cabaret
Master of French Ballet Chic Roland Petit DiesSunday, 10 July 2011
Roland Petit died this morning aged 87, a world choreographer of chic and erotic theatricality who blew away the French classical ideal in a roar of post-war sexual liberation. He created an all-male corps of swans for Swan Lake long before Matthew... Read more... |
Coming Up Later at the Old Vic TunnelsTuesday, 05 July 2011
It’s not often that a venue’s stage door is easier to find than its main entrance, but The Old Vic Tunnels is one such location. For those behind Coming Up Later, however, this is all part of the fun of a three-evening underground festival... Read more... |
Lullaby, Barbican PitMonday, 27 June 2011
There are few absolutes left in contemporary theatre. Fourth walls have long since crumbled underfoot; site-specific and immersive theatre experiences have further done away with divides between theatre and world, performer and audience. The one... Read more... |
Joanna MacGregor, Wigmore Hall/ Sol Picó, Sadler's Wells TheatreSunday, 26 June 2011
The two-course evening out is made possible by the Wigmore Hall’s late Friday-night concerts, so if you get out of a central-London show - or dinner - by, say, 9.30, you can add a second layer of entertainment at 10. In my case, a ferociously poor... Read more... |
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Apocrifu/ Gardenia, Brighton FestivalFriday, 20 May 2011
Apocrypha is a word that has acquired a dubious meaning, for books of questioned value and authenticity, texts in various religions that may not necessarily be held divine. The Belgian-Moroccan dancemaker Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's dance work Apocrifu... Read more... |
The Mummers, King's College LondonThursday, 21 April 2011
In the lager-carpeted sweat box that is the KCL student union it was hard to fault The Mummers. There are some concerts where band and audience seem so lost in a private world that you can almost forget that the humdrum, everyday world even... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Berg, Bruckner, SpolianskyFriday, 15 April 2011
This weekend's classical highlights comprise an eloquent tribute to a 20th-century master, entertaining cabaret songs from Weimar-era Berlin and some sublime Bruckner choral music recorded by an Edinburgh choir.Music of Tribute: Alban Berg Ieva... Read more... |
Miloš Karadaglić, LPO Foyle Future Firsts, 100 ClubThursday, 14 April 2011
Bear with me while, like supergroomed rising star Miloš Karadaglić retuning his guitar to a mellower vein, I adjust my concert-hall vocab and describe this as a no-gimmicks sell-out gig underground with young musicians from the London Philharmonic’s... Read more... |
Paul Heaton, KokoSunday, 03 April 2011
After a couple of false starts, former Beautiful South frontman Paul Heaton’s last solo album finally received the high critical praise of the old days. But at 49 you can’t imagine him really caring too much about anyone else’s approval. This is the... Read more... |
Shoes, Peacock TheatreTuesday, 15 February 2011
It is perfectly true that, as Arthur Marshall once said of Ibsen, I am Not a Fun One. A party really is a party without me there. And Shoes, now transferred from Sadler’s Wells, is not much of a party, whether I’m there or not. Conceived in cynicism... Read more... |
The Irrepressibles, Gabby Young & Other Animals, BarbicanSunday, 30 January 2011
A midwinter night’s dream at the Barbican. Those who like their pop music performed by chaps with jeans, preferably gazing at their shoes, and are attached to certain ideas of authenticity would have run screaming for the exit. The Irrepressibles... Read more... |
The Animals and Children Took to the Streets, 1927, Battersea Arts CentreFriday, 10 December 2010
Welcome to the stinking, sprawling Bayou Mansions – the thorn in a prosperous city’s side, the “short-and-curly hair in the mouthful of sponge cake”. So cramped there isn’t even room to swing a rat (and there are plenty), so corrosive that... Read more... |
