21st century
Hodges, LPO, Gardner, RFH review - four UK premieres, from random to abundantThursday, 31 March 2022
Kudos, first, to Edward Gardner for mastering a rainbow programme of 21st century works in his first season as the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Principal Conductor. Three Americans and a Berlin-based Brit, two women composers and two men, one of... Read more... |
The Worst Person in the World review - confusion becomes herSaturday, 26 March 2022
Some British TV viewers who were in junior school in the mid-1960s will recall the imported Australian kids’ show The Magic Boomerang. When the adolescent hero, a sheep farm kid, threw the eponymous piece of wood, he stopped time and was able to... Read more... |
Marianne Eloise: Obsessive, Intrusive, Magical Thinking review - bargaining with the devilWednesday, 23 March 2022
No mental health condition has become quite as kitsch as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Its tacky shorthands – the hand washing, the germaphobia, the clean freaks – have made their way into everything, from Buzzfeed listicles to The Big Bang Theory... Read more... |
River review – gorgeous visuals and a timely message: so what’s not to like?Saturday, 19 March 2022
I would suggest watching River on the largest possible screen, so you can bask in the breathtaking beauty of the visuals. Directed by the Australian Jennifer Peedom, who won awards for Mountain and Sherpa, the documentary celebrates the magnificence... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2021: PinkPantheress - to hell with itThursday, 06 January 2022
In 2021 TikTok became the most visited website in the entire world. Spending too much time on TikTok is probably bad for all sorts of geopolitical, ethical and spiritual reasons. But if you want to understand how we listen to and discover music in... Read more... |
Titane review - love under the bonnetFriday, 31 December 2021
The restrictiveness of conventional gender identities explains the extreme body horror of Titane, in which a pregnant rookie firefighter frequently invoked as Jesus bleeds car oil from her vagina and from the stigmatic splits in her swollen belly.... Read more... |
Lubaina Himid, Tate Modern review – more explication pleaseMonday, 29 November 2021
Lubaina Himid won the Turner Prize in 2017 for the retrospective she held jointly at Modern Art, Oxford and Spike Island, Bristol. My review of those shows ended with the question: “Which gallery will follow the examples of Oxford and Bristol and... Read more... |
Lucie Elven: The Weak Spot review - a cryptic modern fableTuesday, 23 November 2021
For most of us, fluttering our eyelids to convince a loved one to cook dinner is harmless meddling. Complimenting our boss on their new coat before asking for a promotion is necessary cunning. For the characters in Lucie Elven’s debut novel The Weak... Read more... |
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Charing Cross Theatre review - Tony-winning play checks out ChekhovWednesday, 17 November 2021
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike has taken eight years to reach the London stage, which is surprisingly long for the Tony Award winner for Best Play of 2013: the pandemic, unsurprisingly, didn't help. But in a burst of somewhat un-Chekhovian... Read more... |
Pioro, BBC Philharmonic, Schwarz, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - an eco-concerto?Tuesday, 09 November 2021
Who will write the world’s first eco-concerto? Tom Coult, with his major debut piece for the BBC Philharmonic since becoming its Composer in Association, a violin concerto titled Pleasure Garden, has made his bid.Perhaps Vivaldi got there before him... Read more... |
Mark Bould: The Anthropocene Unconscious review - climate anxiety is written everywhereTuesday, 02 November 2021
Our everyday lives, if we’re fortunate, may be placid, even contented. A rewarding job, for some; good eats; warm home; happy family; entertainment on tap. Yet, even for the privileged, awareness of impending change – probably disaster – intrudes.... Read more... |
Stuart Jeffries: Everything, All the Time, Everywhere - How We Became Post-Modern review - entertaining origin-story for the world of todayTuesday, 02 November 2021
In his 1985 essay “Not-Knowing”, the American writer Donald Barthelme describes a fictional situation in which an unknown “someone” is writing a story.“From the world of conventional signs,” Barthelme writes, laying out for the reader this story... Read more... |
