Tonight:
10°c
Secret loans totalling £61.6 billion to struggling banks Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS revealed for the first time
More...
New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Fiona Maddocks's rating
Reader rating
Description: James MacMillan's The Confession Of Isobel Gowdie, and works by Berlioz and Elgar, conducted by Sir Colin Davis.
Phone: 0207589 8212
Website: www.royalalberthall.com
Trains: Tube: High Street Kensington 
, Tube / Bus: 9, 10, 52, 360 
Extra info: Pub, Food
Revered: Sir Colin Davis
Are there too many Proms? This is a treasonable question coming from a die-hard believer, like challenging faith in God or love.
But too often this year audiences have been spread carefully round the auditorium as thinly as dieter's butter. What worked for the Proms until a year or two ago is, suddenly, not enough. The need for radical solutions feels urgent.
Even Gergiev's concerts at the weekend were not full and last night's LSO event with Sir Colin Davis, a world-class orchestra and a revered conductor in broadly mainstream repertoire, could not draw the crowds.
Perhaps this took a slight edge off the players' enjoyable, though not quite vintage, performance of Elgar's Second Symphony.
The swaggering first movement had eloquent moments, as did the subsequent three, with a burnished string sound and potent brass, also heard to bold effect in the opener, Berlioz's Les Francsjuges overture. Yet the whole felt episodic, rather than rhapsodic as Elgar intended, leaving a wistful sense of lift-off not having quite occurred.
James MacMillan's The Confessions of Isobel Gowdie, an overtly expressive work of the kind not fashionable at the time of its Proms premiere in 1990, launched the Scottish composer's career. It still sounds fresh.
The LSO conveyed a mood of sustained contemplation, offset with fury in this orchestral requiem for a woman martyred as a witch in 1662.
The violas came into their own, enjoying the contradiction of a shadowy limelight in the central section. And at the end, the chilling sound of tremolando strings and thundering gong beat like the wings of the angel of death. This is a piece which haunts.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
