSaturday, 08 October 2016
Bruckner’s Third Symphony doesn’t so much begin as become audible. A steady heartbeat in the bass, oscillating violas lit from within by clarinets, and in the middle, slowly pulling clear of the texture, the proud, sombre trumpet motif to which... Read more... |
LFF 2016: A Monster Calls / A United KingdomSaturday, 08 October 2016
The cinema trailer for A Monster Calls ★★★★ looks faintly ludicrous, with its scenes of a giant tree stomping around the landscape, but don't be deceived. In conjunction with screenwriter Patrick Ness, who also wrote the original novel, director J A... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Brahms, Steve Reich, Aleksandra VrebalovSaturday, 08 October 2016
Brahms: Double Concerto, Piano Trio No. 1 (1854 version) Joshua Bell (violin and director), Steven Isserlis (cello), Jeremy Denk (piano), Academy of St Martin in the Fields (Sony)Brahms’s Double Concerto can be unfairly maligned as a dull, downbeat... Read more... |
The Best of Frieze Masters 2016Saturday, 08 October 2016
The fifth edition of the highly popular Frieze Masters – the quieter sibling of the boisterous contemporary Frieze Art Fair London – is underway in Regent's Park, London. This year, the fair features 133 leading galleries from around the world.... Read more... |
FIFA 17Saturday, 08 October 2016
Football can be a soap opera at times, filled with pantomime villains, character drama, broken hearts and unfulfilled ambition. And that’s before kick-off. With these theatrics in mind it makes sense that EA introduces the new headline feature for... Read more... |
Jean-Michel Jarre, Brighton CentreFriday, 07 October 2016
If this review had a subtitle, it would be “Rave in the Mausoleum”. Jean-Michel Jarre threw everything he had at the crowd – state of the art lightshow, earthquake-level bass, eardrum-shattering decibels, remixed greatest hits, thumping kick-drums,... Read more... |
Mozart's Last Symphonies, SCO, Ticciati, Usher Hall, EdinburghFriday, 07 October 2016
His transformational Brahms series with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra may have been truncated by slipped disc troubles - he was much missed at Glyndebourne too - but Robin Ticciati is back with renewed energy and purpose. To judge from the... Read more... |
The Apprentice, Series 12, BBC OneFriday, 07 October 2016
Now back for a twelfth series, The Apprentice has recently burnished its reputation as a career launchpad. Not, of course, for the poor contestants, gurning and strutting their way to the judgement end of Lord Sugar’s finger, but for the pointy one... Read more... |
Murder Ballad, Arts TheatreFriday, 07 October 2016
Ye olde love triangle returns, this time as the centrepiece of a rock chamber musical that premiered Off-Broadway in 2013 and now makes its UK premiere. There’s a good guy, a bad boy, and the promise of a violent end, but despite the oft-referenced... Read more... |
Blood FatherFriday, 07 October 2016
Having been to Hollywood hell and back, Mel Gibson is perfectly placed to play the battered big daddy par excellence. Here he is, in the person of John Link, ex-jailbird on parole, recovering alcoholic and former outlaw biker, now eking out a living... Read more... |
