16th century
Julius Caesar, Donmar WarehouseWednesday, 05 December 2012
There’s no ignoring gender in Julius Caesar. Whether it’s Portia’s “I grant I am a woman” speech, an enfeebled Caesar likened to a “sick girl”, or Cassius raging against oppression – “our yoke and sufferance make us womanish” – the issue is written... Read more... |
Fretwork/Hilliard Ensemble, Wigmore HallWednesday, 03 October 2012
“For if their musicke please in earthly things/How would it sound if strung with heavenly strings?” Listening to viol consort Fretwork last night, the audience at the Wigmore Hall didn’t have to imagine the answer to Gibbons’ question. Listening to... Read more... |
Dr Dee, English National OperaFriday, 29 June 2012
Riding the same wave of affectionate, riotously melancholic Englishness which carried Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem to success, Damon Albarn’s Dr Dee is dark enough to delight even the most cynical of Jubilee naysayers, gorgeous enough in its national... Read more... |
Twelfth Night/The Tempest, RSC, RoundhouseFriday, 15 June 2012
The RSC’s Twelfth Night dumps its audience unceremoniously onto the shores of Ilyria in the thump and beat of waves. While Viola struggles from the (very deep and very real) water, asking “What country friends is this?”, we by contrast find... Read more... |
BLINQ, Ronnie Scott'sWednesday, 13 June 2012
If this gig by the new vocal supergroup, BLINQ, had to be summed up by a musical expression, then poco a poco crescendo would fit the bill rather nicely. The group, Brendan Reilly, Liane Carroll, Ian Shaw, Natalie Williams, plus the Mercury Prize... Read more... |
DVD: Mother Joan of the AngelsTuesday, 12 June 2012
In the English-speaking world we know most about France's Ursuline possessions of the 1630s through Aldous Huxley’s 1952 The Devils of Loudun, and of course through Ken Russell’s 1971 film The Devils. But a decade before Russell’s scandalous work,... Read more... |
CD of the Year: Mara Carlyle - FloreatSaturday, 31 December 2011
It's the effortlessness that does it. So many singer-songwriters strain like billy-oh to make obvious their artistry, their auteurship, their emotional authenticity, when behind it all they're doing something really quite ordinary. This album, on... Read more... |
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