London
Beethoven Festival Weekend, Wigmore Hall review 1 - sparkle and charisma versus creative overkillMonday, 16 September 2019
While the Proms were ringing out the old season, the Wigmore Hall ushered in the big celebration of 2020: the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth. The venue’s year-long festival (actually longer – the actual birthday is December ‘20)... Read more... |
Temple, Sky 1 review - down in the tube station at midnightSaturday, 14 September 2019
At first, the opening episode of Sky 1’s enticing new drama Temple looked like it was going to be mostly concerned with a heist gone wrong. A gang of bandits were busily stealing an enormous mountain of money when they were inadvertently locked... Read more... |
Prom 66: In the Name of the Earth review - John Luther Adams's ambitious choral spectacularMonday, 09 September 2019
This is the kind of thing that the Proms does well – indeed, where else would it get an outing? A "big event" piece of massive scale in terms of size and duration, in many ways a modern Spem in Alium, but where Tallis’s 1570 piece demands 40 singers... Read more... |
Don Jo, Grimeborn review - conceptual style over musical substanceSaturday, 07 September 2019
Described as a "performer-led re-devising’"of Mozart’s 1787 opera Don Giovanni - a tale of an arrogant and ruthless lothario who seduced countess women - Don Jo certainly played around with many of the norms we encounter in both sexual relationships... Read more... |
Michael Rother, Jazz Cafe review - classic Krautrock from the Neu! and Harmonia legendThursday, 05 September 2019
Neu!, Neu! 2 and Neu! 75. For many a committed collector of rock’s more interesting corners, these three albums are the motherlode of 1970s Kosmische Musik, or Krautrock, the fruit of an intense and far-out focus on musical essentials, combining... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: A Kid for Two FarthingsTuesday, 03 September 2019
Seeing post-war London in vibrant colour is a delicious surprise, and the opening seconds of A Kid for Two Farthings follow a pigeon flying east from Trafalgar Square, eventually settling on a pub sign in Petticoat Lane. The location footage in... Read more... |
Foragers of the Foreshore - London's mudlarks on showSunday, 01 September 2019
Over the weekend, exhibitions and installations have started to bubble-up on the riverside walkway in London. Still-life photography of mudlark finds and a "scented history" of Barking Creek outside the National Theatre. Artwork from a dozen... Read more... |
Duff McKagan, Islington Assembly Hall review – Guns N' Roses bassist revels in the spotlightFriday, 30 August 2019
Guns N’ Roses members do love a side project, from Slash’s Snakepit and Conspirators to Axl’s stint as AC/DC frontman. Bass player Duff McKagan has had plenty of them, including hardcore punks 10 Minute Warning, rock 'n' roll supergroup Velvet... Read more... |
The Souvenir review – Joanna Hogg's most emotionally wrenching film yetThursday, 29 August 2019
Joanna Hogg’s melancholy autobiographical drama The Souvenir cuts too close to the bone. That’s a compliment: like Sally Rooney’s equally unsettling first novel Conversations With Friends, Hogg’s movie almost forces the viewer to relive that... Read more... |
CD: Kano - Hoodies All SummerThursday, 29 August 2019
Of all grime's original generation, Kano has a strong claim to being the greatest rhyme-constructor in the old school hip hop sense of dense rhymes packed with multiple meanings. Add movie star looks and a penchant for fur coats in photoshoots and... Read more... |
Prom 47: Schönheit, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Nelsons review - Bruckner doesn’t quite take flightSaturday, 24 August 2019
After Thursday night’s concert I celebrated the Proms’ exploration of unfamiliar repertoire via the CBSO. The following evening saw the festival diving back into mainstream repertoire – as it must also do – conducted by the CBSO’s previous music... Read more... |
Prom 46: Kanneh-Mason, CBSO, Gražinytė-Tyla review - brilliant programme, brilliant playingFriday, 23 August 2019
Let us never tire of singing the praises of the Proms, nor ever take them for granted. For two months concerts, many of which would be the highlight of any ‘normal’ week, keep coming night after night. And for all that it is a critic’s job to... Read more... |
