1960s
Stephen Ward, Aldwych TheatreSaturday, 21 December 2013
Unlikely subjects can make for great musicals. (Assassins, anyone?). Just as great subjects can make for terrible ones (the Broadway Breakfast at Tiffany’s comes to mind). Sadly Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest project can’t redeem itself on either... Read more... |
The Great Train Robbery - a Robber's Tale, BBC OneThursday, 19 December 2013
We've already been casting a revisionary eye over Lord Lucan, the Cold War, the Kennedy assassination and the Profumo affair. Last year Sheridan Smith portrayed Mrs Ronnie Biggs for ITV, but what took them so long to get around to the Great Train... Read more... |
Sifting the Evidence: the Great Train Robbery, 50 Years OnTuesday, 17 December 2013
There’s a wonderful moment in Bruce Reynolds’s autobiography when he describes what became of his mate, a fellow train robber who had fled to Canada but was hunted down by the enigmatic Tommy Butler. Four and a half years after the Great Train... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: German Measles, Mobilisation GénéraleSunday, 15 December 2013
Various Artists: German Measles Vol 1 – Flames of Love / German Measles Vol 2 – Sun Came Out at SevenFor the years between The Beatles inventing themselves in the clubs of Hamburg and the evolution of what was dubbed Krautrock, Germany’s... Read more... |
The InnocentsThursday, 12 December 2013
“The film too often comes over as a prettily decorated edition of a sick spinster’s diary” was how the Monthly Film Bulletin concluded their review of The Innocents in January 1962. After seeing Jack Clayton’s intense adaptation of Henry James... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Neil Young, MotownSunday, 08 December 2013
Neil Young: Live at the Cellar DoorCrosby, Stills, Nash & Young had fallen apart in summer 1970 and Neil Young was left to promote After the Gold Rush, his third solo album from August that year. He hit the road on his own after "Only Love Can... Read more... |
Linda Perhacs, Kantine am Berghain, BerlinWednesday, 04 December 2013
There's been a quiet but nevertheless palpable sense of anticipation surrounding psych-folk enigma Linda Perhacs' first-ever European tour. Comparatively low-key advance publicity certainly proved no impediment to a sold-out house for the recent... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Velvet Underground, Neal Ford & the FanaticsSunday, 01 December 2013
The Velvet Underground: White Light/White HeatThe shadow cast over the reissue of The Velvet Underground’s second album White Light/White Heat by Lou Reed’s recent death is a poignant reminder that an awful lot of time has passed since this... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: BBC Radiophonic WorkshopSunday, 24 November 2013
BBC Radiophonic Workshop: BBC Radiophonic Music / The Radiophonic WorkshopThe inescapable 50th anniversary of the television debut of Doctor Who has had the side effect of drawing attention to the work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the... Read more... |
Eat Pray Laugh!: Barry Humphries' Farewell Tour, London PalladiumSaturday, 16 November 2013
Now here’s a funny thing, possums. Back in 1990 when one great Australian Dame, Joan Sutherland, gave her farewell performance, another, a certain housewife superstar from the Melbourne suburb of Moonee Ponds, seemed closer to retirement age.... Read more... |
Listed: Who shot/staged/fictionalised JFK?Saturday, 16 November 2013
On 22 November 1963 President John F Kennedy was shot, yoking his name to an ex-marine and sometime defector to the USSR called Lee Harvey Oswald. Everyone old enough to remember is said to know where they were when they heard. As America dealt with... Read more... |
War Requiem, BBCSO, Bychkov, Royal Albert HallMonday, 11 November 2013
How many reviews of War Requiem do you want to read in Britten centenary year? This is theartsdesk’s fourth, and my second – simply because though I reckon one live performance every five years is enough, Rattle’s much-anticipated Berlin... Read more... |
