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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: The American Grammy-winning hip-hop star performs tracks from his Graduation album.
Kanye rocked the crowd, but they played second fiddle to the TV cameras
X Factor's Leona Lewis attended the gig
The smooth rapper showed off his piano skills
Even prisoners get offered a glass of water. Alas, this was not a privilege extended to the initially excited but soon cramped and parched crowd who sweltered under television lights for 90 minutes without access to sustenance as Kanye West, America's pre-eminent post-Eminem rapper elected to join us in his own time, rather than at the promised one.
This show was mostly a competition prize to celebrate next month's release of Graduation, the 30-year-old's third album, but once a headphones-wearing man emerged to tell us how to clap, it was clear the audience were merely unpaid extras in a show to be broadcast on Channel 4 (2pm, 2 September).
Yet this son of a lecturer and a Black Panther has not risen without good cause. Wearingly, Jay-Z's protegé may have his own record label and fashion line, but much more interestingly he's sufficiently broad-minded to collaborate with Coldplay and emo-rockers Fall Out Boy - and he famously told his country that "George Bush doesn't care about black people" in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina fiasco.
Atrocious sound and television lighting notwithstanding, West still overturned the notion that live rap cannot work - and not merely because he was accompanied by a brilliantly styled female orchestra, who played little but looked fabulous.
Bounding straight into the opening I Wonder like a ravenous hyena, the thoughtfully charismatic Atlantan proved to be the anti-rapper. There was the occasional gust of hot air, such as Champion with its refrain of "Tell me what it takes to be Number One", but such hubris was leavened by a spot of piano playing and myriad monologues which seemed to tell his life story.
And there was musical depth in the super-taut Diamonds From Sierra Leone, though the song had to be stopped halfway through for West to teach the audience how to make diamond-signs with their hands, "so that it looks good on television". West's priorities were not universally appreciated and when the song was re-started, some diamond signs looked suspiciously like the internationally recognised hand signal for masturbation.
Finally (after I Wonder was reprised without explanation other than a brusque order to "act like it's the start of the show") came the irrepressible Touch The Sky and, as neither side wanted an encore, West's parting shot of "I love you".
Nobody believed him for a moment, but, nobody doubted that for all the evening's frustrations, Kanye West is the real deal.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
