At Home He Feels Like A Tourist

  • Tim Gill (cellist) at Kings Place review *****

    London Sinfonietta’s Tim Gill: Avant Cello Kings Place, 6th May 2017 Tim Gill – cello Fali Pavri – piano Sound Intermedia Anton Webern – 3 kleine Stücke, Op. 11, Olivier Messiaen – ‘Louange à l’Éternite du Jesus Christ’ (‘Praise to the eternity of Jesus’) from Quartet for the End of…

  • Lady Macbeth film review ****

    Lady Macbeth, 3rd May 2017 So a bit of an aside first. Went to see that Sense of an Ending at the cinema but never got round to reviewing it. Bit pointless now as it has probably been and gone from all those arthouse cinemas where it might have got…

  • Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos at St John’s Smith Square review ****

    Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment: The Brandenburgs St John’s Smith Square, 2nd May 2017 Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 JS Bach. Tick. Brandenburg Concertos.…

  • Madame Rubinstein at the Park Theatre review ****

    Madame Rubinstein Park Theatre, 4th May 2017 Jez Bond and his team at the Park Theatre (with the help and goodwill of assorted North London luvvies I think) are doing an ever more successful job in my view in staging new plays and productions that people want, or should want,…

  • David Hockney at Tate Britain review ****

    David Hockney Tate Britain, 2nd May 2017 OK so this is embarrassing so I will get it out of the way. I didn’t really know David Hockey’s works beyond a cursory glance at a handful of works in permanent collections and some mixed exhibitions and didn’t really know what all…

  • Steve Reich’s Drumming and Tehillim at the Royal Festival Hall review *****

    The Colin Currie Group, Synergy Vocals Royal Festival Hall, 5th May 2017 Steve Reich – Tehillim 1981 Steve Reich – Drumming 1971 There are a handful of sacred founding texts when it comes to the world of US minimalist music. Terry Riley’s In C certainly, John Adams’s Harmonielehre and Short…

  • Hagen Quartet at the Wigmore Hall review ****

    Hagen Quartet Wigmore Hall, 29th April 2017 Dmitry Shostakovich String Quartet No. 3 in F major Op. 73 String Quartet No. 14 in F sharp major Op. 142 String Quartet No. 15 in E flat minor Op. 144 To paraphrase a great man about a great band “always different, always…

  • Junkyard at the Rose Theatre review *****

    Junkyard Rose Theatre Kingston, 30th April 2017 Once again I am writing some thoughts about a play (well musical in this case) which has been and gone. I really haven’t got the hang of this have I. Still this blog is mostly to stop me from annoying the rest of…

  • Hysteria at the Greenwich Theatre review ****

    Hysteria Greenwich Theatre, 29th April 2017 I will keep this short and sweet. Whilst this production by London Classic Theatre has been and gone from Greenwich it is still touring with dates in Oldham, Yeovil, Newtown, Aberdare, Dunstable and Colchester. In my view this kind of touring productions deserves your…

  • Kopatchinskaja and Gabetta at the Wigmore Hall review ****

    Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Sol Gabetta Wigmore Hall, 27th April 2017 Iannis Xenakis – Dhipli zyia Jörg Widmann – Extracts from 24 Duos for violin and cello Maurice Ravel – Sonata for violin and cello György Ligeti – Hommage à Hilding Rosenberg Peter Eötvös – a Call Zoltán Kodály – Duo for violin and cello Op. 7 So…

  • The Plague at the Arcola Theatre review ****

    The Plague Arcola Theatre, 27th April 2017 I booked this not knowing quite what to expect. I couldn’t really visualise how this was going to be staged but was intrigued at the idea. Well more fool me. Neil Bartlett and the cast have done a wonderful job in bringing Camus’s…

  • Creating Modernism in France at the Ashmolean Museum review ****

    Degas to Picasso: Creating Modernism in France The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 20th April 2017 So a day trip to the Ashmolean to take in this exhibition and a bit of the mighty Ashmolean’s permanent collection, (favourites include the Sickert room, the Medieval English collection and the Chinese ceramics and art).…