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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,
Nick Kimberley's rating
Reader rating
Phone: 020 7589 8212
Website: www.royalalberthall.com
Masters of the ngoni: the band of Bassekou Kouyate with the Malian lute
This was the most whole-hearted of the Proms' forays beyond the Western classical tradition, offering music from three continents, some ancient, some modern, some post-modern. Each act had won a Radio 3 Award for World Music and constituted a miniature Womad. Indeed most of them played Womad last weekend.
Sa Dingding, a sensation in her native China, certainly puts on a show, with keening vocals, multiple costume changes, kung fu dancers and a band blending old Chinese and new Western instruments. Unfortunately the Chinese elements are subsumed within, and sometimes obliterated by, a thoroughly Western aesthetic. In a word, her music has been MTVed, although her work with almost forgotten languages presumably has a political dimension in China.
There was a more symbiotic blend of cultures between British guitarist Justin Adams and Gambian fiddler Juldeh Camara, who produced such a range of colour from his one-string riti that you wondered why the European violin needs four strings. Hardly less remarkable is the Malian ngoni, a kind of guitar-cum-banjo that, in the hands of Bassekou Kouyaté and his band Ngoni Ba, whips up a guttural tunefulness in which amplification becomes part of the instrumental make-up. Here, the gulf between Mississippi and Africa disappeared.
For dancing, nothing equalled the exuberance of Spain's Son de la Frontera. Their music sticks close to flamenco tradition, although Cuban guitar, less percussive than Spanish, produces a gentler inflection. The dancing, with amplified foot-stamping and virtuoso hand-clapping, had an equine grace, while the singing came from some deep well of anguish.
Any such event poses the question at the heart of the very notion of "world music": is globalisation a force for freedomor cultural homogenisation? On that one, over to you.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
