Canada
DVD: ShiversFriday, 03 October 2014
“Are you going to be to Canada what Ingmar Bergman is to Sweden?” “Oh, I think so.” David Cronenberg’s response to a TV interviewer at the time of Shivers’ release must have seemed like unwarranted boastfulness in 1975, but he did indeed become one... Read more... |
Prom 74: Wainwright, Voigt, Britten Sinfonia, DebusFriday, 12 September 2014
Swathes of this year’s final Late Night Prom were so invertebrate, amateurish even, that I was tempted to go home and throw out my Want One and Want Two CDs. I won’t, of course: Canadian American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright has written some... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: LewisSunday, 13 July 2014
Lewis: L'AmourImagine a very subdued Antony Hegarty whispering over the spookiest moments of Angelo Badalamenti’s music for Twin Peaks. Or conjure up a marriage of Arthur Russell’s shimmering World of Echo and John Martyn at his most intimate... Read more... |
DVD: The Atom Egoyan CollectionTuesday, 08 April 2014
Atom Egoyan’s stock has dropped a bit in the 21st century. This box-set of his first seven films remains – along with his response to the Turkish genocide of Armenians, Ararat (2002) – the essence of his work to date.These early films have as much... Read more... |
Tom at the FarmTuesday, 01 April 2014
Claustrophobia and a sense of huge space combine in Quebecois Xavier Dolan’s Tom at the Farm. It’s an adaptation of Michel Marc Bouchard’s stage play, and the former element must have worked particularly well in the theatre’s enclosed space.... Read more... |
Berlinale 2014: TriptyqueFriday, 14 February 2014
French-Canadian Robert Lepage is a clever theatre inventor and tireless dramatist. This includes film, though with much less frequency than his stage pieces. The latter have refined themselves into films that are not going to get people running off... Read more... |
The Domino Heart, Finborough TheatreTuesday, 04 February 2014
Canadian playwright Matthew Edison's award-winning 2003 play The Domino Heart receives its European premiere in rather reduced circumstances. As a Sunday to Tuesday production at the Finborough (directed by Jane Jeffery), it takes place on the set... Read more... |
Trout Stanley, Southwark PlayhouseSunday, 24 November 2013
Award-winning Toronto-born playwright Claudia Dey is also an advice columnist and here she presents us with three wildly off-the-wall case studies. The twin Ducharme sisters, who share an isolated house in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, are famous... Read more... |
CD: Hannah Georgas - Hannah GeorgasWednesday, 20 November 2013
There’s something in the vocal delivery that calls for comparison to countrywoman Leslie Feist - a subtlety, an unreal-ness - but on her third, self-titled album Canadian songwriter Hannah Georgas has honed a sound of her own. What could easily have... Read more... |
Listed: The Best of Joni MitchellSaturday, 09 November 2013
Of all the rock pantheon, Joni is the one who has evaded definition and over-determination better than anyone. The seemingly ethereal folkstress who partied with the most grizzled rockers and left them weeping for their mothers; the lover of the... Read more... |
Marc-André Hamelin, Wigmore HallTuesday, 05 November 2013
French-Canadian pianist Hamelin has the technique and the stamina to play anything, which is why the note-crazy, obsessive “Night Wind” Sonata of Nikolay Medtner buzzed around at the heart of his recital. But between the proud resonance of its many... Read more... |
CD: Avril Lavigne - Avril LavigneSaturday, 02 November 2013
It’s taken Avril Lavigne more than a decade to release a self-titled album, but in some ways it’s appropriate: after all, the Canadian singer’s best music still sounds exactly like what she was releasing as a teenager. The difference is that when... Read more... |
