sun 06/07/2025

2010s

Kiefer / Van Gogh, Royal Academy review - a pairing of opposites

When he was a callow youth of 18, German artist Anselm Keifer got a travel grant to follow in the footsteps of his idol, Vincent van Gogh. Some sixty years later, work by the two artists has been brought together at the Royal Academy in a show that...

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Album: Kesha - .

“I’m, like, pop star when I have to pop star, and then I’m, like, naked hippy when I can naked hippy.” So Kesha explained recently on the Jennifer Hudson Show, going on to say she spent most of her time romping in the woods and chasing butterflies....

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Letters from Max, Hampstead Theatre review - inventively staged tale of two friends fighting loss with poetry

In 2012, the award-winning American writer Sarah Ruhl met a Yale playwriting student who became a special part of her life. Out of their friendship she created Letters from Max, a 2018 book of their correspondence, then a play performed in New York...

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This is My Family, Southwark Playhouse - London debut of 2013 Sheffield hit is feeling its age

MOR. Twee. Unashamedly crowdpleasing. Are such descriptors indicative of a tedious night in the stalls? For your reviewer, who has become jaded very quickly with a myriad of searing examinations of mental health crises and wake up calls about the...

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Album: MØ - Plæygirl

Danish singer MØ is a paradox. Initially she appeared to be another Scandi electro-pop princess of the bangers. The monster 2015 hit “Lean On” with Major Lazer jacked her profile, briefly, through the roof, but, while she’s worked with everyone from...

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Music Reissues Weekly: Celebrate Yourself! The Sonic Cathedral Story 2004-2024

Yeti Lane’s second album The Echo Show was released in March 2012. The Paris-based duo’s LP was stunning: holding together overall, as well as on a track-by-track basis. There were obvious influences: Kraftwerk, late-period Spacemen 3, motorik, My...

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King James, Hampstead Theatre review - UK premiere drains a three-pointer

Cleveland is probably the American city most like the one in which I grew up. Early into the icy embrace of post-industrialisation, not really on the way to anywhere, but not a destination either and obsessed with popular music and sports, it's very...

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Skeleton Crew, Donmar Warehouse review - slow burn that satisfyingly catches fire

For a long stretch of its first half, Dominique Morrisseau’s 2016 award-winner, Skeleton Crew, seems a conventional workplace drama, though in a much gentler key than Lynn Nottage’s Sweat. But this slow burn catches fire.The first sign that...

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£1 Thursdays, Finborough Theatre review - dazzling new play is as funny and smart as its two heroines

It’s 2012 and the London Olympics might as well be happening on the Moon for Jen and Stacey. In fact, you could say the same for everyone else scrabbling a living in Bradford – or anywhere north of Watford – and we know what those left-behind places...

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Prom 43: Endgame, BBC Scottish SO, Ryan Wigglesworth review - beautiful sounds but slow, slow drama

György Kurtág is 97 and the last man standing of the post-war generation of avant-garde composers. Last night the Proms staged the UK premiere of his first opera, started in his eighties and premiered in 2018, a setting of Samuel Beckett’s typically...

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La Syndicaliste review - a star outshines her conspiracy thriller script

On the face of it, La Syndicaliste (aka The Sitting Duck) is a conspiracy thriller that runs along familiar tracks: clever woman begins to suspect dirty dealings at a very high level in the high-stakes industry she works for and lands herself in a...

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Album: Django Django - Off Planet: Parts 1 - 4

Brit alt-indie outfit Django Django refuse easy categorisation and, as a result, during a decade-plus career, have never quite found their place with the wider public. Critical acclaim has come their way, and those who’ve kept an ear open know their...

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