Reviews
Christopher Lambton
From the outset, it was clear that this would be a performance of immaculate sonic architecture. Over a soft, deep, and breathy organ pedal the first utterings of the strings sounded tentative, almost improvised, like an artist making the first daubs on a vast empty canvas.Likewise the chorus entry on "Selig sind", at the same time both hesitant and mysterious, yet perfectly controlled. In keeping with his reputation, there was no doubt that conductor Maxim Emelyanychev knew exactly what he wished to achieve with this performance of Brahms’ A German Requiem with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
The thought of yet another primetime true-crime series might weary the soul, even if it has been created by Ed Whitmore (Manhunt: Martin Clunes heading two cases as DI Colin Sutton), directed by Marc Evans (Hinterland: Wales’s contribution to modern noir) and stars Philip Glenister. More rapes and murders of young women from the archives? More cops with typewriters and a drinking habit being poorly led by myopic superiors?Steeltown Murders inevitably has some of this stock material, as it’s (partly) an account of the investigation into the rape and murder of two teenage girls in Llandarcy Read more ...
caspar.gomez
“stay with the beer. beer is continuous blood. a continuous lover.” So said Charles Bukowski in his poem “how to be a great writer”. Who am I to argue. It’s a bright day and 11.50 AM. The sun isn’t past the yard-arm but the beer is cold and good. IPA. Finetime and I stand with Vanessa, her 18-year-old son Cody and her mate Jodie. Vanessa has a short blond crop which glows.We’re to the west of Brighton, by the sea, the outdoor enclave of The Great Escape. As in other years, the three stages are dominated on Saturday by Australian acts. We’re here to catch the first of the day in the Amazon New Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Hannah Gadsby had a memorable lockdown; it was when the Tasmanian comic got together with producer Jenney Shamash. And it's their courtship that forms the basis for Something Special, the wonderful new show by Gadsby which is now a Netflix special, recorded at the Sydney Opera House.Gadsby, whose previous shows have dealt with some pretty serious subjects, including rape, homophobia and misogyny, tells us drily at the top of the hour: “This is going to be a feelgood show. I feel I owe you one.”And yes, it is indeed a feelgood show (based on the previously toured Body of Work). Essentially, Read more ...
Kozhukhin, BBCSSO, Menezes, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - shimmering Saariaho and moody Mendelssohn
Miranda Heggie
How apt that on her first visit to Scotland, Italian-Brazilian conductor Simone Menezes would lead the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Mendelssohn's Third Symphony, the “Scottish”. Though there may not be many particularly "Scottish" sounding melodies in this piece, its overall sound conjures up the brooding moods of the Scottish landscape.One scene which was particularly evident here was of an angry Atlantic, the body of water Mendelssohn would have crossed to reach the Hebrides, the group of western islands which inspired his famous overture, written at the same time Read more ...
Glory to Sound: Linton Kwesi Johnson, Brighton Festival 2023 review - a reggae rebel's life in music
Nick Hasted
Straight-backed at 70, Linton Kwesi Johnson wears the smart garb of a British Caribbean elder – trilby, cream jacket, West Indies maroon jumper and tie, grey trousers, blue socks and grey shoes. His voice has resonant, slow-rolling authority befitting Britain’s pioneer, premier dub poet. He folds his legs, but raises a lecturing finger. Though relatively relaxed and ready to laugh, he shows, in attitude as much as posture, a stern, iron backbone.Marking his prose collection Time Come’s publication, LKJ has sold out the grand Theatre Royal for this talk and selection of laptop-played tracks Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The Ten Pound Pom programme (or to use its official title, the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme) was devised to encourage British emigrants to Australia after World War Two. The idea was that the volunteers could escape from drab, rationing-battered Britain to the sun, sea and wide-open spaces of the Great Southern Land, while also helping to boost the Australian economy. Adults paid 10 quid and children travelled free.Notable participants in the project were future Prime Ministers of Australia Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard and Angus and Malcolm Young, later to become hard rock heroes with Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
Escapees from Eurovision in Westminster on Saturday night might have discovered that a continent-wide enthusiasm for crowd-pleasing international styles arose long before the age of glitzy pop. Two accomplished Spanish groups performed at St John’s Smith Square within this year’s London Festival of Baroque Music. Both came with an attractive, unfamiliar 18th-century repertoire from their homeland. It showed that, across the decades from Handel to Haydn, the hegemonic sounds of Italy could be zestfully customised to suit national tastes. Within the tried-and-tested formulas for a Euro hit, Read more ...
Saskia Baron
It’s not a great moment for older audiences contemplating an outing to the cinema. They could have their intelligence insulted with the feeble, sugary comedy, Book Club: The Next Chapter or they could choose Plan 75 and find themselves looking nervously over their shoulder. This debut feature by Chie Hayakawa is a sombre drama set not too far in the future. The Japanese government has come up with a tempting solution to the problem of the country having the highest proportion of elderly people in the world.There are simply too many senior citizens who are dragging down the Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
When young Morse went speeding off in his Jag at the end of the Endeavour finale earlier this year, the road was left open for another, zootier Jag to zoom in, the racing green E-type belonging to DCI Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard. Channel 5 launched the latest incarnation of P D James’s brooding detective-poet in 2021, basing season one on three books (Shroud for a Nightingale, The Black Tower, A Taste for Death) in two one-hour episodes each. Now a further three books have been adapted: Death of an Expert Witness, A Certain Justice, and The Murder Room. Behind the adaptations is Read more ...
Mark Kidel
There’s been an avalanche of books about animals and trees. The more species disappear and forests are felled, the more titles are published: laments, celebrations, extinction alarms and rhapsodic accounts of animal sentience. Beastly is all of these rolled into one.Keggie Carew’s book comes from a place many of us will identify with: a malaise about the present and the future, a sense of loss and grief. There’s a sense of disorientation, fuelled by the growing heat of climate change: what is our relationship with nature? Are we part of it or not? Are we animals or something else? Are Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In July 2007, an article in The Guardian expressed surprise that shoegazing was influencing a series of current musicians, Blonde Redhead, Deerhunter, Maps and Ulrich Schnauss amongst them.“You could hear the heady, woozy influence of a style of music that had been a byword for naffness and overindulgence for the past 15 years,” said the article’s opening paragraph. “A type of music that Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers had said he ‘hated more than Hitler’".Five years on, in the same newspaper, a May 2012 live review of America’s Beach House said much the same thing: “The early Read more ...