Reviews
Muse, Emirates Stadium
Sunday, 26 May 2013
For all the video projections and pyrotechnics that accompanied it, Muse’s entrance onto the Emirates stage last night was disappointingly anticlimactic. This was partly because there was still so much daylight in the stadium but, mainly, it was down to there being so many empty seats. Maybe earlycomers had been driven to the bar by support act Dizzee Rascal’s constant refrains of "are you going to go fucking mental?” Or possibly it was just a bad day on the tube. Whatever the truth, the...
David Bowie - Five Years, BBC Two
Saturday, 25 May 2013
Picking five creatively significant years was quite a smart way of tackling the huge career of David Bowie, though you could argue forever about whether producer/director Francis Whately had chosen the right ones. What about 1969 and the Space Oddity album, or 1970 and The Man Who Sold the World? How about a really bad year like 1987, which gave us Never Let Me Down and the egregious Glass Spider tour?But the film is what it is rather than what it isn't, and most of what we got was fascinating...
Berezovsky, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Järvi...
Saturday, 25 May 2013
In 1980, an orchestra and conductor then hardly known in Britain came to the Royal Festival Hall. I went to hear Elisabeth Söderström in Strauss’s...
Neko Case/Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, Village...
Saturday, 25 May 2013
Neko Case wasn't about to launch a Yeah Yeah Yeahs-style pre-emptive strike aimed at the Village Underground's amateur camera-wielders. She doesn't...
Raven Girl, Royal Ballet/ Witch-Hunt, Bern...
Saturday, 25 May 2013
Ballet is telling stories again. Last night Wayne McGregor’s debut as a narrator followed hot on the heels of Cathy Marston’s Witch-Hunt for Bern...
Classical CDs Weekly: Frank Martin, Mei Yi Foo, Powerplant
Saturday, 25 May 2013
A Grimm take on Cinderella, a brilliant anthology of contemporary piano music and some head-banging percussion |
Lohengrin, Welsh National Opera
Friday, 24 May 2013
WNO in their element in wide-stage Wagner marred by vocal problems |
The Tudors Season, BBC Two
Friday, 24 May 2013
Mantel goes head to head with Starkey as Henry VIII executes everyone all over again for our pleasure |
The Hangover Part III
Friday, 24 May 2013
Subdued finale for the laddish franchise |
Metro: Last Light
Friday, 24 May 2013
The dark, the mutants and the other survivors – fear rules this bleak first-person shooter |
To Kill A Mockingbird, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre
Thursday, 23 May 2013
London ain't Alabama, but Harper Lee's attack on racial intolerance still resonates |
Steve Earle, Royal Festival Hall
Thursday, 23 May 2013
Passion and politics as country's great polymath tours a powerful new album with a powerful new band |
Rob Newman, Little Angel Theatre
Thursday, 23 May 2013
Not quite rock 'n' roll, but I like it |
Disgraced, Bush Theatre
Thursday, 23 May 2013
Pulitzer Prize-winning drama examines cultural identity with insight and intelligence |
Something in the Air
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
Olivier Assayas recalls his heady, heavy days as a soixante-huitard |
The Kite Runner, Theatre Royal Brighton
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
A story-centric stage adaption of Khaled Hosseini's sentimental best-seller |
The King of Marvin Gardens
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
Melancholy meets irrational optimism in Bob Rafelson's New Hollywood classic |
Relatively Speaking, Wyndham's Theatre
Tuesday, 21 May 2013
Early Ayckbourn play fizzes anew 46 years on |
Sylvie Guillem, 6000 Miles Away, Sadler's Wells Theatre
Tuesday, 21 May 2013
Guillem weaves her game-changing magic in Forsythe and Ek |
Limbo, Southbank Centre
Tuesday, 21 May 2013
London Wonderground's erotic circus bumps and grinds |
Lubomyr Melnyk, Village Underground
Tuesday, 21 May 2013
The pioneer of continuous music astonishes while Bon Iver’s preferred artist Gregory Euclide paints live, on stage |
Helen Chadwick, Richard Saltoun
Tuesday, 21 May 2013
Her obsession with death and decay was leavened by a wicked sense of humour |
Case Histories, BBC One
Monday, 20 May 2013
The brooding private detective is back |
Falstaff, Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Monday, 20 May 2013
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
Monday, 20 May 2013
The welcome return of the legacy of photographer Erwin Blumenfeld |
Ariadne auf Naxos, Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Sunday, 19 May 2013
Strauss's opera reluctantly enters the Battle of Britain courtesy of a young German director |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Scott Walker
Sunday, 19 May 2013
Easy listening and continental European intellectualism combine on the early albums from pop’s wilful auteur |
Say It With Flowers, Sherman Theatre, Cardiff
Sunday, 19 May 2013
New play about tragic Welsh diva Dorothy Squires misses the real story |
Mariele Neudecker, Regency Town House, Brighton
Sunday, 19 May 2013
The German artist plays with notions of the Romantic sublime |
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