fri 24/05/2013

Reviews

The Tudors Season, BBC Two

Jasper Rees

Is the BBC taking dictation from the Gradgrindian brain of Michael Gove? According to the education secretary’s latest wacky diktat, what the nation’s children want is facts facts facts. Plus, in the teaching of history, lots of stuff about England/Britain giving Johnny Foreigner a bloody conk. So let’s give it up one more time for the Tudors, who are essentially our very own Nazis. This is less for the dodgy human rights record than their permanent status as a small-screen visitor...

To Kill A Mockingbird, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

Demetrios Matheou

Every May the townspeople of Monroeville, Alabama, the home of Harper Lee, perform Christopher Sergel’s theatrical adaptation of Lee’s acclaimed, much beloved novel, on the grounds of the county courthouse. It’s a potent, somehow ironic demonstration of the enduring regard for the novel, in the very part of America whose racial intolerance Lee exposed.It’s one thing performing, and seeing this story of the Deep South in its steamy locale, where even the shade is “sweltering” and “men’s stiff...

Steve Earle, Royal Festival Hall

Tim Cumming

Steve Earle is country music's great polymath - short story writer, playwright, novelist, activist, actor, oh yes, and singer and songwriter of some...

Rob Newman, Little Angel Theatre

Veronica Lee

There's a quite a contrast between the 12,000-seat Wembley Arena in 1993 where, with the help of his erstwhile writing and performing partner David...

Disgraced, Bush Theatre

Aleks Sierz

There’s one big problem about being an Asian actor in America — you just don’t get the big parts. So the multitalented Ayad Akhtar put acting on hold...

Something in the Air

Jasper Rees

Olivier Assayas recalls his heady, heavy days as a soixante-huitard

The Kite Runner, Theatre Royal Brighton

Bella Todd

A story-centric stage adaption of Khaled Hosseini's sentimental best-seller

The King of Marvin Gardens

Graham Fuller

Melancholy meets irrational optimism in Bob Rafelson's New Hollywood classic

Relatively Speaking, Wyndham's Theatre

Matt Wolf

Early Ayckbourn play fizzes anew 46 years on

Sylvie Guillem, 6000 Miles Away, Sadler's Wells Theatre

Ismene Brown

Guillem weaves her game-changing magic in Forsythe and Ek

Limbo, Southbank Centre

Jasper Rees

London Wonderground's erotic circus bumps and grinds

Lubomyr Melnyk, Village Underground

Kieron Tyler

The pioneer of continuous music astonishes while Bon Iver’s preferred artist Gregory Euclide paints live, on stage

Helen Chadwick, Richard Saltoun

Sarah Kent

Her obsession with death and decay was leavened by a wicked sense of humour

Case Histories, BBC One

Veronica Lee

The brooding private detective is back

Falstaff, Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Kimon Daltas

Comedy is king in a Falstaff revival which is consistently enjoyable but could be a little less nice

The Man Who Shot Beautiful Women, BBC Four

Tom Birchenough

The welcome return of the legacy of photographer Erwin Blumenfeld

Ariadne auf Naxos, Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Edward Seckerson

Strauss's opera reluctantly enters the Battle of Britain courtesy of a young German director

Reissue CDs Weekly: Scott Walker

Kieron Tyler

Easy listening and continental European intellectualism combine on the early albums from pop’s wilful auteur

Say It With Flowers, Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

Gary Raymond

New play about tragic Welsh diva Dorothy Squires misses the real story

Mariele Neudecker, Regency Town House, Brighton

Fisun Güner

The German artist plays with notions of the Romantic sublime

CD: Jamie Cullum - Momentum

Peter Quinn

Stylistic mash-ups of album number six result in perfect pop

The Liability

Tom Birchenough

Brit crime caper hits new lows, despite strong cast

La donna del lago, Royal Opera

David Benedict

Joyce DiDonato, Juan Diego Flórez and Michael Spyres triumph over adversity

Rock ‘n’ Roll Britannia, BBC Four

Kieron Tyler

The entertaining tale of the protracted birth of a British rock scene which took America on at its own game

Bullet Catch, Spiegeltent, Brighton

Thomas H Green

The classic shock trick provides the core for a surprisingly philosophical show

Propaganda: Power and Persuasion, British Library

Fisun Güner

A thought-provoking exhibition looking at ways in which the state seeks to wield its influence

The Victorian in the Wall, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs

Sam Marlowe

Will Adamsdale's new musical comedy-drama is touching, quirky and deliciously daft

The Stoker

Tom Birchenough

Nihilism stared down in Alexei Balabanov's bleak look-back to Russia in the Nineties

Carmageddon

Stuart Houghton

A car crash of a racing game

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The Tudors Season, BBC Two

Mantel goes head to head with Starkey as Henry VIII executes everyone all o...

To Kill A Mockingbird, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

London ain't Alabama, but Harper Lee's attack on racial intoleran...

Steve Earle, Royal Festival Hall

Passion and politics as country's great polymath tours a powerful new...

Rob Newman, Little Angel Theatre

Not quite rock 'n' roll, but I like it

Disgraced, Bush Theatre

Pulitzer Prize-winning drama examines cultural identity with insight and in...

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CD: Tricky - False Idols

Bristol trickster suffers from muse addiction

Something in the Air

Olivier Assayas recalls his heady, heavy days as a soixante-huitard

The Kite Runner, Theatre Royal Brighton

A story-centric stage adaption of Khaled Hosseini's sentimental best-s...

The King of Marvin Gardens

Melancholy meets irrational optimism in Bob Rafelson's New Hollywood c...