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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,
Nick Kimberley's rating
Reader rating
Description: The musician, accompanied by the ensemble, performs works by Bach and Gershwin.
Phone: 0871663 2500
Website: www.southbankcentre.co.uk
Trains: Tube: Waterloo 
Extra info: Food, Telephones, Air Conditioning, Pub
Astounding achievement: Derek Paravicini, who can reproduce almost any music after one hearing
Derek Paravinci has been called a musical savant, an autistic genius and, less flatteringly, the human iPod. Born in 1979, he is blind and has severe learning difficulties, but he is also a gifted pianist. Since the age of four, he has been able to reproduce almost any music that he has heard just once. His talent has made him the object of academic study and a biography (called, with some hyperbole, In The Key Of Genius) but, although he has often played in public, this short tour represented his first full-length concert with orchestra.
As the players showed in their opening medley from West Side Story, the Emerald Ensemble’s sound leans towards the tea dance, but individual members showed a funkier side. In the end, it might have been better to hear Paravicini with a smaller band: the classic jazz quartet of piano, sax, bass and drums would have allowed more room for his rhythmic and melodic flair to shine through.
The programme wandered idiosyncratically from Bach and Debussy to Meade Lux Lewis by way of Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue, the piano part delivered, with no little style, as if it were by Rachmaninov. Classical music, though, even in customised arrangements, does not show him at his best; or rather, he invariably refashions it to suit his style, which emerges most clearly when he stays closest to jazz.
At one point the audience, encouraged by Paravicini’s biographer Adam Ockelford, was invited to name three notes, from which emerged a credible new piece, entitled South Bank Blues. This is probably where Paravicini’s true gift lies; his improvisations may not be wildly adventurous, but he is not score-bound, not least because he does not read music, even in Braille.
It is hard not to detect elements of both case study and circus act, but there was also a genuine sense of someone ordering the world through music.
Paravicini’s talent is still developing; he may yet become a pianist who astounds us in purely musical terms, without any reference to his circumstances.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
