Reviews
En ÉquilibreThursday, 27 August 2015![]() En Équilibre addresses the impact of disabling and irreparable injury, thwarted ambitions, the questionable practices of insurers, and the connection between two dissimilar, yet both frustrated, characters. Despite its different strands, the film... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2015: Nish Kumar/ Adam Hess/ Dial Medicine for Murder/ Larry DeanThursday, 27 August 2015![]() Nish Kumar, Pleasance Courtyard ★★★★There's been so little out-and-out political comedy at this year's Fringe that it's a real joy to find a stand-up so engaged with politics as Nish Kumar.Kumar lays out his stall early on. The issue of... Read more... |
Everybody's Gone to the RaptureThursday, 27 August 2015![]() A tidy, English village. Swings hang in the breeze, a bicycle's discarded by a phone box, smoke curls over an ashtray in the pub garden. But no one's here. No one's ever coming back.Everybody's Gone to the Rapture isn't just one of the most... Read more... |
Hamlet, BarbicanWednesday, 26 August 2015![]() The set turns out to be the thing now that Benedict Cumberbatch's star turn in Hamlet has finally arrived, trailing in its wake a level of expectation, hysteria and scrutiny that might well have made many a lesser actor head for the hills. None... Read more... |
theartsdesk at Green Man 2015Wednesday, 26 August 2015![]() Sunday. Brecon Beacons. Very early in the morning. I am woken, as I have been every 20 minutes or so since falling asleep, by water dripping on my head. So far, I’ve been able to ignore it, the pain of sitting upright outweighing the inconvenience... Read more... |
A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol, BBC FourWednesday, 26 August 2015![]() It was suggested more than once during this adventure in Warhol-world that Andy Warhol himself was the artist’s greatest achievement. It’s a neat sentiment if not an original one, and while it may well be true, it didn’t bode well for a documentary... Read more... |
Prom Chamber Music 6: Jeremy Denk/ Prom 53: Fray, Philharmonia, SalonenTuesday, 25 August 2015![]() There were two reasons why I didn’t return to the Albert Hall late on Friday night to hear Andras Schiff play Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The first was that one epic, Mahler’s Sixth in the stunning performance by Andris Nelsons and the Boston... Read more... |
Soup Cans and Superstars, BBC FourTuesday, 25 August 2015![]() Pop went the easel, and more, as we were offered a worldwide tour – New York, LA, London, Paris, Shanghai – of the art phenomenon of the past 50 years (still going strong worldwide). We were led by a wide-eyed interlocutor, the bright-eyed and bushy... Read more... |
Bach Hours: The Orgelbüchlein Project, St Giles Cathedral, EdinburghTuesday, 25 August 2015![]() When Bach set out in 1713 to write his Orgelbüchlein, or “little organ book”, he listed the titles of the 164 chorales that he wished to include in what was to be a compendium of organ preludes for use throughout the church year. In the event, he... Read more... |
Prom 51: Boston SO, NelsonsMonday, 24 August 2015![]() Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra have made the Shostakovich Tenth their calling card. Their recent recording of the work on Deutsche Grammophon has received universal acclaim, and now they're making their first European tour together... Read more... |
Prom 49: Hardenberger, Boston SO, NelsonsSunday, 23 August 2015So here he was in town with his top American team, the already great conductor whose premature departure from Birmingham has left the players in mourning, unable to choose a successor yet, and whose insistence that it was too early to take up the... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2015: Diane Chorley/ LetLuce/ Lazy SusanSunday, 23 August 2015![]() Diane Chorley, Underbelly Potterrow ★★★Diane Chorley is the former owner of The Flick nightclub in Canvey Island, Essex. Back in the 1980s it was the place to go, and celebrities – from Michael Barrymore to George Michael and Mick Jagger – used to... Read more... |
