religion
Monks, BBC OneWednesday, 14 May 2014
At least no one can accuse BBC comedy of an obsession with youth and relevance with this one. In airing a trial episode of Monks, an idea that’s been lurking in their ideas department for over ten years, the corporation’s comedy team is focusing on... Read more... |
Concert Dansé, Symphony Hall, BirminghamMonday, 05 May 2014
On the back wall of Birmingham Symphony Hall’s great oval space, two musicians are poised on a glass balcony that gives the illusion of not being there at all. A small square of warm light picks them out, vivid against the hall’s darkness. So framed... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: John TavenerSunday, 20 April 2014
John Tavener: The Protecting VeilIn its tribute to John Tavener which followed his death last November, theartsdesk acknowledged the difficulties his devotional music brought. David Nice asked “what was there here that I couldn’t get from a... Read more... |
Petite Messe Solennelle, BBC Singers, Brough, Milton CourtWednesday, 05 February 2014
“A little skill, a little heart, that’s all,” wrote the 70-year-old Rossini as epigraph to his late, not so small and not always solemn mass. It’s not all, of course. This last major self-styled “sin of old age” (péché de vieillesse) stands in a... Read more... |
The Night of the HunterFriday, 17 January 2014
The Night of the Hunter is not recorded as having charmed critics when released in 1955, but its reappearance in cinemas means it can be seen for what it was: a dark, frightening and intense film which questions the nature of faith and what happens... Read more... |
Pilgrimage with Simon Reeve, BBC TwoWednesday, 11 December 2013
A cynic might say that the presenter of a series entitled Places that Don't Exist is perfectly qualified to go on a long walk to look for religious revelation. In keeping with his past explorations of wild places, Reeve's commentary was better on... Read more... |
From Morning to Midnight, National TheatreMonday, 09 December 2013
We first see the bank clerk, who can’t bear his dull life, serving behind the cashier's till, like an automaton. In Melly Still's hugely inventive, visually stunning multimedia production of From Morning to Midnight – Georg Kaiser's... Read more... |
Parsifal, Royal OperaSunday, 01 December 2013
Is anyone else sick of creepy brotherhoods skewering the transcendent in Mozart’s and Wagner’s late operas? Both Sarastro’s cult and the company of the grail are in sore need of change - "fresh blood" would be an unfortunate term under the... Read more... |
Remembering TavenerTuesday, 19 November 2013
You may have noticed an unholy silence from theartsdesk in the immediate aftermath of Sir John Tavener’s death a week ago today, just under three months short of his 70th birthday. Three of us in the classical team felt we just didn’t know his music... Read more... |
PhilomenaFriday, 01 November 2013
In 1998, Judi Dench slayed audiences on the London stage in Filumena, playing a former prostitute who learns belatedly to cry. The tears come more quickly - both for Britain's best-loved acting Dame and her public - in the comparably titled... Read more... |
Russell Brand, Hammersmith ApolloWednesday, 16 October 2013
Russell Brand, as I've written before, divides the room. Well, not the beautifully refurbished 3,000-seat Hammersmith Odeon in London, where his faithful gathered for the past two nights on his mammoth international tour, but more generally. There... Read more... |
The Events, Young Vic TheatreTuesday, 15 October 2013
Is this the year’s most controversial play? When it opened at Edinburgh in August, David Greig’s The Events created a stir because its depiction of the aftermath of an atrocity is reminiscent of Norway’s Anders Breivik and the 2011 Utoya shootings.... Read more... |
