Wales
Matt Wolf
There's commanding, and then there's Michael Sheen, who sweeps on to the Olivier stage 15 minutes or so into the new National Theatre revival of Under Milk Wood and scoops up the entire production with it. Inheriting a role made to order for this Welshman, Sheen takes to his fellow countryman Dylan Thomas's 1954 classic as if on a date with destiny. Lyndsey Turner's approach to the intrinsically piecemeal material may at times tilt towards the fussy, but Sheen comes at this portrait of small town life like a man possessed and holds the audience in his disheveled, gleaming-eyed grip from the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Sunshine Theatre were based around Aberdare in South Wales. In 1971, they recorded their only single. Fifty copies of “Mountain” / “I Want” were pressed. The quartet also used the name Albert and gigged with fellow Welsh outfits Budgie and Man. In August 1972, they played at Malvern Festival. There was an appearance on the Welsh TV pop programme Disc a Dawn. And that was it. Sunshine Theatre became less than a footnote, a forgotten band.However, what’s forgotten is often rediscovered and requires evaluation. The single made its way to the internet and has been for-real reissued. It is Read more ...
John Bungey
“I'm growing old,” laments Tom Jones as his 40th studio album draws to a close. Sir Tom is “growing dimmer in the eyes” and “drowsy in my chair”. These blunt observations are not sugared with the mordant humour that, say, Randy Newman or the late Leonard Cohen might apply to a bad case of codgerdom. The only apt listener response to the song "I'm Growing Old" is: “Well you're 80, I guess you are.”Jones's days as a hip-swivelling knicker magnet are fast receding in time's rearview mirror. However, elsewhere on this album Jones does everything in his power to contradict the notion that he'll be Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
After arriving with a bang in 2018, Keeping Faith (BBC One) disappointed many (though not all) of its fans with 2019’s second series. It’s had a bit of a breather before this third – and final – series, first seen in its Welsh version Un Bore Mercher on S4C last November. So, how is it shaping up?While the ravishing Welsh scenery of Laugharne and Carmarthenshire is almost reason enough to watch the show, the story has moved on, with Faith Howells (Eve Myles) now running her own law firm, while still trying to work out divorce and child-custody arrangements with disgraced husband and ex- Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
They say "never meet your heroes". That may be true, but it forms the premise of a new TV drama concerning two of the world’s most famous children’s authors – Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl – who encounter each other at opposite ends of their life. Dahl has made headlines in recent weeks with his estate apologising for his antisemitic views, most famously, "there is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity”. The family have quietly expressed regret on their website. Like it or not, it casts a shadow over David Kerr’s drama which sees Dahl as a young boy (Harry Tayler) Read more ...
stephen.walsh
Bach’s Goldberg Variations, written for harpsichord in about 1741 supposedly (or perhaps not) for a certain Johann Goldberg to play to the insomniac Count Keyserlingk, have enjoyed – or suffered – countless arrangements for other instruments, including jazz trio (Jacques Loussier), string trio with electronics, and viol consort. Busoni did a version for piano that, like many of his transcriptions, takes off into a world of its own and leaves poor old Bach standing. Chad Kelly’s new version for a chamber group of nine instruments, written for Rachel Podger’s Brecon Baroque and streamed by them Read more ...
Chad Kelly
As musicians took tentative steps into the unfamiliar world of PPE, socially-distanced rehearsals and audiences watching from home on a computer screen, a common water-cooler question was, “What did you do during lockdown?”. I am grateful to the Baroque violinist Rachel Podger that part of my lockdown involved rediscovering and reimagining a piece of music that I thought I knew well: the Goldberg Variations, the popular name we ascribe to Bach’s fourth Clavierübung (“Keyboard Practice”).The work has a unique aura surrounding it, partly due to its immortalisation on screen, in books, and Read more ...
Saskia Baron
This warm-hearted and informative documentary series about life in a Welsh special education school probably isn’t going to be a ratings buster for the BBC but it’s one of the most touching and well-made shows I’ve seen in a long time.A Special School adheres to the classic format originated in Educating Essex back in 2011. We are rapidly introduced to a cast of quirky teachers, loving parents and the remarkable young pupils they support. Producer-director Ffion Humphries filmed the series last year at Ysgol y Deri near Cardiff, which claims to be the largest special school in Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
One of the most evocative tracks on James Dean Bradfield’s second solo album is hardly his at all. The Manic Street Preacher takes “La Partida”, a haunting, finger-picked melody by the Chilean musician Victor Jara, and blows it up to the size of an arena, its central refrain echoed back by a stadium’s worth of voices. As a tribute to Jara who, with thousands of his countrymen, was tortured and shot by General Pinochet’s troops in the stadium which now bears his name, it’s both apt, and breathtaking.Fans of the Manic Street Preachers are quick to list the art, music and literature they have Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Portmeirion, the Italianate village created by architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis on the River Dwyryd estuary, might have been designed to provide the perfect surreal setting for the 1967 TV series The Prisoner. But though it resembles an opium dream of doll’s houses and fairytale landscapes, Portmeirion has proved remarkably sturdy, and with its selection of hotels and self-catering cottages functions successfully as a holiday destination.This new series will chart a year in the village’s life, and this opening episode was like following the local postman round the houses, and being Read more ...
graham.rickson
Ives: Symphonies 3&4 San Francisco Symphony Orchestra/Michael Tilson Thomas (SFS Media)Charles Ives’s Symphony No. 3, subtitled ‘The Camp Meeting’, was completed in 1911 but waited until 1946 for its premiere, long after Ives had given up composing. It won him a Pulitzer Prize, and there's a tantalising, unconfirmed rumour that Mahler was planning to conduct it with the New York Philharmonic. Which isn't so surprising on reflection, both composers masters at mingling the vernacular with the symphonic. It's a fascinating transitional work, pitched between Symphony No. 2’s raucous cap Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Stereophonics climbed out of Cwmaman in the South Wales valleys minus charisma, musical originality or excitement. They make rock music that is conservative and unriotous, offering comfort not commotion. And yet their solid, straightforward strengths, embodied in Kelly Jones’ gravel-flecked, smoothly powerful voice, confidently carry a two-hour set with 11 hit albums to draw from. “I try to make them as honest and true as I can, and then I play them to you people,” Jones says of his songwriting MO. Meat and potatoes can be a hearty, nourishing diet.Jones recalls ZZ Top, Zeppelin and the Read more ...