Australia
CD: Sarah Blasko - I AwakeMonday, 01 April 2013
It’s clear that Sarah Blasko is in a defiant mood right from the timpani roll that opens her fourth solo album. A lush, gorgeous work, in which the frantic strings of the Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra offset the Australian singer’s husky, intimate... Read more... |
Our Country’s Good, St James TheatreTuesday, 05 February 2013
Plays about plays are often touched by theatrical magic. This is certainly the case with Timberlake Wertenbaker’s masterpiece, first staged in 1988, and now revived by the same director, Max Stafford-Clark, who originally eased it into the world.... Read more... |
Dead EuropeThursday, 13 December 2012
“Why do you want to go to Greece?” After watching the numbing Dead Europe and the journey of its protagonist Isaac the question asked might, more pertinently, have been “do you know the Greece you’re going to visit?” This relentlessly dark film... Read more... |
Chateau Chunder: When Australian Wine Changed the World, BBC FourWednesday, 14 November 2012
There was a memorable, very French moment in a television series hosted by the great British wine writer, presenter and Master of Wine Jancis Robinson. A French winemaker, asked to taste an Australian wine, swills in disdain and pointedly walks... Read more... |
I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!, ITV1Monday, 12 November 2012
The 12th series of the jungle fun is another gathering of micro-celebs, wannabes and has-beens, and a smattering of people you have never heard of - and indeed by the end of the series would still have difficulty identifying in a police line-up, so... Read more... |
LFF 2012: The SapphiresTuesday, 16 October 2012
A film about an Aboriginal soul quartet in the Vietnam War should at least have originality covered. This adaptation of the hit Australian musical by Tony Briggs based on his mum and aunt's Saigon adventures rings most changes, though, in being a... Read more... |
LFF 2012: UndergroundFriday, 12 October 2012
As Julian Assange continues to hold the world’s authorities at bay behind embassy doors, this new biopic offers Young Assange: a Melbourne teenager among the first generation of computer hackers, who cracked the Pentagon’s code on the Gulf War’s eve... Read more... |
CD: Tame Impala – LonerismFriday, 05 October 2012
Despite the fact that this month marks the 50th anniversary of the release of The Beatles’ first single, the focus on the Fabs right now is as much on their 1967 psychedelic folly Magical Mystery Tour. The arrival of Tame Impala’s second album seems... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: A.R. Kane, Crime and the City Solution, ABBA, Demis RoussosSunday, 30 September 2012
A.R. Kane: Complete Singles CollectionJoe MuggsIn my early teens, circa 1988, certain records would appear on The Chart Show indie chart countdown on a Saturday morning, records that hinted disquietingly at something far beyond the standard... Read more... |
Our Country's Good: Director Max Stafford-Clark opens upWednesday, 22 August 2012
“Our Country’s Good, a play that proclaimed the power and enduring worth of theatre and that celebrated its centrality to our lives, was of importance in the third term of a government which deemed 'subsidy' a dirty word.” So wrote Max Stafford-... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe: Flap!, The Famous SpiegeltentTuesday, 14 August 2012
Towards the end of a ridiculously easy and enjoyable hour spent in their company, Flap!’s singer and ukulele player Jess Guille described “Rock in Space” as “jazz-folk-disco” – and, you know, it kind of was. A bawdy, slap-happy five-piece from... Read more... |
CD: Dead Can Dance - AnastasisSaturday, 11 August 2012
Electronic dance music is notorious for its multiple sub-genres and niche categorizations. One of the more obscure is a style known as "dark ambient" (or "darkwave"). Its micro-interest status is unsurprising since it combines lethargic downtempo... Read more... |
