World War One
The Pilgrim’s Progress, RNCM, Manchester review – a theatrical triumphThursday, 04 April 2019
The Royal Northern College of Music’s spring opera is a theatrical triumph and musically very, very good. It’s 27 years since they last presented what Vaughan Williams called his "morality" – that was a triumph too, and they made a CD of it which I... Read more... |
Epiphoni Consort, Reader, St Paul's Covent Garden review - historical drama with seasonal spiritMonday, 17 December 2018
Like a supermarket "Christmas Dinner" sandwich, cramming the delights of a full festive lunch into every bite, Epiphoni Consort’s The Christmas Truce was at once historical play, choral concert and carol service, and so wonderfully enjoyable I didn’... Read more... |
War Requiem, English National Opera review - a striking spectacle, but oddly unmovingSaturday, 17 November 2018
We’re not good at lack these days. Just look at the concert hall, where increasingly you turn up to find not just an orchestra and soloists but a giant screen. Videos, projections, live speakers, "virtual choirs"; if there’s so much as a chink of an... Read more... |
Our Classical Century, BBC Four review - enthusiasm and delightFriday, 16 November 2018
Jerusalem! This fact-studded story of 20th century British music told us that the nation's unofficial national anthem, Hubert Parry’s setting of William Blake’s poem, originated in 1916 as a commission from the “Fight for Right” movement. Officials... Read more... |
War Horse, National Theatre review - still touching after all these yearsTuesday, 13 November 2018
War Horse at the National Theatre on Sunday’s Armistice Day centenary: there were medalled veterans and at least one priest in the rows in front, dark suits and poppies all around, and scarcely a youngster in sight. When the bells rang out in a... Read more... |
They Shall Not Grow Old, BBC Two review - Peter Jackson's Great War finaleMonday, 12 November 2018
Peter Jackson has form when it comes to re-examining cinema history. In 1995 he made Forgotten Silver, a documentary about Colin McKenzie, a New Zealand filmmaker who not only made the first sound recordings but also invented the tracking shot and... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: A Walk with Ivor Gurney, Yiddish Glory, For the FallenSaturday, 10 November 2018
A Walk with Ivor Gurney Tenebrae, Aurora Orchestra, Sarah Connolly, Simon Callow, Nigel Short (conductor) (Signum Classics)Ivor Gurney was a genuine polymath, a talented composer and poet whose career was disrupted by serving with the... Read more... |
WW1: The Last Tommies, BBC Four review - Great War storiesThursday, 08 November 2018
“Why should I go out and kill somebody I never knew? There was no reason at all in it in my way of thinking.” Britain’s very last Tommy was Harry Patch, born in 1898, conscripted in 1916 and still alive on his 111th birthday in 2009. He was one of... Read more... |
Bury the Dead, Finborough Theatre review - American rarity comes scathingly to lifeMonday, 05 November 2018
Bury the Dead was penned by Irwin Shaw in 1936, when the prolific American writer was a fledgling playwright in his early 20s. The Finborough Theatre production marks its first professional UK staging in 80 years and matches this milestone with a... Read more... |
Square Rounds, Finborough Theatre review - the science behind warfare, told in verseSaturday, 08 September 2018
The title of Tony Harrison's teacherly entertainment – it can't be called a play – refers to the square bullets invented by James Puckle to kill Muslims in the 18th century. This shocking morsel of information is provided by the brothers Hiram and... Read more... |
Prom 72, War Requiem, RSNO, Oundjian review - the pity, and the spectacle, of warFriday, 07 September 2018
A day after John Eliot Gardiner and wandering violist Antoine Tamestit had converted the Royal Albert Hall into a sonic map of Hector Berlioz’s Italy, conductor Peter Oundjian and his full-strength divisions transported us to the Western Front.... Read more... |
The Guardians review - beautifully crafted dramaThursday, 16 August 2018
A slow tracking shot over the gassed corpses of soldiers, their masks having failed the ecstasy of fumbling, opens The Guardians. This French art house film would perhaps have been better served by the English title The Caretakers; it's... Read more... |
