Reviews
The Sewing Group, Royal Court TheatreThursday, 17 November 2016
The beauty of the past is that it’s a foreign country, and you don’t need a visa to visit it. With the free movement of the imagination you can conjure up life as it might have once been experienced. You can even join a re-enactment society. In the... Read more... |
CBSO, Gražinytė-Tyla, Symphony Hall BirminghamThursday, 17 November 2016
Is there anything on a concert programme more guaranteed to make the heart lift – or to prove that a conductor has their musical priorities straight – than a Haydn symphony? If you're tired of Haydn, you're tired of life: there’s no music more... Read more... |
School of Rock: The Musical, New London TheatreWednesday, 16 November 2016
When's the last time you heard an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical described as a gas, a hoot, an unpretentious delight? All those qualities, and more, are there for the savouring in School of Rock, which has reached the West End a year on from its... Read more... |
Elza Soares, Barbican / Calypso Rose, Jazz CaféWednesday, 16 November 2016
She calls it “dirty samba”. Elza Soares, The Woman at the End of the World - to use the name from her last album - sat on a throne like a warrior from a fantasy sci-fi film at the back of the stage. Her regal, mythic aura has been earned in an epic... Read more... |
Dog Eat DogWednesday, 16 November 2016
Paul Schrader is one of those filmmakers who critics really want to love. Not only is he responsible as a writer for at least two masterpieces – Taxi Driver and Raging Bull – he’s also the director of such great films as Mishima, American Gigolo and... Read more... |
Call of Duty: Infinite WarfareWednesday, 16 November 2016
The annual Call of Duty instalment once again steps into future warfare, but this time in a far-flung age where off-world colonies have sprung up, thrived and now threaten the order of things.In the single-player campaign, you play as Captain Reyes... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl: Volume 22 - Queen, Gillan, The Pop Group, Joe Fox and moreWednesday, 16 November 2016
The music keeps coming thick and fast. There’s an emphasis on rock this month but, as regular readers will know, theartsdesk on Vinyl has no favoured musical genre. All music is welcome, as long as it’s cut to plastic.This month we open with a jazzy... Read more... |
NW, BBC TwoTuesday, 15 November 2016
“Why is everyone from your school a criminal crackhead?” “Why is everyone from yours a Tory minister?” These questions lie at the heart of Zadie Smith’s NW. Keisha (the wonderful Nikki Amuka-Bird), aka Natalie, is married to wealthy Frank (Jake... Read more... |
The Catherine Tate Show Live, Eventim ApolloTuesday, 15 November 2016
Catherine Tate's television sketch shows - apart from a couple of specials devoted to her character Nan Taylor - were last screened in 2007, and she hasn't performed comedy live since her early days at the Edinburgh Fringe. So it was particularly... Read more... |
Simplicius Simplicissimus, Independent OperaTuesday, 15 November 2016
“Not as a pleasurable play, but…an urgent message…” So composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann described his caustic chamber opera Simplicius Simplicissimus, receiving its UK premiere at Sadler’s Wells 81 years late. Five years before Brecht used the Thirty... Read more... |
Removal Men, The Yard TheatreTuesday, 15 November 2016
If you thought that a contemporary drama about forcible repatriation, set in an Immigration removal centre, would be about the plight of those confined in places like the infamous Yarl’s Wood, in Removal Men writers MJ Harding and Jay Miller give us... Read more... |
Grande Messe des Morts, BBCSO, Roth, RAHMonday, 14 November 2016
Lest we forget. On Flanders’ Fields. For the Fallen. No one does stiff-upper-lip, buttoned-up remembrance quite like the English. Since its composition only a little over half a century ago, the War Requiem has become our national anthem for the... Read more... |
