Reviews
Matt Wolf
That old saw about a star being born really is on view at the Noel Coward Theatre, where newcomer Charlie Stemp justifies and then some, the fuss being made about him in this "revisal" of the onetime Tommy Steele vehicle Half A Sixpence. Whether you'll respond as warmly to the show itself may depend on your appetite for nostalgia and the implicit message of a piece at considerable odds with an aspirational climate that long ago left the attitudes on view here in the dust. But stick with Stemp's unforced and genuinely buoyant charm, and as long as he is vaulting with unbridled abandon about Read more ...
peter.quinn
For fans of vocal jazz and fine lyric writing, this 75th birthday concert for the inimitable Norma Winstone offered a treasure trove of riches. From intimate chamber jazz to the gravitas of a full orchestra, the two sets seamlessly blended every aspect of Winstone’s artistry.As Nick Smart, the Royal Academy of Music’s Head of Jazz and our genial conductor for the evening, reminded us in his scene-setting introduction, we were celebrating not one but two anniversaries: it was in November 1966 that Winstone performed her first run at Ronnie Scott's as a band leader in her own right, opposite Read more ...
Veronica Lee
For those new to this Irish crime series, a brief catch-up. Jack Taylor (played by Iain Glen at his world-weary best) is a hard-drinking maverick loner ex-cop who left the Garda Siochána (Ireland's police force) after hitting a politician to investigate cases as private detective. He says there aren't many of his kind in Ireland, as the job is “too close to being an informant – a dodgy concept”. He chases criminals in Galway City, pounding the streets in his old Garda blue greatcoat, and is ably abetted by Kate Noonan, an ex-colleague who passes on information from Garda databases (and who Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Jim Jarmusch has made a memorial to the Stooges, more than a celebration of their brutal prime. His Zen rhythms, which roll so movingly through the upcoming Paterson, aren’t entirely equipped for the blunt trauma of Ron Asheton’s guitar, or Iggy Pop’s penchant for sultry chaos. He’s barely adequate journalistically on the band’s early years, but is on hand for their death, as hard living leaves almost no Stooge standing. This makes his documentary a proud headstone for punk’s founding fathers, and one of America’s greatest groups. Ron Asheton died in 2009, before Jarmusch began filming, and Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
So, the Inspector has come calling yet again. Twenty-four years have passed since Stephen Daldry’s graphic revision of JB Priestley’s moral tub-thumper opened at the National, followed by a tour of duty in the West End that seemed to go on forever. The Birling family house collapsed eight times a week at the Aldwych, the Garrick, the Novello and then Wyndhams, and set builders never had it so good.Yet it would be wrong to assume that nothing about this production has changed in that time. For a start, its success has more or less finished off any possibility of staging this period drawing- Read more ...
aleks.sierz
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 theatre, the evocation of a pre-industrial landscape has a noble lineage, with outstanding examples such as Sue Glover’s lyrical Bondagers (1991) or David Harrower’s haunting Knives in Hens (1995) always on the far horizon. Now it’s the turn of EV Crowe to journey to this enchanting location, and to tell us a bit about what she finds there.The Read more ...
Richard Bratby
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 joyous, more inventive or more resistant to vanity. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla chose his Symphony No 6 of 1761, called Le Matin for its opening sunrise and the freshness of its ideas, and it was a delight.The six wind players stood up to play, and the CBSO strings were slimmed down a little, but not a lot. There was no serious attempt here to fake a period Read more ...
Matt Wolf
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 Broadway debut and is going to make a lot of children (and their parents) happy for some time to come. And I don't just mean the wildly talented tykes who are in the cast. Lloyd Webber has always contained within him the would-be rock god, as evidenced across a diverse output that ranges from Jesus Christ Superstar (whose summer revival in Regent's Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
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 life story and a series of albums that started in 1960.She has had hits in every decade - in that sense she is like Cliff Richard, an evergreen. Except while Richard is currently touting a tame retro rock 'n' roll album, Soares (pictured below) is still energetically pushing artistic boundaries at the age of 79. If Elza Soares was a little Read more ...
Saskia Baron
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 Light Sleeper. But what really makes people who write about movies watch out for each new Schrader film is that he started off as a critic himself, and it still shows in his deep knowledge of cinema and insatiable desire to find new ways to tell stories through clashing images, abrasive dialogue and discordant music.It’s a shame therefore when the Read more ...
Steve O'Rourke
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, an elite soldier who takes the helm of the Retribution, one of Earth’s last remaining warships. You take to the stars after a Pearl Harbor-style attack on your homeworld that serves up a typically spectacular opening set piece where much of your fleet ends up crashing and burning in the city streets below.Reyes must defend his home against this Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
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 Vinyl of the Month from Kathryn Williams & Anthony Kerr but read on and there’s everything from techno to acoustic singer-songwriter fare to retro Brit-funk. We’ve also been sent a book for beginner crate-diggers, and those who simply like ticking lists. The subscription club Vinyl Me, Please, along with publishers Octopus Books, have let Read more ...