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2012
Theatre
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London,
Evening Standard rating
Reader rating
Description: The orchestra presents a show music and visuals from the 1970s children's animation the Clangers.
Jumping off the screen: the score to Ridley Scott's classic film Blade Runner is reinterpreted by the Heritage Orchestra at the Meltdown festival
Harrison Ford in Blade Runner whose soundtrack provided the inspiration for the show
The film score to Ridley Scott's 1982 classic Blade Runner was always more than a fanfare for Harrison Ford's on-screen heroics. Eerie and ambient, Vangelis's soundtrack stood alone as a beautiful piece of work.
Rightly so, then, that the Royal Festival Hall was packed on the fourth night of the Meltdown festival to hear the Heritage Orchestra's rendering of the Greek composer's masterpiece, as mixed by curators Massive Attack.
Rumbling percussion and rising strings evoked the film's nightmarish vision of a dystopian future. Damon Albarn, who was among the spellbound audience, must have been smiling knowingly at this kingdom of doom.
He may even have tapped his foot, as drums and electric bass entered the mix. In its eerie groove, it was easy to see why Vangelis's score has been cited as the precursor to trip-hop - the downbeat electronic music made famous by Massive Attack in the early Nineties.
Attention flittered during the sparser moments of the evening, as one remembered that part of Blade Runner's appeal came from its script as well as its score. For the main part, though, the music was more than enough. The film' s most famous track, The Love Theme - to which Rick Deckard (Ford) and Rachael (Sean Young) put their genetic differences aside for a night of human/replicant love - was a smouldering soundscape of warm bass and wailing saxophone.
Few could describe Guy Garvey as smouldering but Elbow's burly frontman did croon beautifully over the jazzy skip of One More Kiss, Dear. If his band keep underachieving, a glittering career on the jazz circuit may yet beckon. He'd have to tuck in his shirt, mind.
More than shirts were flailing for Blade Runner (End Titles), as conductor Jules Buckley led his troops to a triumphant finale with a flurry of arm movements that wouldn't have been out of place at one of Massive Attack's live shows.
As the Heritage Orchestra bowed as one, the crowd applauded what they had seen: five-star, on-stage heroics.
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