tue 21/03/2023

Sheffield

Standing at the Sky's Edge, National Theatre review - razor-sharp musical with second-act woes

Buildings can hold memories, the three dimensions of space supplemented by the fourth of time. Ten years ago, I started every working week with a meeting in a room that, for decades, had been used to conduct autopsies – I felt a little chill...

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The Band Plays On, Sheffield Theatres online review – to Sheffield with love

All theatre is local — if you can’t get to where a show is playing you can’t see it. That is, until a pandemic closes all theatres and forces their shows to go online. The latest offering from Sheffield Theatres, now streaming to your home, is local...

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Album: Róisín Murphy - Róisín Machine

This is a musical homecoming for Róisín Murphy, both geographically and figuratively. She may have been raised in Dublin and spent her gig-going adolescence in Manchester, but Sheffield is where she began her life as a clubber and performer – and it...

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CD: 65daysofstatic - replicr, 2019

65daysofstatic, the instrumentals-only post-rock experimental band from Sheffield, have suffered from the obsessive need to brand every supposed sub-genre of music when, in their case, they are much more than a math rock or glitch band. They are...

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Arctic Monkeys, O2 review - musicanship and showmanship successfully collide

So here we are. Over a decade since we all fell in love. So many light years from the rubble to the Ritz. From Sheffield to LA, where half the band is now based. And by the looks of the audience, a fair proportion has been along for the whole ride....

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The Moorside, BBC One

It takes a certain kind of perversity to make a true-life drama about a missing girl (Shannon Matthews) who wasn’t missing at all – the danger is that drama will be the only thing that’s missing. Neil McKay’s answer to the problem is to take a leaf...

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Tony Allen and Jimi Tenor, Café OTO

Questions of what is authentic and what is retro get more complicated the more the information economy matures. Music from decades past that only tens or hundreds of people heard at the time it was made becomes readily available, gets sampled by new...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: The Comsat Angels

The Comsat Angels’ debut single for Polydor, July 1980’s “Independence Day”, was an instant classic. After setting a rhythmic bed, each subsequent instrumental contribution is measured out: a guitar string's harmonic; a spare keyboard line; drop-...

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Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets…

Any band’s reunion is bittersweet. They can never be what they were at their peak and know it, and yet fans hope. Recapturing past magic is tough. Hair is lost, weight is gained and aging depletes energy. With Pulp, the band never assumed formula...

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The Full Monty, Noël Coward Theatre

You may have a slight sense of déjà vu about a stage production of The Full Monty. Wasn't it a Broadway hit at the turn of the millennium? Well yes it was, but that was an Americanised musical version of Simon Beaufoy's Oscar-nominated 1997 film;...

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CD: The Fall - Re-Mit

There isn’t really a consensus on what the single best Fall album is. However, I did come across a thread on a fansite asking devotees to nominate their favourite album title. Not album – album title.This prompts a number of observations. Firstly,...

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The Human League, Royal Albert Hall

Seasonal appearances by The Human League have an air of Christmas panto about them, with halls packed with coach parties of devoted fans who all seem to know each other, but the group have quietly solidified into a great British success story. They...

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