Spain
theartsdesk Q&A: Musician Albert HammondSaturday, 02 September 2017
Albert Hammond might not be a household name but he's still, undeniably, one of the world's greatest living songwriters. His songs have sold 360 million copies, ranging from Starship's soft-rock classic "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" to Julio... Read more... |
I Know Who You Are, series finale, BBC Four review - gripping, but no one to root forSunday, 13 August 2017
The first thing to say is that this wasn’t the actual end. BBC Four scheduled I Know Who You Are to run two episodes a night over five Saturdays. The innocent punter might have assumed that after 10 x 70 minutes of the Spanish import, we’d arrive at... Read more... |
Jason Webster: Fatal Sunset review - more flavoursome crime in ValenciaSunday, 06 August 2017
The sixth in a series of crime novels that began in 2011 with Or the Bull Kills You and which introduced readers to Chief Inspector Max Cámara, Fatal Sunset opens with our anarchistic hero summoned to see Rita Hernández, newly installed Commissioner... Read more... |
Le nozze di Figaro, Clonter Opera review - a wedding full of future starsMonday, 24 July 2017
Clonter Opera is a finishing school for young opera performers, with its own well appointed theatre and professional administration and artistic direction, based on a farm in Cheshire near Jodrell Bank. It’s seen a succession of promising young post... Read more... |
I Know Who You Are, BBC Four review - preposterous but hypnoticMonday, 17 July 2017
All’s fair in love and law in I Know Who You Are. BBC Four’s latest Euro-import hails from Spain and, as per the channel’s practice, is coming at you in intense double doses, two 70-minute episodes every Saturday night. Already it’s hard to imagine... Read more... |
Fidelio, Longborough Festival review - death to the concept of conceptsMonday, 26 June 2017
Opera directors must, I suppose, direct. But one could wish that they kept their mouths shut, at least outside the rehearsal studio. The condescension in Longborough’s programme-book interview with the director (Orpha Phelan) and designer (Madeleine... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Falla, Ravel, Antoine Tamestit, The American Brass QuintetSaturday, 24 June 2017
Falla: Nights in the Garden of Spain, Ravel: Piano Concertos Steven Osborne (piano), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Ludovic Morlot (Hyperion)Steven Osborne's solo Ravel anthology is among the best available, and it's good that he's now... Read more... |
The Shepherd review - quiet but stirring David v Goliath fableSaturday, 03 June 2017
The Shepherd – original title El pastor – is a Spanish film which carried all before it at the Raindance Festival. It’s a very Raindance kind of movie. Shot on a low budget with a small cast, a single handheld camera shaking like a leaf, it sticks... Read more... |
DVD: CrimsonFriday, 14 April 2017
After watching the grim Crimson, it’s impossible not to feel grubby and perplexed. Grubby, as this is a catering-size example of squalid exploitation cinema. Perplexed, as its plot is senseless, the charisma-free acting so inept that the cast may as... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Alnæs, Granados, Kelly, MompouSaturday, 25 March 2017
Eyvind Alnæs: Piano Concerto & Symphony Håvard Gimse (piano), Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra/Eivind Aadland (Lawo Classics)Eyvind Alnæs’s C Minor Symphony, written in 1897 after his return to Norway from studying in Leipzig, hints at great things,... Read more... |
FLA.CO.MEN, Israel Galván, Sadler's WellsSaturday, 18 February 2017
Before this Sadler's Wells Flamenco Festival-opening performance of Israel Galván's show FLA.CO.MEN, my guest wanted to know what the show would be like. And if I struggled lamely for words in response, it wasn't because I thought it would be... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: El SurFriday, 27 January 2017
Victor Erice is one of the great Spanish directors of the last century, though much less prolific than his compatriots Buñuel and Almodóvar. There are three key films, The Spirit of the Beehive, The Quince Tree Sun and El Sur (The South). All... Read more... |
