Africa
CD: Alhousseini Anivolla - Anewal/The Walking ManThursday, 09 August 2012
The North African desert blues, as played by Tuareg musicians like Tinariwen, may well be the most popular kind of “world music” amongst mainstream rock fans since South African township jive post-Paul Simon’s Graceland. However, this presents a... Read more... |
Desdemona, Barbican HallSaturday, 21 July 2012
Peter Sellars has a talent for controversy, from his early days when he was the director who brought you Così fan tutte set in a diner on Cape Cod, Don Giovanni as a cocaine-snorting, Big Mac-eating slum thug, and Figaro getting married in Trump... Read more... |
CD: Samuel Yirga - GuzoWednesday, 04 July 2012
Over recent years a number of musicians and bands have immersed themselves in the exotic funky sound of 1960s/70s Ethiopian jazz (brought to our attention by the Éthiopiques CD series) to produce excellent new music. The best of these acts include... Read more... |
Alternative National AnthemsSaturday, 30 June 2012
With Euro 2012 about to end and the Olympics looming, we'll be hearing an awful lot of national anthems over the next couple of months. Don't we all agree that the majority of them are inadequate - often being turgid tunes with no reference to the... Read more... |
CD: KonKoma - KonKomaSaturday, 30 June 2012
The strikingly clumsy cover (possibly designed by a 12-year-old boy with a rotring pen, a compass and a setsquare) is so amateurish that it just about tips over into being good, but it gives no indication of what the music therein might be like... Read more... |
theartsdesk in La Réunion: Safiko FestivalTuesday, 26 June 2012
Some people go on holiday to relax on a beach. Others to trek through a glorious landscape. Or to explore magnificent architecture/extravagant nightclubs. Myself, well, I’m a musical tourist. Which often means I’m in rather blighted states. I’ve... Read more... |
Julius Caesar, BBC Four/Match of the Day Live, BBC OneMonday, 25 June 2012
“Let slip the dogs of war.” Somewhere in the bowels of Kiev’s Olympic Stadium, a football coach will have said something along these lines around the half seven mark. Meanwhile, over on the clever-clever channel, an alternative meeting between... Read more... |
The Witness, Royal Court TheatreTuesday, 12 June 2012
A powerful trend in contemporary theatre is the family play. But the families usually depicted tend to be of the standard two-point-five variety, while other more complex forms — families as they actually are — tend to be ignored. So initially the... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Everything But The Girl, Todd Rundgren's Utopia, WITCHSunday, 03 June 2012
Everything But The Girl: Eden, Love Not Money, Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, IdlewildJasper ReesCan it really be nearly three decades since the release of Eden defined the quintessential bedsit sound? Everything But The Girl are somehow ageless, a... Read more... |
CD: Jagwa Music - Bongo HotheadsWednesday, 30 May 2012
This Tanzanian crew of eight youngsters play a galloping bongo-led music called “Mchiriku” that spews torrentially from the speakers, exhausting your reviewer after just the first couple of songs. Perhaps if the arrangements and instrumentation had... Read more... |
The Suit, Young Vic TheatreMonday, 28 May 2012
Peter Brook is probably at his happiest in Africa. Through his Paris theatre, the Bouffes du Nord, he has long had access to gifted Francophone black African actors. They’ve always been a significant contingent of his troupe there, which has also... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare's GlobeSunday, 27 May 2012
The Winter’s Tale may not be one of the best loved of Shakespeare’s plays – not quite a comedy, not quite a full-blown drama – but the Globe was packed on the hottest night of the year for this vibrant Yoruba version direct from Lagos. South-East... Read more... |
