London
Native Rebel showcase, EartH review - jazz community, psychedelia and iffy acousticsFriday, 18 November 2022
Quite how Shabaka Hutchings manages to be Shabaka Hutchings is one of the great mysteries of modern culture, and one that could probably teach us all a lot of value to society if we ever worked it out. From the devastating energy of The Comet Is... Read more... |
The Sex Party, Menier Chocolate Factory review - disappointing detumescenceFriday, 18 November 2022
In the past, playwright Terry Johnson has mixed sex and comedy with hilarious results. His Freudian farce, Hysteria, and his tribute to traditional British Benny-Hill-style comedians, Dead Funny, share a bed of giggling gyrations with his love... Read more... |
Here, Southwark Playhouse review - award-winning kitchen sink drama goes down the drainThursday, 17 November 2022
The kitchen sink drama has been a standby of English theatre for 70 years or more, but not always with an actual sink on stage. But there it is, in an everyday home that harbours a secret or two in Clive Judd’s debut play, the winner of the 2022... Read more... |
First Person: conductor Leo Hussain on why we still need English National Opera in LondonWednesday, 16 November 2022
I still remember vividly my first encounter with ENO. I was taken, as a nine-year-old boy, on a school trip to see a performance of Peter Grimes. And I was hooked. I pestered my parents to take me back several times to that same production. I can... Read more... |
Super High Resolution, Soho Theatre review - the NHS at breaking pointMonday, 14 November 2022
Every day there is bad news about the NHS — junior doctors are exhausted, nurses need foodbanks and the stats are hitting all-time lows. So a new play about a junior doctor facing the stresses of the job is certainly timely.In fact, Nathan Ellis was... Read more... |
Barbara Dickson, Cecil Sharp House review - intimate and beautifully pacedFriday, 11 November 2022
Cecil Sharp House, citadel of folk music, finally resounded last night to the mellifluous tones of Barbara Dickson whose distinguished career began at the Howff Folk Club, Dunfermline, in the heady days of the 1960s folk revival. The choice of venue... Read more... |
Album: STR4TA - STR$TASFEARWednesday, 09 November 2022
There’s retro and there’s retro. Some music – what you might call the Oasis tendency – simply reproduces the obvious signifiers of the past as signposts of cool. But there’s other stuff that shows deep understanding of both the technique and the... Read more... |
The Hermes Experiment, Purcell Room review - familiar objects, unfamiliar soundsSaturday, 05 November 2022
The Hermes Experiment are the cool kids of the contemporary music school, who have brought a "build-your-own-repertoire" approach to generating music for their unique combination of soprano, clarinet, harp and double bass. As their name would... Read more... |
Album: Morton Valence - Morton ValenceSaturday, 05 November 2022
London’s Morton Valence are one of those bands music journos love, not that it’s done their career much good. I’ve bigged them up a few times, myself, starting at least a decade ago, but widespread critical acclaim has not added up to countrywide... Read more... |
The Yeomen of the Guard, English National Opera review - half-good shot at an unusual G&S misallianceFriday, 04 November 2022
Sullivan’s Overture to The Yeomen of the Guard isn’t quite the equal of Wagner’s Prelude to Die Meistersinger – what is? – but its brass-rich brilliance and wholesome ceremonials wouldn’t have been possible without that great example. Cue... Read more... |
Australian Chamber Orchestra, Tognetti, Milton Court review - from Beethoven to didgeridooFriday, 28 October 2022
I’ve not heard a didgeridoo in concert before so was grateful to the Australian Chamber Orchestra for giving me the opportunity, as part of a busy programme at Milton Court last night. Didgeridoo virtuoso William Barton was put alongside Beethoven,... Read more... |
Tammy Faye, Almeida Theatre review - Elton John's often dazzling new musicalFriday, 28 October 2022
I’ll confess to a certain schadenfreude when the American televangelists who seemed so foreign to us Brits were led away to be papped on their perp walks, ministers in manacles: One big name after another skewered on their own hubris, gulling the... Read more... |
