Newcastle
Rigoletto, Opera North review - Covid shocks, debut pleasuresFriday, 25 March 2022![]() Beware of joining the Duke of Mantua’s sleazy feast in time of Covid too late, as I did on Opera North’s Newcastle leg of its Verdi journey. You may find more than a couple of the distinguished guests on stage have fallen sick – three, no less, on... Read more... |
Album: Sam Fender - Seventeen Going UnderThursday, 07 October 2021![]() Grand, sweeping romanticism with strong Celtic leanings is the order of the day lately, in a way it hasn’t been since the 1980s heyday of U2, Waterboys, Bruce Springsteen, Dexys and Simple Minds. The likes of Lewis Capaldi, Dermot Kennedy, Declan... Read more... |
Test Signal: Northern Anthology of New Writing review – core writing from England's regionsFriday, 16 July 2021![]() “On the Ordinance Survey map, it has no name”, writes Andrew Michael Hurley, of the wood that nevertheless gives its name to his essay. “Clavicle Wood” provides the first chapter in the Test Signal: Northern Anthology of New Writing. It is... Read more... |
Album: Maxïmo Park – Nature Always WinsSaturday, 20 February 2021![]() Composed in the first lockdown, and recorded remotely, the seventh album from Newcastle’s Maxïmo Park was produced by Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Deerhunter). But it is not so much a record of the times as a snapshot of a time in the... Read more... |
Northern Chords Festival, Church of St James and St Basil, Newcastle review - high, lucid and brightTuesday, 27 October 2020![]() Whatever happens next – and even in Tier 3 the Royal Liverpool Phlharmonic goes on playing to carefully distanced audiences – this will be remembered by all participants as a day of dazzling brilliance, its bright autumn light matched by so much of... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Albert Roussel, Roy Budd, PropellorSaturday, 07 September 2019![]() Albert Roussel Edition (Erato)Be grateful that Albert Roussel became a composer at all. Born in 1869 and orphaned at a young age, he was a talented pianist who joined the French navy as a teenager. Music was an enjoyable distraction during his... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Stormy MondayFriday, 07 July 2017![]() Using Hollywood stars to prop up British crime thrillers is an ignoble tradition. Guy Ritchie’s Snatch misused Brad Pitt, but John Wayne’s execrable Brannigan is probably the worst example. So one’s hopes aren’t high for Stormy Monday, a 1987 noir... Read more... |
Boy Meets Girl, BBC TwoFriday, 04 September 2015![]() Any romcom that begins with a woman saying the line “I was born with a penis” is OK by me. And that's how Boy Meets Girl, a superb new comedy created by Elliott Kerrigan, begins a six-part series.Kerrigan and co-writer Simon Carlyle have neatly made... Read more... |
Wet House, Soho TheatreFriday, 24 October 2014![]() When gifting the unheard a voice, the temptation is often to make it a solemn one. Thankfully, Paddy Campbell has, for the most part, sidestepped puritanical preaching in his debut play based on experiences working at a ‘wet house’, a homeless... Read more... |
Listening, BALTIC 39, Hayward TouringFriday, 10 October 2014![]() Traditionally, art exhibitions have been about looking, but as more and more artists cross boundaries to engage with sound, touch and movement or to use film and video, work that is static and silent is becoming the exception rather than the rule.... Read more... |
Inspector George Gently, Series 6, BBC OneFriday, 07 February 2014![]() “I like it when you’re a bastard,” George Gently growled at his sidekick, halfway into the first episode of this sixth series set in 1960s Northumberland, reassuring us that the partnership is very much back on when all appeared to be lost the last... Read more... |
CD: Lanterns on the Lake – Until the Colours RunThursday, 05 September 2013![]() Newcastle’s Lanterns on the Lake have quietly gone about the business of perfecting their mood music. Each time they surface, their music gains another level of intensity and assumes a greater focus. This progress suggests their second album, Until... Read more... |
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