Australia
Anzac Girls, More4Saturday, 02 May 2015
For Australians and New Zealanders, the grim meat-grinder of the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 was their equivalent of the Somme, albeit under brilliant Aegean skies. The Australian-made Anzac Girls is based on real-life diaries and letters from the... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: CPE Bach, Busoni, VivaldiSaturday, 18 April 2015
CPE Bach: Symphonies Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Rebecca Miller (Signum)Think of musical perfection and you think of JS Bach. Every note perfectly placed, every harmonic sequence pleasing in its logic, every extended structure... Read more... |
The Water DivinerThursday, 02 April 2015
Russell Crowe, who has played more than his fair share of rugged action heroes, makes his directorial debut with The Water Diviner, a film in which he plays, you’ve guessed it, a rugged action hero. He is Joshua Connor, a farmer living in the... Read more... |
Banished, BBC TwoFriday, 06 March 2015
Another tough night in with Jimmy McGovern. Banished may have taken ship to 18th-century New South Wales, whither the first British convicts have been expelled to a penal colony guarded by red-coated soldiers. But peer past the uniforms, the rifles... Read more... |
DVD: The BabadookFriday, 13 February 2015
Children – they’re inherently scary, right? Add to that the fraught rip-tides of a claustrophobic mother-son relationship – a son with behavioural problems and a compulsive fear of monsters under the bed, and a single mother tormented by the violent... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Radio BirdmanSunday, 18 January 2015
Radio Birdman: Radio BirdmanLike Magma, last week’s stars of theartsdesk’s reissues weekly, Australia’s similarly black-clad Radio Birdman favoured a uniform look. And also in common with the idiosyncratic French combo, they had a logo – an... Read more... |
CD: AC/DC – Rock or BustSaturday, 29 November 2014
The future's uncertain and the end is always near, as Jim Morrison put it, and you wonder how long Oz's antique rockers can keep cranking it up. After 41 years, most of them vastly successful, they're now missing guitarist and riff-creator Malcolm... Read more... |
OAE, Tognetti, Queen Elizabeth HallWednesday, 26 November 2014
As I sat, engaged and occasionally charmed but not always as impressed as I’d been told I would be, through violinist-animateur Richard Tognetti’s lightish seven-course taster menu of string music with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, it... Read more... |
BBC Singers, BBCSO, Pons, BarbicanThursday, 20 November 2014
Had the BBC Symphony Orchestra been at full stretch, rather than in the neoclassical and otherwise selective formations of last night’s concert, it might have outnumbered the live audience. Perhaps I exaggerate, but not much; this was never going to... Read more... |
CD: Flight Facilities - Down to EarthThursday, 13 November 2014
This October lo-fi, fuzzy VHS-style footage of Kylie Minogue in a ripped tee-shirt swaying on a mattress in a messy loft apartment singing Flight Facilities’ breakthrough song, “Crave You”, popped up in internet-land. It was an unexpected move that... Read more... |
The BabadookThursday, 23 October 2014
Mother love is mangled, yanked inside-out and tested almost to destruction in Australian writer-director Jennifer Kent’s heartfelt horror debut. The Babadook enthusiastically fulfils its remit to scare, but finds its fright in the secret corners of... Read more... |
'For classical musicians, Radiohead are the band'Wednesday, 01 October 2014
The first time I interviewed Richard Tognetti he told me a story. Prior to touring the Australian Chamber Orchestra to Japan, the group’s leader and artistic director was discussing publicity with a local PR. Faced with disappointing ticket sales he... Read more... |
