Christmas
Guy Oddy
Christmas albums can traditionally be slippery beasts with a whole host of quality control issues. This is not unlike the compilation albums that also make an appearance at this time of year, with one or maybe two previously unreleased tracks, which are targeted to separate long-term fans from their cash.An artist may write a handful of tunes to celebrate overindulgence, inclement weather and, occasionally, a mythical birth at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. However, from there on in, it’s usually cover versions that sound like carbon copies of the originals and shockingly large amounts Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
The shadow of the cross falls over James MacMillan’s manger. You may come for his work’s consoling, even transporting, beauty and mystery. It’s there in abundance in his new Christmas Oratorio. Yet what may grip hardest are his passages of crashing dread and horror. For MacMillan, the incarnation in Bethlehem triggers a journey across human suffering that only redemption, through Christ’s crucifixion, can close. Against the unearthly ripple of the celeste, or the playful tenderness of the solo violin (both frequently recur), a terrifying doomquake of timpani stands ever-ready to erupt. Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Four years and a Broadway run on from its Old Vic debut, director Matthew Warchus and writer,Jack Thorne are still throwing everything they can at one of the most familiar stories, and characters, in English literature. That may be to address the obvious question of whether we need yet another three ghosts and an epiphany or whether it's playing a little too safe to displace Dickens's themes of Ignorance and Want 150 years or so into the past. Inevitably, we get some hits and some misses.We're greeted with mince pies and by carollers in top hats and frock coats with - and I'm sure I'm Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
After the main portion of the Voces8 Live from London Christmas festival revelled in the variety of its groups and repertoire, the final stretch allowed a single group to explore a single masterpiece by a great composer. And although it offered different pleasures from the multifaceted approach of the main festival, Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort’s pared-down reading of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio was just as joyful and just as invigorating.McCreesh adheres to the theory that Bach’s so-called choral works would actually, in his day, have been performed, not by a choir, but by four Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
They say "never meet your heroes". That may be true, but it forms the premise of a new TV drama concerning two of the world’s most famous children’s authors – Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl – who encounter each other at opposite ends of their life. Dahl has made headlines in recent weeks with his estate apologising for his antisemitic views, most famously, "there is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity”. The family have quietly expressed regret on their website. Like it or not, it casts a shadow over David Kerr’s drama which sees Dahl as a young boy (Harry Tayler) Read more ...
David Nice
So Hansel and Gretel can’t cuddle up together in the dark forest, Musetta doesn’t fall into long-suffering lover Marcello’s arms and there’s no audience to play to (as there would have been three days earlier). No matter: the Christmas-tree-grown-enormous from the stalwart production of The Nutcracker keeps us gaping, the singers young, established and old duly deliver and Mark Wigglesworth elicits sweep and brio from a substantial Royal Opera Orchestra.Up to this point, Royal Opera film presentation in its streamed events has been impeccable. Filming and lighting are once again first rate, Read more ...
Kathryn Reilly
What a welcome present this is! Fresh yet familiar, evocative and captivating, this is the perfect antidote to the usual saccharine festive fodder. There’s only enough schmaltz one can stomach, only so many jingle bells one can tolerate before your nerves start to jangle. Especially this year. In fact, this a prescient offering. Grammy-winning ivory-tinkler Gonzales’ decision to recast familiar seasonal tunes in a minor key lending them further poignancy. He began with the carols, which we all know inside and out – giving him license to experiment. Then he tackled the pop songs, stripping Read more ...
David Nice
If you’ve loved every episode of Ben Elton’s Shakespeare and Co comedy, you’ll know what to expect – but you’ll have to swallow bittersweet pills from only two of the excellent ensemble who’ve given us such comfort and joyous rapid-fire delivery of wordsmithery over three series (and on the London stage, as it was before mid-March). Anyone unfamiliar with the format must also watch the previous Christmas special on the BBC iPlayer, where Will writes sonnet lines for Anne and works on Eighth Night for Burbage, Condell and Kemp(e) to present before the Queen: a much more fleshly entertainment, Read more ...
Matt Wolf
As proof that you can't have too much of a good thing, consider the return of Matthew Warchus's buoyant production of A Christmas Carol, now marking its fourth year at the Old Vic (with a lauded Broadway run last Christmas included, for good measure). But I would wager that neither Warchus nor his savvy adapter, Jack Thorne, ever thought that a production making a real virtue of inclusion would be playing this time out to an empty auditorium.Such are the dictates of the pandemic, however, that the show is closing out the ambitious In Camera series at this address allowing access in absentia Read more ...
Katie Colombus
I'm sure there's an audience somewhere that will love this Carrie Underwood Christmas croonfest. The people on Pinterest who collect nicely designed Bible quotes, seasonal recipes and images of matching family onesies, perhaps?For those who don't love a seriously traditional holiday season however, you might like to give My Gift a wide berth. It's very much more about the spiritual side of Christmas than a holly jolly romp around the tree. The album is made up of slow, same-paced festive tunes such as "O Come All Ye Faithful", "Little Drummer Boy" (featuring Underwood's cutesy-toots 5 year Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The music year draws to a close and theartsdesk on Vinyl presents its festive selection. We go easier on the cheesier at this time of year, but there are also gold nuggets in there too. Time to buy the vinyl lover in your life a little something? Here's a vibrant cross section of many, many kinds of music on plastic, running the gamut from Neil Diamond to a feminist concept album about mermaids. Dive in!VINYL OF THE MONTHTiña Positive Mental Health Music (Speedy Wunderground) + Tom Sanders Only Magic (Mosho Moshi)Usually December’s Vinyl of the Month is a Christmas album but this year, for Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Think hard. How much schmaltz do you think there is in this album? OK, double that. Now double it again. Nope, you’re still nowhere close. This is the world schmaltz lake with the entire EU cheese mountain forming an island in the middle, all decorated with a Willy Wonka factory worth of sugar candy and more camp than the Boy Scouts Of America. It’s like an entire planet done up like that weirdo down your street who lights up their entire house and garden for the whole of December every year. It’s ridiculous. It’s preposterous. It’s absolutely off its not inconsiderable tits. But, well, Read more ...