cabaret
Worden, BBC Concert Orchestra, de Ridder, Queen Elizabeth HallMonday, 04 March 2013
Who’d have guessed a full house for the third of The Rest is Noise festival’s Berlin nights? This time there were no obvious superstars, unless you follow singer-songwriter Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond and you know the impeccable track-... Read more... |
The Threepenny Opera, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallSunday, 03 March 2013
Given a fair few strange and languishing Brecht-Weill pieces that The Rest is Noise Festival’s Berlin strand might have explored, Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO had a tough time of it by piecing together a performing edition of the most familiar one... Read more... |
Liza Minnelli, Royal Festival HallSaturday, 02 March 2013
It’s Weimar Berlin time as the Southbank Centre’s The Rest is Noise festival moves through the 20th-century music scene – so it must be Liza Minnelli time too. Or must it? Though she’s immortalised through her Americanisation of Sally Bowles in Bob... Read more... |
Marc Almond, Shepherd's Bush EmpireTuesday, 10 July 2012
The first time I interviewed Marc Almond back in the late 1980s he had a pet snake with him, just one of the many things that sets him apart from today's stars. These days the only reptiles one sees around chart-toppers are the publicists. Almond... Read more... |
CD: Marina and the Diamonds - Electra HeartWednesday, 25 April 2012
Kooky ladies are very much of the moment, an ongoing moment, actually - the last couple of years, to be precise - but they seem to be with us to stay which is surely a good thing, especially in the playground. Better them than unreconstructed pole-... Read more... |
Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker!, New Adventures, Sadler's Wells TheatreThursday, 15 December 2011
Here’s a mindboggling statistic. By my calculation, some 330,000 seats are going to be offered for sale in London and Birmingham for just one ballet this Christmas - that’s live seats, not counting the three (yes, three) cinema screenings of foreign... Read more... |
Cabaret Falafel, Gaby's Deli, second verse!Saturday, 10 December 2011
Well, the stars were out near Leicester Square, and it was neither the premiere of a Hollywood blockbuster, nor even a clear night. Instead, the stars were in conjunction at Gaby’s Deli, now the hotbed of a revolt against the plastification of... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Musician Judith Owen and Actor Harry ShearerSunday, 30 October 2011
You may know Harry Shearer better as Montgomery Burns from The Simpsons. His wife, Judith Owen, is as well known for her recent stage show with Ruby Wax, Losing It, as her own albums. But though they may have limited street recognisability, in the... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Tenor Ian BostridgeMonday, 22 August 2011
The career of acclaimed tenor Ian Bostridge (b 1964) has taken a somewhat unusual trajectory. He was reading for a PhD on witchcraft at Corpus Christi College, Oxford before he decided to turn his hobby of singing into his profession, despite not... Read more... |
Master of French Ballet Chic Roland Petit DiesSunday, 10 July 2011
Roland Petit died this morning aged 87, a world choreographer of chic and erotic theatricality who blew away the French classical ideal in a roar of post-war sexual liberation. He created an all-male corps of swans for Swan Lake long before Matthew... Read more... |
Coming Up Later at the Old Vic TunnelsTuesday, 05 July 2011
It’s not often that a venue’s stage door is easier to find than its main entrance, but The Old Vic Tunnels is one such location. For those behind Coming Up Later, however, this is all part of the fun of a three-evening underground festival... Read more... |
Lullaby, Barbican PitMonday, 27 June 2011
There are few absolutes left in contemporary theatre. Fourth walls have long since crumbled underfoot; site-specific and immersive theatre experiences have further done away with divides between theatre and world, performer and audience. The one... Read more... |
