London
Sam Marlowe
A champagne cocktail with a hefty dash of bitters, Jonathan Kent’s production of this exquisite Noël Coward comedy of impossible passions is as wince-inducing as it is delightfully effervescent. A hit at Chichester Festival Theatre last autumn, it sees Toby Stephens slip suavely into the role of Elyot Chase opposite a sloe-eyed Anna Chancellor as his ex-wife, Amanda.From the moment the two collide on their adjoining balconies at the French resort where both are honeymooning with new spouses, the atmosphere fizzes with sexual tension. For all their elegance, all the artfulness of their verbal Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The ancients teach us that after hubris comes nemesis, and Luther's writer/creator Neil Cross has taken the lesson to heart. The big question hanging over this third series is, can the bullish DCI John Luther continue to hunt villains in his own headstrong, politically-incorrect fashion, or will he be brought down by snarling Detective Super George Stark, a bitter and vengeful man hauled out of retirement to bring Luther his come-uppance? He's played with spittle-flecked animosity by David O'Hara, and you can't help hoping that at some point Luther will drop him off the top of a tall building Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
"Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park" is a wonderfully grand name for the venue for this summer's Hard Rock Calling festival, but the reality doesn't quite match up. Rather than basking in the glory (and shiny new stadium architecture) of Mo and Jessica's triumphs from last summer, music fans found themselves a few hundred yards away on a drab swathe of stony wasteland, temporarily covered with artificial grass. Still, at least the sun blazed down and they'd got the beer tent sorted, with thirsty punters bundled in and out, several banknotes lighter, at unprecedented speed.Bruce Springsteen has Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It's four years almost to the day since The Duckworth Lewis Method released their first album, a whimsical batch of songs about the myths and mysteries of cricket. It earned them a kind of nichey notoriety among cricket fans and was an eccentric treat for devotees of the duo behind the project, The Divine Comedy's mastermind Neil Hannon and Thomas Walsh of Dublin-based pop band Pugwash.Their debut was released to coincide with 2009's Ashes series against the Australians. This summer the Australians are back, and so are The Duckworth Lewis Method - named, as you will doubtless already know, Read more ...
Sam Marlowe
It’s all stick and no lollipop, a chocolate box stuffed with nothing but empty wrappers: what a walloping letdown this intensely anticipated musical based on Roald Dahl’s perennially popular 1964 children’s book turns out to be.With songs by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman – the team behind the irresistible feelgood hit Hairspray – a book by the highly respected playwright David Greig, and direction by the Donmar Warehouse founder and Oscar-winner Sam Mendes, it ought to be a giant peach. Instead, it’s as bland and sugary as cheap confectionery. And with so little to savour of Dahl’s delicious Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
After a two-year gap, Luther returns to BBC One for a third series at the beginning of July. Devotees of Idris Elba's broody, enigmatic, rule-trampling 'tec may feel disgruntled that they're only going to get four episodes, but at least the great man is on stonking form.Naturally your spoiler-free artsdesk can't give much of the game away, but this time the sometimes erratic Luther appears to have found its own natural tone, in which heightened realism and jump-out-of-your-seat grand guignol shocks sit comfortably with grimy east London locations. You get not one but a generous two killers to Read more ...
peter.quinn
When it comes to live performance, nothing quite socks it to the solar plexus like a choir singing their heart out. Last night, in the intimate space of Soho's Pizza Express Jazz Club, Urban Voices Collective (UVC) gave it to us with both barrels. Founded by Karl Willett in 2006, UVC’s most recent accolades include performing at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games – backing the likes of Take That, Elbow, George Michael, The Who and Muse – performing at the 2013 BAFTAS and recording on Paloma Faith’s latest album Fall To Grace.Combining a refreshingly different vocal style Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
I bought a new car recently, but by the end of The Route Masters (***) I was feeling a powerful inclination to sell it. The film would have rung a masochistic bell with anybody accustomed to trying to travel round London on a regular basis, and the soundbite claiming that the average speed of the city's rush hour traffic is 9mph sounded like a wild exaggeration.It was a gentle study in collective lunacy. Cab driver Howard Taylor, frozen in West End traffic, enunciated it neatly: "Anyone who drives in London has got to be off their rocker." Howard looked comparatively sane, so why is he still Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
"Don't say it's over," wailed Neil Young at the end of "Hey Hey, My My", his raging anthem against the dying of the light which still sounds as bellicose and cantankerous as it did in 1979. And happily it isn't over yet, because on this evidence the 67-year-old Young still looks fighting fit and raring to run round-the-clock heavy metal marathons.He'd packaged the show with some wacky dramatic trappings that seemed to specifically reference the Rust Never Sleeps era from which "Hey Hey..." sprang. Back then he toured with a bizarre crew of "Road-Eyes", while here they were dressed in zany Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Doug Lucie's signature spikiness remains intact, and then some, in the Defibrillator production of Hard Feelings, which is sure to pack out west London's tiny Finborough and might well be a candidate for a transfer. Telling of the various meltdowns, betrayals, and shifting alliances in a shared house in Brixton while riots rage just beyond the front door (the year is 1981), the play serves as a reminder of the invaluable prickliness offered up by Lucie, who takes the measure of his Oxford colleagues and comes away as aghast as an audience is likely to be enthralled. The house belongs to Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The idea of writing nine 30-minute dramas (or more like 26 minutes when you take the ads out) about the thrills and calamities of first-dating might have been asking for trouble, but seems to be working out unexpectedly well so far. The crafty part about the concept (dreamed up by Bryan Skins Elsley) is that instead of having to explain the setup and establish the characters' relationships, you just watch two strangers starting the process from scratch, so they're doing the job for you.After a persuasive start on Monday with David and Mia, starring Oona Chaplin and Will Mellor, the ante edged Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
In a two-decade ripple effect typical of pop culture, there’s been a recent spate of interest in 1990s jungle. This was frantic bass-led breakbeat club music that led to the more media-friendly term “drum'n'bass” which, in turn, led indirectly to UK garage, grime and globe-conquering dubstep. DJs such as Shy FX and DJ Hype have maintained their careers and the spotlight is now creeping back towards them. Another player from those days is London’s Rebel MC, AKA Michael West, AKA Conquering Lion, AKA Congo Natty.The Rebel MC’s career was woven deep into Nineties rave, starting with a series of Read more ...