New York
Cost of Living, Hampstead Theatre review - tough but tenderFriday, 01 February 2019
The Off Broadway production of Cost of Living two years ago brought Martyna Majok the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the height of acclaim of which most new writers – Majok, with four plays behind her, has yet to turn 35 – can only dream. High... Read more... |
Blu-ray: De Niro & De Palma - The Early FilmsTuesday, 29 January 2019
If we think of Robert De Niro and Brian De Palma, we likely think of The Untouchables from 1987 with the great actor in his career pomp, chewing up the scenery in a memorable cameo as Al Capone. However, the pair had history. They made three films... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Composer Michel LegrandSaturday, 26 January 2019
“I want to be a man without any past,” said Michel Legrand, who has died at the age of 86. He had perhaps the longest past in showbiz. Orchestrator, pianist, conductor, composer of countless soundtracks, who else has collaborated as widely - with... Read more... |
Bang on a Can All-Stars, Kings Place review - a kaleidoscope of vibrant sound and visionSaturday, 19 January 2019
Julia Wolfe, Caroline Shaw, Anna Þorvaldsdóttir: three names on quite a list I reeled off earlier this week when someone asked me why the compositions of Rebecca Saunders, in the news for winning the €250,000 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, make me... Read more... |
Monsters and Men review - an impressive debutSaturday, 19 January 2019
This well-crafted addition to the films inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement is subtler and less commercial than last year’s The Hate U Give but covers similar terrain. Writer-director Reinaldo Marcus Green sets Monsters and Men in... Read more... |
Life Itself review - epically vapidSaturday, 05 January 2019
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade: that bromide is about the only one absent from the astonishingly bad Life Itself, which in actuality might require a stiff drink to make it through the film intact. Folding together an interconnected set of... Read more... |
Springsteen on Broadway, Netflix review - one-man band becomes one-man showSaturday, 15 December 2018
When Bruce Springsteen’s one-man show opened at the Walter Kerr Theatre on New York’s West 48th Street in October last year it was only supposed to run for six weeks. This being Springsteen, however, demand proved almost limitless, so the season was... Read more... |
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse review - a new hope for the superhero genreTuesday, 11 December 2018
After Sam Raimi’s original mixed-bag trilogy, Andrew Garfield’s all too familiar outing as the webslinger, and last year’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, it would be fair to say we’ve had enough Spider-Man films. Despite the potential fatigue from yet-... Read more... |
Three Identical Strangers review - an extraordinary true storyThursday, 29 November 2018
The privileges of writing reviews are very few (it’s certainly no way to make a living these days) but one that remains is the possibility of seeing a film before reading about it. Sometimes it doesn’t matter knowing in advance how a story will play... Read more... |
First Person Plural: the Calidore String Quartet on music for their torn nationSaturday, 03 November 2018
Classical musicians spend much of their lives inhabiting the realms of the past. To effectively practise and perform the music of Bach, Brahms, Beethoven and countless others, performers must combine research and personal intuition to time travel... Read more... |
More Blood, More Tracks review - Bob Dylan opens upWednesday, 31 October 2018
You get plenty of Dylan for your buck these days, with the Mondo Scripto exhibition currently at the Halcyon Gallery in London, and a totemic and arrestingly beautiful set of Jerry Schatzberg's photographs of mid-Sixties Dylan in all his fuzzy glory... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Handel, Schmelzer, Tesla QuartetSaturday, 27 October 2018
Abbandonata: Handel Italian Cantatas Carolyn Sampson (soprano), The King’s Consort/Robert King (Vivat)The young Handel’s desire to be an opera composer prompted him to spend the years 1706-1710 in Italy. He was already a superb academician and... Read more... |
