1920s
Mahler's Eighth, CBSO, Gražinytė-Tyla, Symphony Hall Birmingham review - a symphony of 600Monday, 20 January 2020
“Try to imagine the whole universe beginning to ring and resound” wrote Gustav Mahler of his Eighth Symphony. “There are no longer human voices, but planets and suns revolving.” It’s an image that captures the impossible scale and mind-boggling... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The GolemTuesday, 19 November 2019
A lumbering, barrel-chested hulk with a weirdly Ancient Egyptian wedge of hair, the eponymous clay monster of Paul Wegener and Carl Boese’s The Golem: How He Came Into the World compensates for his limited intelligence with brute strength and a... Read more... |
Tetzlaff, Nelsen, Philharmonia, Salonen, RFH review - spider's webs and silk sheetsMonday, 30 September 2019
You can't expect a full house when the only work approaching a repertoire staple on your programme is Berg's Lulu Suite. Yet Esa-Pekka Salonen was able to serve up what must count as one of the most enthralling Philharmonia programmes ever at the... Read more... |
Downton Abbey review – business as usualThursday, 12 September 2019
Despite the fact that the Downton Abbey 2015 Christmas special wrapped the series up with a seemingly watertight bow, a cinema offering of Julian Fellowes’ much-loved creation was perhaps inevitable. And so virtually all of the series cast... Read more... |
Bauhaus 100, BBC Four review - a well-made film about the makersThursday, 22 August 2019
The Bauhaus school and its subsequent influence make an extraordinary story, and this film by Mat Whitecross, which has assembled a whole range of different voices and perspectives and woven them together, told it well.As a school, the Bauhaus... Read more... |
Blues in the Night, Kiln Theatre review - hard times, hot tunesThursday, 25 July 2019
It’s too darn hot, BoJo is in Downing Street, and we’re all going to Brexit hell – so we might as well sing the blues. Or at least take a night off from the apocalypse to enjoy a virtuoso company singing them for us in this rousing revival of... Read more... |
Vita and Virginia review - more Gloomsbury than BloomsburySaturday, 06 July 2019
“You do like to have your cake and eat it, Vity. So many cakes, so many,” laments Harold Nicholson (Rupert Penry-Jones) to his wife Vita Sackville-West (Gemma Arterton) as she embarks on an affair with Virginia Woolf (Elizabeth Debicki).The... Read more... |
Blu-ray: People on SundaySaturday, 29 June 2019
Weimar Germany produced some extraordinary cinema, with Pabst, Murnau, Fritz Lang and others creating a language that transformed the medium and is still a core reference today. People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag), a silent film made in 1929,... Read more... |
Ain't Misbehavin', Southwark Playhouse review - a jazz-hot musical revueThursday, 25 April 2019
The joint is jumpin’ at Southwark Playhouse, now hosting an irresistible Fats Waller-inspired, Manhattan-set musical revue (a co-production with Colchester’s Mercury Theatre, where it opened last month). Though originating in the Seventies,... Read more... |
Fiona MacCarthy: Walter Gropius review - a master of modernismSunday, 10 March 2019
The centenary of the founding of the Bauhaus (literally, “Building House”) art school is on us, prompting publications and exhibitions worldwide. Subtitled “Visionary Founder of the Bauhaus”, Fiona MacCarthy’s revelatory biography of the figure... Read more... |
Follies, National Theatre review - the Sondheim spectacular returns, better than everSaturday, 23 February 2019
This is a golden age of London Sondheim revivals, with Marianne Elliott’s thrilling Company still playing in the West End, and Dominic Cooke’s Follies getting a hugely welcome second run at the National – both testament to a director’s... Read more... |
The American Clock, Old Vic review - Arthur Miller's musical history lesson dragsThursday, 14 February 2019
This year’s unofficial Arthur Miller season – following The Price and ahead of All My Sons at the Old Vic and Death of a Salesman at the Young Vic – now turns to his 1980 work, The American Clock, inspired in part by Miller’s own memories of the... Read more... |
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