London
Miranda Heggie
Fast making a name for themselves in contemporary chamber music, The Hermes Experiment players here give a wonderful debut recital at the Wigmore Hall, With a range of pieces as eclectic as their line up – harp, soprano, double bass and clarinet – the quartet perform a multifarious array of works, from Lili Boulanger’s lilting, soothing "Reflets" to composer and visual artist Oliver Leith’s intriguing and weirdly catchy Uh Huh Yea, written for the quartet in 2019.The recital opens with a new arrangement by soprano Héloïse Werner (pictured below) – who co-directs the group as well as Read more ...
David Nice
Finally, it seems, the time is right for a major British TV drama about how the AIDS crisis hit the early 1980s London gay scene. We’ve come a long way even since the audacious launch of Russell T Davies’s triumphant Queer As Folk, also on Channel 4, in 1989: RuPaul’s Drag Race would have been inconceivable on mainstream television then, but here’s the second and much more creative UK series on BBC Two. It’s A Sin has much to celebrate, too, but also much to warn about and mourn, and in the midst of a different kind of virus ravaging the world, it offers unexpected resonances.Davies rose to Read more ...
Mark Kidel
Bicep's second album fufills the promise of the first, released in 2017 to wide acclaim. Andrew Ferguson and Matthew McBriar, friends since childhood from the city of Belfast, draw inspiration from Chicago house, Detroit techno, Italo disco and other now vintage dance genres. They appeal as much to a younger generation for whom their heady mix of dancefloor styles feels fresh and new, as to an older crowd for whom the duo serve up quality nostalgia.Made over two years and the result of a trawl through 150 demos, "Isles" reflects the impact of Bicep's move to London and exposure to music from Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
Another year, another lockdown. Though I have little doubt this was not the way most us of hoped to start 2021, we can at least be grateful that we’re not suffering quite the same drought of live music we experienced back in March. Despite the stringent restrictions, many venues and ensembles are able to offer an array of live and recorded streams, something which wasn’t possible in the UK at the start of the first lockdown. Last Saturday saw the Wigmore Hall host not one but three such events, in a day of performances dedicated to the music of pioneering American composer Morton Feldman. 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 ...
Adam Sweeting
At first glance you might mistake Bridgerton (Netflix) for the latest effusion from the pen of Lord Fellowes, since it conforms so closely to the Fellowesian pattern of manners, money and mores among the English aristocracy. Even the title sounds like a mashup of Downton and Belgravia.But no. The show is based on the historical romances of American novelist Julia Quinn, and has been masterminded by producer Shonda Rhimes, of Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal fame. Much of the pre-publicity has focused on Bridgerton’s so-called colour-blind casting, though that isn’t quite an accurate description. Read more ...
Laura de Lisle
Edition 2 of Living Newspaper: A Counter Narrative, an experimental new piece of online theatre from the Royal Court, doesn’t mess around. Within minutes, a cry of "Tory scum" is echoing around the Jerwood Theatre – the refrain of an anarchic musical number presided over by a mannequin painted blue, wearing a shaggy blond wig. “Kids cant eat but They’re tryna tell/You its the statues that need saving?” raps grime producer Jammz, setting out exactly where the 27 creators of Living Newspaper stand. Those seeking apolitical escapism should look away now. But everything is political, 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 ...
joe.muggs
Among the glints of light in this overcast year, one particularly bright one has been the state of British soul music. Not just in the sense of good records released, although there’ve been plenty of those – but something significantly deeper: a contextualisation, an acknowledgement and a pride in the rich history and unique talents of these islands. This manifested in things like the BBC showing a long overdue documentary on The Real Thing, the announcement of Sade’s catalogue getting the full deluxe box set treatment, Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock (re)schooling a mainstream audience in that Read more ...
Sarah Kent
A person in a brown polo neck turns away, looking down (pictured below right). The encounter feels really intimate; we are almost breathing down this beautiful neck and exquisitely painted ear. Yet the subject retains their privacy; you can’t even be sure if this is a man or a woman.Lynette Yiadom-Boakye paints people, yet her pictures are not portraits. They are not drawn from life, but from her imagination and the store of images inhabiting her mind. Her subjects are not sitters, posing at her behest, but characters minding their own business and getting on with their lives. Such an Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The fifth and final film in the Small Axe series is titled Education. At first, it appears this refers to the education of the central character, 12-year-old London boy Kingsley Smith, impressively played by Kenyah Sandy, who’s transferred to a disgraceful “School for the Educationally Subnormal” after being disruptive. However, by the end of the 63-minute drama, it becomes clear the education in question is as much that of his overworked family, who slowly wake up to what’s going on under their noses.The film riffs on McQueen’s own youth. He was put in a “special class” at school and, like Read more ...
David Nice
A good idea on paper – commission composers of all ages who happen to be women to write music for one, two or three instruments with the fundamental theme of swiftness and brevity, food element an optional extra – turns out to work brilliantly on screen, even if it was originally destined for a live lunchtime festival event. Take 11 personable women – nine composers, including Spitalfields Festival curator and presenter Errollyn Wallen, viola-player and producer of the film Rita Porfiris and pianist Siwan Rhys – one man, very funny when necessary, violinist Anton Miller, blend skilfully Read more ...