Reviews
Kieron Tyler
The most up-front factor defining the 10 tracks of Sweet Thief’s 26 minutes is Zoë Randell’s voice. Figuratively, she does not – vocally, that is – break a sweat or get agitated. On “Wanna Get Free,” she sings “put down your weapon.” Yet there is no sense of experiencing imminent danger. The lyrics of “A Better Truth.” which musically evokes Leonard Cohen's "Susanne”, tell of “troubled men… anger, shame, building to cycles of misery and strife.” Again, there’s that distance, a cool, the sense that Randell is a detached though acutely aware observer.Luluc are the duo of Zoë Randell and Steve Read more ...
Sarah Kent
The Aviva studios in Manchester consist of an open plan warehouse with black walls and no windows. The space is vast, dark and difficult to occupy, but since Ai Weiwei’s work tends to be large, gloomy and uncompromising, this, in a way, is a perfect marriage. Don’t expect a bundle of laughs, though.The first thing you see is a huge chandelier made of Murano glass. Traditionally these flamboyant lights are a riot of baroque shapes and gaudy colours. But Ai’s three-tiered monster consists of three tonnes of black skeletons (main picture). Called La Commedia Umana (The Human Comedy), it hangs Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Ania Magliano has built a solid body of work over the past few years with her thoughtful, self-reflective shows (gaining an Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination on the way), and a following boosted by her appearances on Taskmaster and SNL UK.After her television sojourn she’s back to stand-up with Peach Fuzz (which I saw at Soho Theatre), another walk through her life, this time her relationship with her body.Before she dives into that, though, there’s some “heat admin” in the very hot room during this blessedly warm summer many of us are having. She has even brought along some ice lollies for Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
Two couples meet up for an apparently convivial meal, except that there’s a minefield under their feet. And when they trigger an explosion, one of the couples will be left trying to pick up the pieces. Oddly, this isn’t a synopsis of Kristoffer Borgli’s recent The Drama, though it could be. It’s for the latest project from the actor-director Olivia Wilde, The Invite. In both films, middle-class urbanites have their lives upended and are threatened with being left that way. Wilde’s film is a chamber piece, beginning with the sounds of two people trying to play a piano duet, then Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Rimbaud, I guess. W.C. Fields. The family, you know, the trapeze family in the circus. Smokey Robinson. Allen Ginsberg. Charlie Rich, he's a good poet.”It’s 3 December 1965. Bob Dylan is in San Francisco to play the city’s Masonic Auditorium before setting off on other dates around California. He’s sitting down in front of journalists and TV cameras for a press conference. The response above was prompted by being asked “What poets do you dig?”
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What he’s just said is not followed up. Instead, the next question is about the nature of Read more ...
O'Sullivan, Fantasia Orchestra, Fetherstonhaugh, Smith Square Hall review - the sassy airs of summer
David Nice
Despite Proms appearances, I'm still not sure that Tom Fetherstonhaugh, mover and shaker of the young Fantasia Orchestra, has yet had quite the limelight he deserves for original programming that reaches out, not to mention for the sleek and romantic sound he got from a relatively small body of strings in this lovely sequence (portamentos as apt for Gershwin as for Mahler). Harry Baker also deserves full credit for a chain of wondrous arrangements. But the star, of course, without upstaging her colleagues, was young Irish mezzo Niamh O'Sullivan, fresh from her triumph as the classiest of Read more ...
Aleks Sierz
The best thrillers have not one, but two twists. Often, there’s a predictable twist, and an unpredictable one. So it is with The Guilty, Chloë Moss’s adaptation for the stage of the 2021 film of the same name by Antoine Fuqua, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, which is itself an English version of the 2018 Danish original, Den Skyldige, by Gustav Möller and Emil Nygaard Albertsen. Currently playing at the Donmar Warehouse, it’s a 60-minute monologue performed with compelling intensity by Russell Tovey. As with all the finest thrillers, it constantly keeps us guessing, asking what’s next?The set up is Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The “hiding in plain sight” technique has proved appallingly effective for a list of notorious sex offenders. When in doubt, get yourself a prominent slot on the BBC and hang out with royalty, and you can get away with almost anything.The newsreader Huw Edwards is the latest in this roll-call of infamy, though he has vowed to challenge “misleading or fabricated claims” made about him, but Edwards seems like a mere amateur when compared with Rolf Harris. As we learn in this Australian-made two-part documentary, Harris hailed from the Perth suburb of Bassingdean, came to London in 1952, studied Read more ...
James Saynor
For factual footage from battle zones, we once used to rely on people toting heavy cameras who went in and out of the fields of war. The successors to news camera legends like Mohamed Amin and Rory Peck are still with us, but the most immersive, longitudinal studies are now in the hands of citizen journalists with iPhones and Sony Alphas. They patch together Oscar-winning gonzo docs from terabytes of footage kept under the bed.The tortuous civil war in Syria has produced a gaggle of such movies, and Birds of War is the conflict’s latest big-screen eye-catcher. It tracks a love story leading Read more ...
Guy Oddy
To experience a performance by Seattle’s ambient metal kings, Sunn O))) is not like attending a conventional rock’n’roll gig, by any means. For a start, there are no drums, no bass and these days, no vocals. All the music comes from just two guitars, wielded by Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson, and an awful lot of amplifiers, speakers and sustain pedals.It isn’t just in their instrumentation that Sunn O))) defy standard rock’n’roll lore either. Dressed in monks’ habits, they move slowly around the stage, as if in choreographed half-speed, for a show that might be characterised as being part Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
“Hull Suite” is an important work in the canon of British-Bengali pianist Zoe Rahman, because it evokes themes – voyage, migration and family – which resonate strongly with her. The composition was commissioned at short notice by the Hull Jazz Festival (as a work for solo piano) for World Piano Day in 2024.Rahman drew inspiration from two statues overlooking the water in Hull. “The Crossing” is a bronze statue depicting a migrating family, and honours over 2 million people from Northern and Eastern Europe who passed through the port on their way to America between 1836 and 1914. The Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
Hot from its successful run at the Old Vic, Carrie Cracknell’s Olivier-nominated revival of Tom Stoppard’s 1993 masterpiece has made a particularly sweet landing in the West End. For opening night was accompanied by the news that the play’s venue, the Duke of York’s, is to be renamed the Tom Stoppard Theatre. The honour is well-deserved. Stoppard, who died last November, is one of the true greats of British theatre; and it’s well-timed with this play, which has its second revival here, 17 years after the first, and is one of his very best. Arcadia contains everything that made Read more ...