New York
The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, Hampstead TheatreFriday, 28 October 2016
So many words, starting with the title - we're told we can call it iHo - and so many lines spoken by anything up to nine characters at once. But as this is the unique world of Tony Kushner, it's all matter from the heart, balancing big ideas and... Read more... |
CD: The Pretenders - AloneSaturday, 15 October 2016
A legacy can be a hell of a thing. When someone has a recorded archive of stone cold classics, it must be very tough indeed to present their new works, knowing they'll be compared to their best. This goes double with a voice as distinctive as... Read more... |
First Person: Nico Muhly on music for two pianosTuesday, 04 October 2016
Writing for two pianos is something that – until last year – I had not attempted. I was contacted by Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen, two pianists who have performed as a duo for many years, asking me to compose a duet for them to perform at the... Read more... |
Good Canary, Rose Theatre, KingstonFriday, 23 September 2016
Very occasionally the playing of a play leaves a deeper impression than does the play itself. This is the case with Good Canary, a lippy, sweary tragicomedy by Zach Helm about secrets and addiction on the New York publishing scene. It has already... Read more... |
Little MenThursday, 22 September 2016
American director Ira Sachs is becoming a master at telling the small stories of life, giving them a resonance that speaks beyond the immediate context in which they unfold. That context, for his three most recent films, has been New York, and he’s... Read more... |
NerveMonday, 08 August 2016
Coinciding with both Pokémon Go madness and a developing backlash against the insidious modern plague of mobile gadgets, Nerve is a moral fable for the social media era, and a Cinderella story that turns into The Hunger Games. Luckily, it's much... Read more... |
DVD: Mapplethorpe - Look at the PicturesFriday, 29 July 2016
America is a country that has always thrived on dramatic battles between "good" and "evil", God and the Devil. Demonising may have Puritan roots, but it remains a particularly American obsession. The photographer and artist Robert Mapplethorpe,... Read more... |
Imagine... Danger! Cornelia Parker, BBC OneWednesday, 20 July 2016
Squash! Bulldoze! Blow-Up! Tie Up! Break-Up! Re-Build! There is practically nothing the artist Cornelia Parker won’t and can’t do with found materials, offcuts, the discarded and the recycled, not to mention tieing up Rodin’s The Kiss at the Tate in... Read more... |
WeinerSaturday, 09 July 2016
Weiner is the story of a rapid ride from comeback to meltdown. It’s an enthralling journey to witness, even if you sometimes feel like averting your eyes. What can be more inexorable than a political life – not to mention a private one – imploding... Read more... |
DVD: Heart of a DogFriday, 10 June 2016
The language of documentary is shot through with conventions. Rare is the occasion when a film-maker breaks the rules and throws the genre wide open. It takes a versatile artist like Laurie Anderson to free the medium from genre and invent a whole... Read more... |
Paul Simon Introduces 'Stranger to Stranger'Saturday, 28 May 2016
Perhaps as a hopeful harbinger for Paul Simon's new album Stranger to Stranger, Disturbed recently topped Billboard's Mainstream Rock Songs chart with their flabbergasting version of Simon's 1965 song "The Sound of Silence". However, while... Read more... |
Money MonsterThursday, 26 May 2016
This is one of those films where it really is better not to have seen the trailer first. Much of the pleasure is in the narrative twists and the developing characters, and the publicity gives too much away. Nevertheless, Money Monster is an... Read more... |
