Reviews
Nick Hasted
It wasn’t quite Ali vs Frazier. But the 1968 debates between William F Buckley, Jr and Gore Vidal were as bruising (nearly literally) as TV had seen, and haunted the protagonists for the rest of their lives. Morgan Neville and Robert Gordan’s documentary claims its aftershocks also damaged TV and America in ways we’re still suffering through.In 1968, Vidal’s ribald, transsexual comic novel Myra Breckinridge, waspish essays puncturing the follies of what he termed the American Empire, and a conviction that “there are two things you don’t turn down: sex and TV,” made him a notorious liberal. Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Lucy Worsley, historian and TV presenter – or perhaps that should be the other way round, since the BBC seems to give her a new series about every six weeks – is the unrivalled queen of the soundbite. Subtitled as Worsley's "100 Years of the WI", this canter around the stately circumference of the Women's Institute, now 100 years old, was niftily pinned together with sonorous adjectives and cacophonous alliteration.Striding through some strangely pea-green English countryside, Worsley defined the classic image of the WI lady for us: "She's that bossy woman belting out 'Jerusalem'. Or a Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
The original idea for the subtitle of this show, first made in 2000 and last seen at Sadler's Wells in 2007, was apparently "An Auto-Erotic Thriller". Yes, groan. But "erotic thriller" is a much straighter description of The Car Man than its actual, rather coy, subtitle, "Bizet's Carmen Reimagined". This is a nail-biting ride, and certainly not suitable for kids.The plot is based loosely on The Postman Always Rings Twice - wife and lover murder husband somewhat inefficiently, there is a wrongful conviction but eventually (twisted) poetic justice. Bourne adds a tragic misfit and a bisexual Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
This Prom was the final concert of Andris Nelsons's remarkable seven-year spell as principal conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Their Prom showed the astonishing level of responsiveness and flexibility which he and they have achieved together, over the course of more than 300 concerts.There had been more elaborate farewells and formalities last month at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, with performances of Mahler's Third Symphony, the speeches and all that. For this final coda, Nelsons took a supporting role. He accepted all the applause at the end of the concert from within Read more ...
Veronica Lee
You may know Javone Prince as Jerwayne – the self-appointed ladies' man from Channel 4's PhoneShop – or from various memorably comic turns in CBBC's Horrible Histories. Now the BBC has given the comedy actor his own four-part variety series, and it got off to a very strong start.Variety, like sketch comedy, is often a curate's egg, but Prince knows enough about the form to surround himself with talent, and is sure enough of his own to be generous with the time he gives others to entertain. The series was recorded in front of an audience at a south London dance hall (the rather wonderful Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Mission of Burma: signals, calls, and marches/Vs.The opening moments of Mission of Burma’s “That’s When I Reach for my Revolver” still exhilarate. Recorded in early 1981, it was the first track on the Boston-based band’s 12-inch EP signals, calls, and marches. The tension, power and forward motion of this sparse encapsulation of rock at its most textured lay the bed for a brooding melody drawing its lyrical jumping-off point from – depending on how the story is told or who is telling it – either a Hermann Göring comment about his antipathy to culture or a line from 1930s German play by Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
So it begins. Thousands of expectant audience members in a sweltering Albert Hall – heave ho! – riotous applause for the leader as he tunes the orchestra. A few more visits and all this will seem normal again, but it’s a culture shock to be thrown straight back in on the first night.The First Night of the Proms has to tick many boxes, as does the Last Night, and in both cases the result is usually a very long evening. The season’s themes were presented – anniversary celebrations for Nielsen and Sibelius, as well as a focus on Mozart piano concertos – and we were also treated to a new work and Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Had Wim Wenders not used the title Until the End of the World for his most ambitious road movie, it would have suited his biographical portrait of Sebastião Salgado. Since 1973, the Brazilian photographer has traversed the planet to document its natural beauty and diversity on one hand, and the greed, destructiveness, and murderous ferocity of man on the other.Thus, another alternative title for The Salt of the Earth, which Wenders was invited to co-direct with Salgado’s son Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, could have been Heaven and Hell, words the photographer uses frequently when being interviewed Read more ...
Heather Neill
Families. Whether it's the House of Atreus, the court at Elsinore or the Archers, they tend to be of compelling interest. For most of us, loyalties, guilty secrets, truths that will out, petty jealousies and sentimentality tend to be the order of the day more often than towering passion and murder. And that is what Andrew Keatley focuses on in this gentle, poignant, often funny play about a family reunion in the run-up to the "things can only get better" election in 1997.It is in many ways a sweetly old-fashioned piece, recalling not so much Ayckbourn as Dear Octopus, Dodie Smith's pre-war Read more ...
graham.rickson
Kit Downes: Tricko Kit Downes (piano, organ), Lucy Railton (cello) (Coup Perdu)No sleeve notes here; just a few oblique words from polymath pianist Kit Downes on the sleeve of this engaging release – which seem to say that the very act of recording meant that the pieces took on radical new shapes: “none of my initial ideas survived... mutability itself can be a creative force.” How much was improvised isn't made clear, though each of the works collected here feels and sounds properly developed and worked out. Downes's music has a brightness and openness which is disarming. The more extrovert Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Burt Bacharach, existentialist? That's among the surprising thoughts prompted by the searchingly titled What's It All About?, the altogether delightful but also touching musical revue that trawls Bacharach's back catalogue – and that on opening night found the 87-year-old tunesmith tinkling the ivories for a moment or two during the curtain call.First seen Off Broadway 18 months ago, director Steven Hoggett's jukebox musical-with-a-twist proves even more winning on a second viewiing. The material may well be a bit too sincere – that's to say, in-your-face earnest – for more Read more ...
emma.simmonds
With its teeny tiny protagonist Ant-Man joins a movie tradition that includes The Incredible Shrinking Man, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Innerspace. And yet the 12th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe feels like a fresh perspective on the modern blockbuster, where bigger certainly hasn't always meant better. A miniature superhero might not seem hugely useful in the fight against contemporary cinema's monolithic threats but, in its surveillance and espionage themes and heist plot, Ant-Man does a sterling job of selling its premise.Based on the comic book creation of Stan Lee, Larry Lieber Read more ...