Reviews
Mark Kidel
Vox Luminis, the vocal and instrumental group based in Namur and led by Lionel Meunier, continued their residency at the Wigmore Hall, hot on the heels of a memorable rendition of Bach’s B Mass at the Spanish Church a few blocks away, with an equally breathtaking evening of works by Bach and his predecessor as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, Johann Kuhnau.There were two wonderfully celebratory Magnificats, the first by Kuhnau, and the second by Bach – his earlier version in E flat Major ( BWV243a). Although not specifically for Christmas, they have both traditionally been associated with the year’s Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
When, in late 2021, I heard the UK premiere of Sir James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio, it truly felt like a heaven-sent gift of musical and vocal splendour after the long famine of our lockdown purgatory. Four years later, with the renewed thrill of large-scale live performance no longer so acute, how does it hold up? For the most part, with undimmed brilliance: at the Barbican, the composer himself conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a signature work that gathers four centuries of sacred music into a 100-minute meditation on the Christmas story. It transcends pastiche to Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The third of James Cameron’s world-building epics arrives 16 years after the first one, but only three after number two, Avatar: The Way of Water. Apparently proceedings were held up by Cameron and his army of technicians having to adjust to developments in technology, not least the gadgetry required for underwater performance capture.Anyway here it is, and the results (in 3D) are fairly awesome, not least the running time of three and a quarter hours. We find ourselves back on the planet Pandora, a kind of supernatural paradise where human-like beings and an extraordinary array of Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
A leftfield, Tony-winning phenomenon on Broadway, Cole Escola’s comedy comes to London very much living up to the hype. This is a gloriously eccentric, rude, riotous marvel – laugh-out loud and daft as a brush.While many regard the current White House as a mad house, Escola’s naughty revisionism goes back in time to debunk one of the country’s most genuinely revered presidents. But the chief focus of this breezy 80-minute play is the first lady, Mary Todd Lincoln. History has been unkind to Mary, often highlighting her extravagant spending, dark moods and institutionalisation. Cole Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
Is there a neuroscientist in the house? I need a latterday Oliver Sacks to tell me about earworms, specifically earworms issuing from the music of Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky. I should explain. At about this time every year, for days and sometimes weeks following exposure to The Nutcracker, I am plagued by bits of its score playing on a loop in my head. Not the big hummable tunes like the "Waltz of the Flowers" in Act II, nor the massive bass trombone-led crescendo that accompanies the growing Christmas tree, but snippets, linking passages, what might technically be called the score’s Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
If your heart sinks every time a Shakespeare funny-man enters, here comes the RSC to put an unforced grin on your face. Its latest Feste is the real deal: an emcee with true comedic chops, abetted by a rising-star director who understands exactly how to exploit the innate comedy of both the play and its most anarchic spirit.The actor playing Feste is sweet-voiced Michael Grady-Hall (pictured below, left), whom we first see descending from the flies on a wire, crooning into a microphone. His vertical shock of hair is by way of Eraserhead; his specs and facial gestures recall the much missed Read more ...
theartsdesk
We are bowled over! We knew that theartsdesk.com had plenty of supporters out there – we’ve always had a loyal readership of arts lovers and professionals alike – but the response to our appeal to help us relaunch and reboot has been something else.Our fundraiser is rolling towards hitting the halfway mark, and it’s already raised enough to repair our ageing site and ensure its survival. But just as important to all of us have been the messages of love and support from our readership. It’s not just the morale boost of being praised either – though let’s be honest, the warm glow is pretty Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
If this time of year should prompt everyone to count their blessings, then one precious musical gift shines brightly over Smith Square Hall this week. For the choral ensemble Polyphony, its director Stephen Layton and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, it’s just a normal Christmas festival in Westminster: Bach’s Christmas Oratorio last night, Messiah this evening.Yet I came away from the Bach reflecting that, four decades or so back, period-conscious Baroque music-making of this quality and commitment would still have struck most listeners as a revolution – perhaps a miracle of sorts Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Peace and Goodwill to All Men outside. Inside, on stage at least, there’s not much peace nor goodwill to be had on the horror-filled Saturday afternoon before Christmas. A high-spirited full house is set to spend a couple of hours with spirits of a very different kind. In every sense, it's a shocking contrast.Of course, this is no original IP, many punters, having seen what they liked in the Paranormal Activity movies, sitting down, drink in hand, bag of merch tucked under the seat, for a new fix, this time in the West End. That said, ghost stories are a Christmas tradition, whether Marley Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
UK prog-rockers Gracious! acquired their exclamation mark when their first album was released in July 1970. Up to this point, they were Gracious. Barney Bubbles, who designed their LP’s sleeve, added the symbol without asking or telling anyone.The sleight typifies the story of Gracious! The band had breaks, but their path through the music business was bumpy. They recorded a second album between January and March 1971, but split in August that year before it was scheduled for release. When the LP was issued in April 1972 the band were not informed. The label “just flopped it out there with no Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Whether there really was a poisonous professional rivalry between Mozart and Antonio Salieri, composer to the Imperial court in Vienna, seems less than likely, but the success of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, on both stage and screen, has convinced the world otherwise. In Shaffer’s view, we see a Salieri consumed with envy and jealous rage at the effortless brilliance of Mozart, who seemingly had access to a continual stream of divinely-inspired inspiration. Salieri, by contrast, would be remembered only as “the patron saint of mediocrities”.Sky Atlantic’s adaptation, written by Joe Barton, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“The wonderful Mirra exists in its own space.” Back in August, that was the conclusion of my review of Benedicte Maurseth’s then-new album. Living with this “stunningly intense,” “haunting, intense evocation of Norway’s uplands and its wildlife” hasn’t changed this impression. Moreover, over the ensuing months, the impact of this exceptional collection of eight interrelated compositions has increased. Benedicte Maurseth is Norwegian. Her main instrument is the Hardanger fiddle – with its second set of sympathetic, drone-generating, strings. This, together with Mirra’s concern with Read more ...