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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,
Fiona Maddocks's rating
Reader rating
At a pace: Ilan Volkov
There's no regulating the speed at which peasants merry-make but last night, in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony No6, performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under chief conductor Ilan Volkov, they were going for gold.
All very well for a Jamaican in Beijing but not for the bucolic third movement, Peasants Merrymaking. While the opening Allegro and the Andante "Scene by the Brook" had been brisk, this middle section risked squandering the aural detail which refines rustic drones into high art.
Fortunately the fine woodwind made light of this haste with nimble yet spacious solos. Lower strings sounded strong and solid but there's something awry in the violins. More than once, the vigorous Leader (Elizabeth Layton) and her colleague at the head of the Second Violins were alone audible, with the rest of the section seen but barely heard. Do a few players need whipping?
Last week Elliott Carter's Oboe Concerto was paired with Beethoven's Fifth. Last night, his Soundings (2005), a quasi-concerto written for Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago SO, proved an ideal match for the Sixth.
Pianist Nicolas Hodges made full display of the brief, sparky toccatas which alternated with the exuberant, fluid orchestral writing of this concise work.
Cellist Alban Gerhardt was the expressive soloist in Prokofiev's rarely played Symphony-Concerto - if only there had been more to express. The dithering oxymoron of the title suggests an uncertainty on the composer's part thatwas only too well conveyed.
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