Reviews
theartsdesk in Strasbourg: crossing the frontiersWednesday, 13 March 2024
A single pair of swans glided serenely under the bridges of the river Ill as I walked to the premiere of the Opéra National du Rhin’s new production of Lohengrin in Strasbourg on Sunday.It felt like an auspicious omen for Michael Spyres’s first full... Read more... |
Theresienstadt-Terezin 1941-1945, Nash Ensemble, Wigmore Hall review - memorial music of stunning impactTuesday, 12 March 2024
Towards the end of his book Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann deploys a cogent expression: “chasing history, before it disappears”.Last time the Nash Ensemble devoted a weekend here to music from the Terezín concentration camp, in 2010, there... Read more... |
The Gentlemen, Netflix review - Guy Ritchie's further adventures in GeezerworldTuesday, 12 March 2024
Welcome back to Guy Ritchie’s Geezerworld, familiar from such slices of lurid villainhood as Lock, Stock…, RocknRolla and The Gentlemen (the movie). The Gentlemen (the TV series) takes some cues from the similarly-named big-screen event from 2019,... Read more... |
The Last Year of Darkness review - a loving portrait of a Chengdu gay barTuesday, 12 March 2024
Yihao is a disaffected 20 year old living in Chengdu, capital of Sichaun Province. A thriving centre for business and commerce, Chengdu looks like any other modern city. You could mistake it for downtown Chicago except that, apart from the Walmart... Read more... |
Oscars 2024: politics aplenty but few surprises as 'Oppenheimer' dominatesMonday, 11 March 2024
Oppenheimer as expected dominated the 96th Academy Awards, winning seven trophies whilst runner-up Poor Things took four prizes, including Emma Stone in the hotly contested category of best actress.There was a pro forma feeling to the roll call of... Read more... |
Osborne, BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - an orchestra at the top of its gameMonday, 11 March 2024
Just a few days after the Hallé’s Bruckner 8, the BBC Philharmonic weighed in with his Seventh Symphony for its Manchester audience. We’re all getting a lot of Bruckner in his 200th anniversary year, and this was a wise choice, being one of his... Read more... |
Uncle Vanya, Orange Tree Theatre review - Chekhov served up choiceMonday, 11 March 2024
"We all live here in peace and friendship," notes Telegin (David Ahmad), otherwise known as Waffles, early in Uncle Vanya, to which one is tempted to respond, "yeah, right."As casually bruising a play as I know, Chekhov's wounding yet also brutally... Read more... |
Scottish Ensemble, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall New Auditorium review - making a moveMonday, 11 March 2024
Continuing the relationship with choreographer Örjan Andersson – who choreographed their landmark project Goldberg Variations – Scottish Ensemble gave the first of their latest movement-inspired performance, Impulse: Music in Motion in Glasgow on... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Groove Machine - The Earl Young Drum SessionsSunday, 10 March 2024
A few records changed music. One such was “The Love I Lost (Part 1)” by Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes. Issued as a single by the Philadelphia International label in August 1973, its release introduced what would become a major characteristic of... Read more... |
For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy, Garrick Theatre review - exhilarating, moving show makes West End returnSaturday, 09 March 2024
When For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy first moved to the West End in 2023, it felt like a risky venture. It had started in the tiny New Diorama, and later packed out the Royal Royal Court, but was a... Read more... |
Giant, Linbury Theatre review - a vision fully realisedSaturday, 09 March 2024
Abandon hope of the human comedy so precisely charted in Hilary Mantel’s related historical fiction The Giant, O’Brien, prepare for a vision of outsized body and soul revealed in sleep, and your patience will be rewarded. Sarah Angliss’s haunting... Read more... |
Catherine Bohart, Soho Theatre review - girlfriends, gossip and gay parenthoodSaturday, 09 March 2024
Catherine Bohart opens by telling us that we're seeing her at the beginning of a long tour – before her energy flags, she says. It's difficult to believe, however, that the Irishwoman ever performs at anything less than full throttle, and so it... Read more... |
