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Mother of a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan accuses Gordon Brown of disrespecting her son's memory by misspelling their surname in a letter of condolence
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With a single dessert and just two glasses of wine our bill was kept in check - but the effort of doing so was not much fun
Babbo
Film
This is a film with beautiful performances and a visual style that urges you towards reflection
Bright Star
Theatre
Although the first half of Kwei-Armah’s production is pacy, funny and intelligent, the energy level then drops off
Seize The Day
I loved this film from start to finish. Take the girlfriend, tell your mum - I'd see it again tomorrow and will buy the dvd.
I saw this last night and can't remember the last time I was so moved in the theatre.
I have been to many of London's so-called best Japanese restaurants and none have been as good as the food that I've had at Aqua Kyoto
London,
Barry Millington's rating
Reader rating
Two years ago, under the subtly provocative title This Isn’t For You, Matt Fretton launched a new concept at Shoreditch Town Hall. A new series, relocated to Hall Two of Kings Place, was initiated last night under the joint curatorship of Fretton and Huw Watkins. People sat on chairs or lounged on bean-bags and were free to wander around or collect drinks from the bar. Happily, we were discouraged from chatting over the music, as happened at Shoreditch.
Finding a seat near enough the piano to act as page-turner had Watkins needed such a thing, one was swept up into the action. The hour-and-a-half-long programme, with no interval, ran the gamut from Schubert and Purcell (Oliver Knussen’s own fantasy on the celebrated Fantasia on One Note) to the Second Viennese School, Bartok, Kurtag, Stravinsky and Ravel.
Watkins brought his consummate pianism to solo items by Schoenberg (the Six Little Piano Pieces, Op 19), Kurtag (a selection from Jatekok) and a short piece of his own, Chorale for Matt, dedicated to his co-curator. Ensemble items were impressively dispatched with the remarkably talented clarinettist Timothy Orpen, violinist Thomas Gould and cellist Oliver Coates. Noteworthy were Webern’s Four Pieces, Op 7, and Berg’s Four Pieces, Op 5, Watkins’s own haunting, evanescent Dream, and an invigorating performance of Bartok’s Contrasts to end.
There might be a case for short spoken introductions and an even stronger one for dropping distracting background film (Sussie Ahlburg’s King’s Cross Through a Kaleidoscope). In principle it’s a terrific idea and once performers and audience alike have found their feet, it deserves to pull in a good crowd.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
