Reviews
theartsdesk on Vinyl: Volume 16 - Santana, Yeasayer and loads moreThursday, 28 April 2016
The recent Alien Day was a contrived event designed to sell as much tat related to the Alien film franchise as possible. However, it had one intriguing side effect. Seventy-five copies of the soundtrack to the second film, Aliens, appeared on liquid... Read more... |
John Piper, Pallant House Gallery, ChichesterThursday, 28 April 2016
You wouldn't judge a painting on how it would look in your own home, but textiles are different: in fact it is exactly this assessment that counts. A length of fabric laid flat is a half-formed thing: it needs to be cut, stitched and draped before... Read more... |
Glennie, Ticciati, O/Modernt Kammarorkester, Kings PlaceThursday, 28 April 2016
It is a truth not widely acknowledged in the UK as yet that Robin Ticciati's elder brother Hugo is no less fine a shaper of musical thought. He could, as his solo playing last night richly proved, have had a career as a virtuoso violinist playing... Read more... |
The Iliad, Royal Lyceum Theatre, EdinburghThursday, 28 April 2016
And so, it’s farewell to Mark Thomson with his final production as artistic director of Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre, after 13 years in the job (incoming artistic director David Grieg unveils his new season next week). With Homer’s The Iliad, in a new... Read more... |
Elegy, Donmar WarehouseThursday, 28 April 2016
Playwright Nick Payne has carved out a distinctive dramatic territory – neuroscience. In his big 2012 hit, Constellations, he explored the effect on memory of living with a brain tumour, while two years later in Incognito, the story of what happened... Read more... |
Mary Beard's Ultimate Rome: Empire without Limit, BBC TwoThursday, 28 April 2016
The world of antiquity, from Greece to Rome, is both so familiar and so unknown. So it was more than welcome when the immensely knowledgable Professor Mary Beard – the role of the academic, she announced, is to make everything less simple –... Read more... |
Golden YearsThursday, 28 April 2016
There’s a great film waiting to be made about the demographic crisis – old-age poverty, worthless pensions, abuse of the elderly, ramshackle retirement homes, disregard from the young. Likeable though it is, this breezy tale of ageing bank-robbing... Read more... |
Tannhäuser, Royal OperaWednesday, 27 April 2016
Tim Albery’s 2010 production of Wagner's Tannhäuser is back for a revival at Royal Opera, featuring a different conductor and a nearly new cast, with one notable exception. The production itself is serviceable, visually coherent and with plenty of... Read more... |
The Fall, The GarageWednesday, 27 April 2016
It's the first night of The Fall's four-night residency at The Garage in Highbury, north London, a suitably small venue to get the full visceral rub of the current group – Elena Poulou on keyboards, guitarist Peter Greenaway, drummer Keiron Melling... Read more... |
DemolitionWednesday, 27 April 2016
How would you behave if your wife was killed in a random car accident? In Demolition, Jake Gyllenhaal’s Davis, a wealthy banker, is almost relieved – he can ditch his job, his house, nearly everything of his old life, and shack up with a total... Read more... |
Travels with My Aunt, Chichester Festival TheatreWednesday, 27 April 2016
Smoking weed on the Orient Express. Drinking at a brothel in Paris. Tricking the military police in Istanbul. Smuggling a Da Vinci into Paraguay. As travel itineraries go, it’s certainly no Saga break. But then Graham Greene’s Augusta is no ordinary... Read more... |
Show Boat, New London TheatreTuesday, 26 April 2016
The Cotton Blossom looks mighty fine in its latest London iteration, Daniel Evans's winning Sheffield Theatre revival of Show Boat joining the ongoing runs of Guys and Dolls and Funny Girl to offer West End audiences a synoptic view of Broadway... Read more... |
