ASH Smyth
Articles By ASH Smyth
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Britten’s biggest cornucopia of invention seems unsinkable, and no-one seeing his breakthrough 1945 opera for the first time in this revival will...

Thanks to numerous arguments and disagreements over script, casting etc, nine years have elapsed since Expendables 3 hit the multiplexes...

For someone who said when he first took the helm at the Hallé that he “didn’t do much Mahler”, Sir Mark Elder has a pretty good track record. He’s...

Two years after the release of her rather flaccid Disco album and five since her somewhat inadvisable foray into country-ish music, 2023...

I have always had a fascination with concert programmes. I did my Doctorate thesis on this subject. I remember vividly as a youngster attending...

If you think we’ve got culture wars, then welcome to Transylvania. This rugged...

Can there be too much repetition? Is there a limit to the level of rhythmic insistence which can be tolerated? Judging by the enthused reaction to...

This powerful play’s immediate backstory, with Moscow sentencing its author to eight years’ jail and its director going into forced exile, is not...

Had Devendra Banhart been born between 1940 and 1950, he’d likely be a household name. His output– very loosely – sits between Cat Stevens, Syd...

A shot of a dead field mouse sets the tone for this sobering “slow cinema” documentary, narrator-director Christopher Morris’s response...