Reviews
Wild Ireland, ITVTuesday, 14 April 2015
“A place of ravishing beauty that would completely stop you in your tracks.” So said Christine Bleakley as she introduced the first episode of this six-part series, during which she travels along the Wild Atlantic Way on Ireland's west coast, from... Read more... |
YZ Kami, Gagosian GalleryTuesday, 14 April 2015
The Iranian-born New York resident painter YZ Kami, now in his mid-fifties, continually plays with our hunger to look at “reality” while being seduced by abstraction and repetition. In 17 canvases, painted over the past two years, Kami explores two... Read more... |
Olivier Awards 2015: Young Vic triumph heralds the era of the giant-killerMonday, 13 April 2015
The Young Vic’s victory parade came as no surprise after a bumper year, but, in an impressive night for studio and publicly funded theatre, the egalitarian 2015 Oliviers also showered affection upon the Hampstead, Donmar, RSC, Chichester, Royal... Read more... |
GlasslandMonday, 13 April 2015
The burden of responsibility weighs heavily on a young man struggling to deal with his mother’s alcoholism, in Gerard Barrett’s powerful and poignant second feature. Jack Reynor, who so impressed in Lenny Abrahamson’s What Richard Did, turns in a... Read more... |
Between Worlds, ENO, BarbicanSunday, 12 April 2015
Composer Tansy Davies and librettist Nick Drake’s opera Between Worlds cannot help but be a devastating tribute to the tragedy of 9/11. Yet the whole is peppered with problems that mean this result is achieved only intermittently. Davies – whose... Read more... |
Jo Baer, Camden Arts CentreSunday, 12 April 2015
At 86, Jo Baer is still painting vigorously. In the mid 1960s, she was an established New York Minimalist along with artists like Carl Andre and Sol Lewitt; but while they continued to explore abstraction, she changed tack – dramatically, or so it... Read more... |
NYO, Volkov, RFHSunday, 12 April 2015
Considering the possibilities, we got off lightly when the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, always fearless in the face of the outrageous, performed Percy Grainger’s “music for an imaginary ballet”, The Warriors. The orchestra could have... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: David Kauffman and Eric CaboorSunday, 12 April 2015
David Kauffman and Eric Caboor: Songs From Suicide BridgeThe tale of David Kauffman and Eric Caboor is not unusual. Two singer-songwriters form a duo, play some live shows to zero interest, record an album which goes nowhere after it’s... Read more... |
Drenge, Institute, BirminghamSunday, 12 April 2015
Drenge made themselves known to the world some 18 months ago, surfing on the back of their abrasive self-titled debut album and some unexpected PR assistance from West Midlands MP Tom Watson. Back then, the Loveless brothers were a loud and lairy... Read more... |
Sex and the Church, BBC TwoSaturday, 11 April 2015
I’ve got no idea what the opposite of dumbing down might be. Swatting up? Whatever it is, it’s surely going to set the tone for the next couple of Friday nights on BBC Two, where Sex and the Church is as erudite a piece of television as we’re going... Read more... |
Toradze, BBCSO, Oramo, BarbicanSaturday, 11 April 2015
It was melody versus the machine last night as Sakari Oramo’s six voyages around the Nielsen symphonies with the BBC Symphony Orchestra hit the high noon of the 1920s. The fallout from the First World War found three composers scarred but fighting... Read more... |
Ellen Altfest, MK GalleryFriday, 10 April 2015
MK Gallery has a knack for showcasing mid-career artists before any other public space and this is Ellen Altfest’s first survey in the UK. There are 22 paintings here which, given their demands on her time, represent a significant proportion of the... Read more... |
