Wales
The Bloody Ballad, Riverfront Theatre, NewportMonday, 25 March 2013
If you’re one of those who always felt the opening credits of True Blood held more substance and delicious dark corners than the comic-book titillation of the programme that followed, then The Bloody Ballad could be exactly what you’re looking for.... Read more... |
CD: Stereophonics - Graffiti on the TrainTuesday, 05 March 2013
Stereophonics’ meat’n’potatoes Brit-rock is very easy to knock. So here goes. No, only kidding. Well, sort of kidding. The Welsh band were a fixture of the charts from the late Nineties until relatively recently. Initially punted hard as the first... Read more... |
Saer Doliau, Finborough TheatreWednesday, 06 February 2013
Last weekend it was the 50th anniversary of an important event in postwar Welsh history. In early February 1963 the Welsh Language Society – Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg – protested for the first time about the right of Welsh speakers to live their... Read more... |
CD: Bullet For My Valentine - Temper TemperWednesday, 06 February 2013
There’s a certain kind of melodic post-millennial metal band where the songs seem to be merely a process of ritualistic, firmly fixed reference points. From Avenged Sevenfold to Bring Me The Horizon and thousands more, gargle-shouted thrash vocals... Read more... |
DVD: The Last Days of DolwynTuesday, 05 February 2013
Years before Cleopatra (1963), Richard Burton played an orphaned shopkeeper in a quaint melodrama. It was his film debut. The Last Days of Dolwyn is written and directed by Emlyn Williams, a fellow Welshman, who gave Burton his... Read more... |
CD: Katherine Jenkins - This Is ChristmasMonday, 17 December 2012
Does this disc succeed in doing what it sets out to do? Yes, it does, which makes my minor carpings irrelevant. It’s already selling in industrial quantities. But, to quote a review of another Christmas album on this site, “an album full of tunes... Read more... |
CD: Cerys Matthews - Baby, It's Cold OutsideWednesday, 12 December 2012
An album full of tunes you’ve been hearing all your life needs to be adept at reinvention. Cerys Matthews has already proved that she has a gift for repackaging the familiar in her enchanting Tir, which anthologises much loved Welsh folk songs and... Read more... |
Artes Mundi Prize, National Museum Wales, CardiffFriday, 30 November 2012
An award for artists whose work engages with "social reality, lived experience and the human condition" has been won by a Mexican forensic technician whose works deals intimately with her country’s brutal drug wars. Britain’s most valuable art award... Read more... |
Coriolan/us, National Theatre Wales/RSCFriday, 10 August 2012
National Theatre Wales like the word “us”. It was there in Michael Sheen’s Passion of Port Talbot – its film adaptation was called The Gospel of Us – and it is here, prominently, in the multi-layered title of Mike Pearson and Mike Brookes’ latest... Read more... |
Dance GB, ENB/ NDCWales/ Scottish Ballet, Royal Naval CollegeFriday, 06 July 2012
It was one of the better Olympic culture ideas that Wales, Scotland and England should combine in a Dance GB night, with the three “national” dance companies all creating something new. But a risk that had little Wales holding its breath in fear, up... Read more... |
Welsh Week: Dinefwr, Adain Avion, Llangollen, BrynFestThursday, 28 June 2012
This Friday afternoon at five o’clock, the National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke will recite a new poem and initiate a seismic week of Welsh cultural exploration. The inaugural Dinefwr Literary Festival will bring writers and musicians from Wales... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Hay-on-Wye: More Light than Heat at Hay 25Sunday, 10 June 2012
To each their own Hay. The Roman encampment that is the modern-day literary festival, circled by pantechnicons and trending in the Twittersphere, looks very much like a monomaniacal content provider for all comers. Astroturf walkways deliver the... Read more... |
