4 h. ago All My Sons review: 'An astonishing, deeply moving piece of theatre'

Bryan Cranston, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Paapa Essiedu are pitch perfect in this Arthur Miller revival

Politics

3 d. ago Moving beyond bar lines: composer Nico Muhly on dancers reimagining his music

Choreographers hear, somehow, a larger heartbeat; it’s fascinating and revelatory to have them reinterpret your compositions, writes the US musician, ahead of a triple bill featuring his music coming to Sadler’s Wells. When I’m writing music, one of the primary challenges is figuring out how to notate rhythm in a way that is clear to the interpreters. When I hear a phrase in my head it is free of the confines of bar lines, but, in practical application, eventually it needs to get squeezed into recognisable shapes and containers. Every composer has their own strategy (some eschew bar lines entirely, or use alternative notational strategies outside the traditional western systems), but it’s always a negotiation: does the way the composer notates the rhythm correspond to how it should best appear on the flute player’s music stand?I have distinct memories of being 13, hearing a piece (specifically, Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements), basically memorising it from the recording, an...

Culture

7 d. ago The Carpenter’s Son review – Nicolas Cage is predictably miscast in dull biblical horror

A grim, grave-faced look at Jesus realising he is in fact the son of God is a bafflingly acted and messily made boreIt’s hard to know how seriously one should take a film that casts Nicolas Cage as Joseph, the carpenter who acted as the adoptive father of Jesus. One might expect, with the actor still relying on his trademark California intonation and histrionic outbursts, that this would be another one of his late-stage career larks, like playing Dracula or himself. But in The Carpenter’s Son, a bafflingly serious stew of horror, drama and fantasy, it slowly starts to dawn on us that this is in fact, not a joke. What it is I couldn’t tell you but entertaining it most definitely isn’t.The film, from Egypt-born, London-raised writer and director Lotfy Nathan, is inspired by the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a text seen as heretical by some, which offers highly debated “insight” into the early years of Jesus. Nathan begins by clueing us into the fact that this isn’t your vicar’s Sunday sch...

Events

8 d. ago Celeste: Woman of Faces review – from chanson to prewar jazz, this timeless song cycle defies the easy sell

(Polydor)It’s a difficult second album for the chart-topping singer, in more ways than one – but her sombre songcraft ends up being spectacularIn theory, the making of Celeste’s second album should have been plain sailing. Boosted by a win in the BBC Sound of 2020 poll, and her single A Little Love appearing on the John Lewis Christmas ad the same year, her debut album Not Your Muse entered the charts at No 1, spawned two big hits – Stop This Flame and Strange – and ultimately went gold. That’s the perfect starting place from which to make a second album: success, acclaim and attention, but not on the kind of overwhelming scale that seems ultimately paralysing, where it’s impossible to work out how you can follow it up.And yet, the making of Woman of Faces has clearly been attended by some difficulty. Celeste has talked openly about butting heads with its producer, Jeff Bhasker, whose hugely impressive CV includes work with Harry Styles, Taylor Swift and Kanye West: she commissioned...

Events

1 week ago The Eubanks: Like Father, Like Son review – a family boxing tale so unexpectedly moving it’ll leave you in tears

Chris Eubank Jnr hadn’t spoken to his father in four years. This documentary about his fight with Conor Benn – the son of his dad’s great rival – charts a reunion. It’s heart-pulverising stuffYou do not, I would hazard, expect to be moved to tears by a documentary about the Eubank family. But I suspect I am not the only one to find myself unexpectedly moved by The Eubanks: Like Father, Like Son, which follows Chris Sr and Chris Jr (also a successful boxer) as the latter prepares for a fight against Conor Benn, son of his father’s great 90s rival Nigel Benn, and tracing the rapprochement between the Eubanks after four years of estrangement.Eubank Jr has all his father’s gentleness and none of his eccentricity. He also has less of his need to be noticed, and the patience of a saint. He treats his father with such quiet respect – absorbing all his performative flourishes, and clearly trying to keep his mind’s eye and his heart fixed on Eubank Sr’s underlying love – that your own heart ...

Politics

1 week ago Rebecca Clarke review – composer of spirited chamber music and songs finally gets her due

Wigmore Hall, LondonIn a deftly curated programme, youthful compositions rubbed shoulders with music from her most productive period, the 1920sAmong the plethora of female composers finally receiving their due in recent years, Rebecca Clarke stands out for sheer quality and consistency of inspiration. Born in 1886, she studied with Stanford, worked with Vaughan Williams and, as a virtuoso violist, became one of the first professional female orchestral players in London. Relocating to the United States, her output declined, but her spirited chamber music and more recently her rediscovered songs, have proved fertile ground for today’s performers.In a deftly curated programme, the culmination of a Wigmore Hall Clarke study day, youthful compositions rubbed shoulders with music from her most productive period, the 1920s. Ailish Tynan opened proceedings, her soaring soprano and snappy diction illuminating songs that suggested the influence of Vaughan Williams. Ravel, in Orientalist mode,...

Culture

3 w. ago Anna von Hausswolff: Iconoclasts review – exhilarating, euphoric goth songcraft

(Year0001)The Swedish experimental musician pivots from drones to spectacular pop melodies, with guest spots from Iggy Pop and Ethel CainAnna von Hausswolff’s sixth studio album is being trailed as the 39-year-old Swede’s pivot towards pop, which you could say is all relative. For the last decade, Von Hauswolff has dealt in music that is solemn, echo-laden, heavy on the drone of her beloved pipe organ and fully deserving of the adjective gothic.Her work has elicited comparisons to Nico and Diamanda Galás; 40 years ago, it might have been packaged in a hauntingly abstract Vaughan Oliver sleeve and released on 4AD. She has collaborated with Swans, Sunn O))) and the black metal band Wolves in the Throne Room. Her last album, 2020’s All Thoughts Fly, was a collection of instrumentals, recorded on a replica of a 17th-century German baroque organ in a church in Gothenburg: you can perhaps get some idea of its emotional tone from the fact that it was released on a label best known for rele...

Politics