America
Swans, Asylum, BirminghamSaturday, 27 May 2017
There are not many bands who are obtuse enough to begin a gig with a 45 minute unrecorded song, especially when they are preparing to go their separate ways at the end of the tour and have no plans for further recording. Sonic adventurers Swans,... Read more... |
CD: Mark Mulcahy - The Possum in the DrivewayWednesday, 24 May 2017
Initially released to coincide with Record Shop Day (we’re in the UK so yes, it’s a shop, thanks very much), we’re a little late out of the blocks with the Miracle Legion frontman’s latest solo venture, but then, The Possum in the Driveway is an... Read more... |
10 Questions for film director Roger Donaldson – 'motor racing in the 1960s was incredibly dangerous'Tuesday, 23 May 2017
An Australian who emigrated to New Zealand in 1965, Roger Donaldson cut his teeth in documentaries and TV before launching into a career in feature films. His first feature, Sleeping Dogs (1976), on the unlikely theme of a New Zealand plunged into... Read more... |
The Gabriels, Brighton Festival review - hilarious drama in the shadow of TrumpTuesday, 23 May 2017
The subtitle of Richard Nelson’s new trilogy suggests an anti-Trump polemic. Instead, its miraculous, almost invisible craft fulfils the President’s most hollow promise. It restores full humanity to a family of lower-middle class Americans who often... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Gražyna Bacewicz, Stravinsky, Nathan WilliamsonSaturday, 06 May 2017
Gražyna Bacewicz: Chamber Music Diana Ambache and friends (Ambache Recordings)This is an easy disc to love. Gražyna Bacewicz’s music is consistently good, often exceptionally so, and it's gratifying that new recordings on Hyperion and Chandos... Read more... |
Angels in America, National Theatre review - Andrew Garfield and company soar in seismic revivalFriday, 05 May 2017
"We live past hope," or so remarks the AIDS-afflicted drag queen-turned-prophet, Prior Walter (Andrew Garfield), late in Angels in America. But surely not even Tony Kushner, author of the eight-hour theatrical landmark that some while ago entered... Read more... |
Britain's Nuclear Bomb: The Inside Story review - 'power, politics and national identity'Thursday, 04 May 2017
In the midst of a general election campaign and with Euro-shrapnel flying around our ears, it’s an intriguing moment at which to revisit Britain’s history as a nuclear power. Although this film from BBC Science concentrated on the factual and... Read more... |
Brian Johnson's A Life on the Road review – ripping yarns of rock'n'rollSaturday, 29 April 2017
The simplest ideas are often the best. Here’s one – take AC/DC’s Tyneside-born vocalist Brian Johnson and get him to chew the fat with a list of fellow rock’n’roll veterans. Later in the series he gets to meet Sting, Nick Mason and Lars Ulrich, but... Read more... |
The Good Fight review - 'flawless writing and acting'Friday, 28 April 2017
If Robert King and Michelle King, creators of The Good Wife, took the Joss Whedon line on sequels – “They are inevitably awful” – then we would not have The Good Fight (More4) gracing our screens. But, thankfully, this sequel (actually, more a spin-... Read more... |
CD: Willie Nelson - God's Problem ChildThursday, 27 April 2017
He’s in his ninth decade, but with no signs of slowing down on stage or in studio, and the good news is that, while God's Problem Child may be no essential release, it remains hugely enjoyable – and that’s mainly down to the lucky seven new... Read more... |
Doctor Atomic, BBCSO, Adams, BarbicanWednesday, 26 April 2017
Bomb-dropping is the new black again in Trump's dysfunctional America. Awareness of that contributed to the crackling cloud of dynamic dread hanging over last night's concert staging of John Adams's opera-oratorio - my description, not his - about... Read more... |
CD: John Mellencamp - Sad Clowns & HillbilliesWednesday, 26 April 2017
The 23rd studio album from the artist formerly known as John Cougar was originally destined to be a religious album, but the songs he and Carlene Carter wrote turned out to be not quite so God-fearing as all that, though there’s certainly a... Read more... |
