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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
John Aizlewood's rating
Reader rating
Description: Damon Albarn, Tony Allen, Paul Simonon and Simon Tong play with support from a variety show of acts.
Phone: 0844482 8008
Website: www.roundhouse.org.uk
Email: info@roundhouse.org.uk
Trains: Tube: Chalk Farm 
, Tube / Bus: 24, 27, 29, 31, 134, 135, 168, 214, 253, 274, C2 
Extra info: Pub, Food
The keenly anticipated collaboration between Damon Albarn, left, and former Clash member Paul Simonon, right, served more as a showcase for Albarn's songwriting
Idiotically introduced by broadcaster Zane Lowe as "one of the great collaborations of our time", The Good, The Bad And The Queen promised many things, but chiefly a revolutionary clash of cultures and personalities.
What actually happened at this BBC Electric Prom (broadcast on BBC3 tomorrow night and online at www.bbc.co.uk/electricproms until Thursday) was rather different, despite the participants: Blur frontman Damon Albarn, Clash bassist Paul Simonon, Verve guitarist Simon Tong and Tony Allen, the finest African drummer of his generation.
See more pictures from the concert here
They played their self-titled album in order, plus the B-side Mr Whippy and that was very much that.
Cultures did not clash; they did not even jostle. The project turned out to be a straightforward Albarn vehicle, a more polished sibling of his previous solo album, 2003's limited release Demo Crazy.
Simonon's bass was high in the mix, but, aside from a brief solo before The Bunting Song, Allen might as well have joined us from Lambeth rather than Lagos.
There were hints of The Kinks in Albarn's whimsical eye for detail (Green Fields spoke of Goldhawk Road) or Madness in the frequently deployed fairground organ, while The Clash briefly appeared when Kingdom Of Doom hijacked the introduction to London Calling.
There was even a nod to daft German metallers The Scorpions when Albarn re-created Wind Of Change's whistling segment during A Soldier's Tale, but most of all, and most surprisingly of all, Blur loomed large.
Naturally Albarn's voice ensures everything he does sounds Blur-esque (recruiting another singer seems almost too obvious to mention if he truly wants distance from his day job), but these slow, lolloping often beautiful songs belonged to the Blur of For Tomorrow and To The End.
So, while The Good, The Bad And The Queen might be a waste of personnel, they are not a waste of time. Albarn's songwriting dander is most certainly up.
Attired in a malevolent undertaker's top hat, rather than his customary teenager-sulking-after-his latest-Asbo look, Albarn strived so keenly for perfection that the covert dictator stopped and re-started the stately Three Changes, declaring ominously that "we need to re-focus" and almost gave himself a hernia during the frantic finale to The Good, The Bad And The Queen itself.
There was no encore and Albarn's parting words, "I've enjoyed this, warts and all", suggested he hadn't really enjoyed it at all. A shame really: everybody else seemed to.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
