Canada
CD: Leonard Cohen - Thanks for the DanceWednesday, 20 November 2019
That voice’s husky confiding wasn’t quite silenced. Working helped Leonard Cohen live a little longer, and old friends and family have gathered to complete these last bequests. “As for the fall it began long ago,” he sings, and more than a quarter... Read more... |
CD: Celine Dion - CourageThursday, 14 November 2019
Of 2019’s pop culture phenomena, the critical reappraisal of Céline Dion as an international treasure is one of the most delightful. It’s been six years since the Quebecois singer last released an English language album, a period in which she closed... Read more... |
CD: Jacques Greene - Dawn ChorusFriday, 11 October 2019
Canadian DJ-producer Philippe Aubin-Dionne – AKA Jacques Greene – has had a successful career in global clubland. One release in particular, his spacey 2011 deconstruction of the song “Deuces” by R&B star Ciara, which he entitled “Another Girl... Read more... |
Mother of Him, Park Theatre review – lean domestic drama unsure where it standsWednesday, 25 September 2019
Mother of Him was written a decade ago, but its most prescient moment happens in the first five minutes of Max Lindsay's production at the Park Theatre. Brenda Kapowitz (Tracy-Ann Oberman) presents a sheaf of papers to Robert (Simon Hepworth, ... Read more... |
CD: The New Pornographers – In the Morse Code of Brake LightsMonday, 23 September 2019
New Pornographer-in-chief AC Newman grew up enraptured by how much and how little pop could be: from David Bowie shucking skins to the rush of the Monkees’ “Daydream Believer”, to Pixies' boiling down of a song to three chords and a scream. Eight... Read more... |
Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story, Wilton's Music Hall review - klezmer revue is moving and inventiveFriday, 20 September 2019
Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s “refugee musical” – now there’s a phrase you don’t expect to write – is a treat. Harking back to the early 20th century pogroms of Eastern Europe, it’s darkly steeped in history, conveying the sorrows of... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Montreal International Jazz Festival - fabulous at 40Wednesday, 10 July 2019
The Montreal Jazz Festival is vast. It attracts an audience of between 1.5 and 2 million people over its 12 nights. It has been estimated to bring the city more revenue than the Canadian Grand Prix.And yet size, as we were often reminded in this... Read more... |
Cannes 2019: Matthias & Maxime review - a gently charming new dramaSaturday, 25 May 2019
It has been ten years since Canadian auteur Xavier Dolan first debuted I Killed My Mother at the Cannes Film Festival. A decade on he returns in competition with a title that shows an evolution of his filmmaking that leaves behind many of the... Read more... |
CD: Carly Rae Jepsen - DedicatedThursday, 16 May 2019
Carly Rae Jepsen is a brilliant pop star. Her music pure and unashamed radio pop, full of the excitement of living and loving, but her status with her audience and relationship with them are a bit more like what you'd expect from a cult indie act.... Read more... |
Drake, O2 Arena review - stadium hip-hop has a sincerity problemTuesday, 02 April 2019
Drake walked on water at times in his opening show at the O2 Arena. Sadly this was solely down to the impressive video projection that filled the giant screens beneath his feet. The 32-year-old Canadian rapper is one of the biggest-selling stars in... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Dawson City - Frozen TimeThursday, 21 February 2019
Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen Time is an intoxicating cinematic collage-compilation that embraces social history – in microcosm, via its story of the titular Canadian mining town – as well as the history of film itself. But it goes further,... Read more... |
Come From Away, Phoenix Theatre review - a necessary corrective to our traumatic timesTuesday, 19 February 2019
Against the grimmest of backdrops, generosity and even grace can be possible. That's the eternally uplifting message of Come From Away, the surprise Broadway musical hit about the community that was taking place north of the US/Canada border even as... Read more... |
