London
Fiona Sturges
“Everything’s so bloody uphill, isn’t it?” whined kitchen salesman Ted (Douglas Hodge) upon realising that he’d left the charcoal for the evening's barbeque at the supermarket. But the charcoal wasn’t really the problem. There was the girl from the estate over the road - “all big earrings and attitude” - dropping litter outside his house and then shouting abuse when he suggested she pick it up. There was the unspeakable package shoved through the letterbox shortly after he complained to the girl’s school and got her suspended. And there was the lucrative deal with developers that Ted may or Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
In this, the work’s 50th anniversary year, there will be a lot of War Requiems. Benjamin Britten’s howl of Pacifist conviction has lost little of its poignancy since its composition – a period marked by the almost continuous military presence of British forces abroad. With action in Afghanistan coming to a close and political stirrings animating the Falklands issue once again, this plaintive reminder of “truth untold”, of the “pity of war” still speaks loudly and directly. In the workmanlike hands of Maazel and the Philharmonia Chorus, heavenly trumpets blare and military glory is neatly Read more ...
Natalie Shaw
It’s sometimes difficult to imagine that a new pop star can ever live up to even the most optimistic fan’s expectations. Spiralling hype and contagious squeals over mp3s are one thing, but with the subject standing before them to perform a full live set it’s all too often a different story - the cloak is removed and hark, there’s a human being behind it. A human being who talks, sings and performs songs we’ve never heard before! How are we supposed to love something clothed in properties from the ether?However, real pop fans always live in hope of stumbling across the star who can transcend Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The Olympics will be upon us all any minute now, but for the residents of East London they have been physically sprouting at the end of the road in the shape of a futuristic stadium for years. It takes the role of a shy walk-on in Wild Bill, a looming symbol of a local regeneration which was touted as integral to the hosting bid. It’s safe to say that the London seen here will not earn the grateful rubberstamp of the Cultural Olympiad. If you could get onto a podium for knifing, gashing, stabbing, thumping and thrashing, the characters we meet here could have been contenders. They’d probably Read more ...
peter.quinn
Bringing together the most talented choirs, vocalists and musicians from across London and the UK, iGospel's two-day Sing Inspiration! Festival came to a close in spectacular fashion. Lurine Cato opened the concluding "Gospel & Soul" concert, showcasing her impressive five-octave range on “You Revive Me”, the first single from her forthcoming debut album. With one, ever higher, key change after another, Cato's deluxe pipes made some better-known pop singers sound like common-or-garden pub belters.Call-and-response sections with the audience can often be slightly tuneless, let's-get-this- Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Hats off to independent British writer/producer/director Hadi Hajaig, who has doggedly piloted his thriller Cleanskin to the screen and picked up distribution support from Warner Bros in the process. Hajaig was never going to be splashing around in a Bourne- or Bond-sized budget, but he has played up the flick's British roots with pungent use of some prime London locations. He's also bought himself some box office buzz by recruiting an especially grizzled-looking Sean Bean to play Ewan Keane, ex-British soldier turned terrorist-hunter, as well as luring James Fox and Charlotte Rampling aboard Read more ...
peter.quinn
Released last month on One Fine Day Records to excellent reviews, last night saw the first of an 11-date UK tour for Gerry Diver's remarkable multimedia work, The Speech Project. Conceived over the past four years by musician, composer and producer Diver, a former member of Irish world music group Sin é and Shane McGowan's The Popes, at its heart The Speech Project features new and archival spoken word recordings of seminal Irish musicians and singers including Shane MacGowan, Christy Moore, Damien Dempsey, Joe Cooley, Danny Meehan, Martin Hayes and Margaret Barry.Specific motifs or phrases Read more ...
joe.muggs
Tonight on Channel 4, a new music series begins with a fantastic premise. A group of music obsessives drive around the USA in a London black cab, finding interesting musicians and recording them performing and talking in the back of the cab. Sounds a little bit like the 2008 Stephen Fry in America series, doesn't it? Well maybe, except Black Cab Sessions has been broadcast online since 2007.Watch the Black Cab Sessions trailer:And there's the rub. BCS has now featured hundreds of acts in various cabs, from complete unknowns to top ten-bothering popstars, from gangsta rappers to Brian Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
Superficially it's the very picture of innocence. A boy clings to his wooden steed, one hand clutching the neck, the other flying free. Few Fourth Plinth commissions will be more easily co-opted for official public duty. Hope, youth, the exultation of the ordinary: the state will be able to do plenty with this. Already Boris Johnson has tried to make an Olympic mascot of the boy. Joanna Lumley, who unveiled the work earlier today, hoped his gold-plating boded well for the Summer. But as with all the best public art, Elmgreen and Dragset's new sculpture might outwardly bow to its commissioners Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Despite the best attempts of Stephen Johnson’s programme notes to create synthesis from last night’s London Philharmonic Orchestra concert, there was something rather smash and grab about the programming. It was as though Jurowski, suddenly inspired to play classical Supermarket Sweep, had emerged with a disparate trolley-load of Zemlinsky, Mozart and Szymanowski – oh, and the Brahms Violin Concerto. With a full crowd lured by big-name soloist Joshua Bell, the question was not only what the LPO would make of this disparate collections of curiosities, but also the audience.The Brahms concerto Read more ...