America
Adam Sweeting
Very early in his career, Andrew Haigh worked as an assistant editor on such Ridley Scott blockbusters as Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. He didn't actually meet Scott in person until years later, when the eminent director had no recollection of him. However, Sir Ridley might have a better idea of who he is now. As a director, Haigh created his first ripples in the filmic pond with Greek Pete (2009), the story of a Greek rent boy in London which collected a gong at LA's LGBT-orientated Outfest. He made an even bigger splash with Weekend (2011), a gay romantic drama which was acclaimed at Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
As Aerosmith’s guitarist Joe Perry put it, “there’s a certain amount of fuck you-ness in everything Jeff does.” Perhaps it’s this which has allowed Jeff Beck to achieve the rare feat of surviving into his seventies as what you might describe as a guitar legend without portfolio. He does what he wants when he wants to, is revered by the great and good of the electric guitar universe, and has avoided being trapped into playing The Yardbirds’ greatest hits until the end of time.He isn’t known as an eager interviewee, but the Beck on show here seemed relaxed and vaguely amused to be taking a Read more ...
howard.male
In an impressive pop royalty hat-trick, the title track features Brian Wilson, Pharrell pops up on “I Got the Juice”, and Prince helped source sounds for “Make Me Feel”. So does Kansas City gal Janelle Monae’s third album live up to expectations set by such a high calibre of contributors? Indeed, it does. Although, as impressive as it is, when Ms Monae insists on “Take a Bite” that she’s "not the kind of girl you take home to your mother", you might not be wholly convinced. But what’s a one-time prim tuxedoed girl to do in a pop world full of bouncy Beyoncés? Basically, either find her own Read more ...
Matt Wolf
A one-time Martha and Maggie the Cat in the theatre, and a screen siren of the sort they don't make any more, might not be the first person you expect to see swaggering on to a London stage in a dark pantsuit ready to offer up two hours of song and chat. Can it really be Kathleen Turner – yes, that Kathleen Turner, whose credits range from Jessica Rabbit to Mrs Robinson in The Graduate – who is currently refashioning the American songbook to suit her own take-no-prisoners bravura, all the while revealing a capacious heart? The fact is that Turner, to her eternal credit, Read more ...
Marianka Swain
It is, perhaps, a tale that suffers from overfamiliarity. Tina Turner’s rags-to-riches story – from humble beginnings as little Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennessee, to her discovery, reinvention and sickening abuse by husband and manager Ike Turner, and finally her rebirth as a solo rock'n'roll star – is the stuff of showbiz legend. This new glossy but pedestrian West End musical adds little to the established narrative.The structure doesn’t help. Starting at the very beginning and racing through the years, there’s only time for broad-brushstrokes storytelling and one-note supporting Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
“Wham bam, thank you, ma’am” might be one response to this polemical, wry, hilarious and affecting series of counterintuitive essays by one of the most original and unexpected thinkers around. Barbara Ehrenreich has described herself as a “myth-buster”, and her many books have challenged in an eminently readable fashion all kinds of assumptions that we automatically take for granted and never query, which may easily not only distort our attitudes but actually damage our behaviour. As this book’s subtitle, “Life, Death and the Illusion of Control” suggests, her subjects here are of the utmost Read more ...
mark.kidel
Paradox is a strange stoner Western directed by Neil Young’s partner Daryl Hannah. You can see it on Netflix. The soundtrack is by Neil Young and his now regular band, Promise of the Real, which includes two of Willie Nelson's sons, Micah and Lukas. Members of the band and Young play themselves in the film, or at least play roles that seem inspired by their fantasies of themselves as figures of the old Wild West. The film is a mess, and sometimes feels like little more than a string of fanciful promos. The soundtrack is perhaps most interesting as a manifestation of the way in which rock Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Joan Wasser – aka Joan as Police Woman – is known as a sophisticated songwriter and a pretty groovy person. But most of all it’s her gorgeously warm voice that's earned her a cult following. Over seven albums her angst-ridden vocals have explored heartache and compulsion with a blend of soul and indie-rock. Damned Devotion, her latest LP, has been particularly well received, earning mainly four-star reviews. Her UK tour starts next week in Glasgow.Wasser was not always a singer. She started off her musical career playing violin in various youth orchestras, and later with the Boston University Read more ...
David Nice
Live exposure to centenary composer Leonard Bernstein's anything-goes monsterpiece of 1971, as with Britten's War Requiem of the previous decade, probably shouldn't happen more than once every ten years, if only because each performance has to be truly special. It's been nearly eight since Marin Alsop last conducted and Jude Kelly directed MASS at the Southbank Centre. The new era of Barack Obama still had an early-days sheen then. No-one could have imagined when this similar-but-different spectacular was planned how its vital youth component - not just among the singers but also in an Read more ...
Steve O'Rourke
Civilisation is under threat from a bunch of religious rednecks, and it’s your job as the new Deputy Sheriff of fictional Hope County to right the wrongs of a year-long silent coup initiated by Eden’s Gate, a fanatical doomsday cult, intent on purging sinners and imposing their law on the land. There's a Brexit gag in there somewhere.Set in America, a first for the franchise, Far Cry 5 serves up more of the same freedom to explore a massive open world. It’s a beautifully detailed environment filled with pine forests, mountain ranges, shimmering lakes, rickety old towns and winding roads. A Read more ...
Michael Rakowitz: The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist, Fourth Plinth review - London's new guardian
Katherine Waters
Fifteen years ago on a cold grey Saturday in mid-February, Trafalgar Square was filled with people marching to Hyde Park in opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq. A million people gathered in London. Three times that number turned out in Rome. That day, across Europe and the rest of the world, between six to eleven million people participated in the largest coordinated anti-war rally in history. The scale of the movement was unprecedented. Protest globalised. Just over a month later air strikes took out Iraqi observation posts and troops crossed over the borders. The invasion of Iraq Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Dylan’s Gospel years inspired and rankled in unequal measure – with the critical brickbats and audience boos often drowning out the strength and beauty of the impassioned musical ministries delivered by Dylan between 1979 and 1981, gathering around him his five-strong chorus of gospel singers, and a crack band that included Little Feet guitarist Fred Tackett, bassist Tim Drummond, Muscle Shoals keyboardist Spooner Oldham and pianist Terry Young, and veteran drummer Jim Keltner.Filmed at Toronto’s Massey Hall and in Buffalo, New York, Dylan’s gospel shows have long been a bootlegger’s holy Read more ...