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New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Barry Millington's rating
Reader rating
Imaginative: Claire Booth
As anybody interested in British contemporary music will testify, the NMC record label is indispensable. Founded 20 years ago by Colin Matthews (its name, New Music Cassettes, is a quaint echo from another era), the label has recorded music by British composers, from Birtwistle to the latest kid on the block, in defiance of conventional budgetary wisdom.
To celebrate its anniversary, NMC invited 96 composers each to write a song. The entire Songbook is being released on NMC and this week the contents can also be heard live in a series of six concerts at Kings Place.
The first two last night offered an impressive collection, as you might expect given the calibre of the participants. Surprisingly few took advantage of the opportunity to accompany with harp, harpsichord, guitar or percussion rather than the conventional piano.
One that did was a short setting of Lucretius by Julian Anderson. Soprano (Claire Booth) suspended a slow-moving line to haunting effect against a muffled tam-tam (Owen Gunnell). Another was Roger Marsh’s ravishing Lullaby with a marimba supplying the soft-hued backdrop. David Sawer’s more bracing The Source made imaginative use of two voices (Booth and Susan Bickley) with tubular bells.
While a handful of songs disappointed or were plain perverse in terms of intelligibility, most would repay repeated listening. Jonathan Harvey’s Ah! Sun-flower provided a brilliant sunburst of sound, while Phillip Neil Martin in Blaze of Noon, setting lines from Milton’s Samson Agonistes, traced a poignant arc from the dazzling light of the noontide sun to the “total eclipse” of blindness.
Some songs tended more to the tonal, including Colin Matthews’s eloquent Out in the Dark and Thea Musgrave’s Burns setting A Winter’s Morning, not to mention Michael Berkeley’s affectionate parody of Poulenc’s heartwarming harmonies.
Ailish Tynan was the excellent soprano here and elsewhere. The fine keyboard accompanists were Iain Burnside, Huw Watkins, Andrew Ball and Jane Chapman.
Until Saturday (020 7520 1490, www.kingsplace.co.uk).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
