Have you felt like screaming lately? Here’s your chance: Laurie Anderson has the entire audience at Factory International scream for 15 seconds, in tribute to Yoko Ono’s three-minute yowl when asked in 2016 how she felt about Trump’s victory. More soothingly, at the end we’re invited to stand and do t’ai chi, in tribute to Anderson’s late husband Lou Reed’s favourite sequence.
Continue reading “Review: Laurie Anderson, Factory International”Category: Music & Dance
‘Should I stop my birth control?’ The pop stars debating motherhood on record
We may be coming out of Brat Summer, where Charli XCX’s lime-green hedonism defined the season – but it’s also been the summer of the defiant “childless cat lady”. The insult Trump’s running mate JD Vance flung at Kamala Harris came back to hit him in the face, with women everywhere celebrating being child-free (and loving their cats.)
Continue reading “‘Should I stop my birth control?’ The pop stars debating motherhood on record”‘I got major doubt from the movie guys’: Julie Taymor
The Lion King musical is a beast of a show – captivating US audiences since 1997, it is the highest-grossing production of all time, in theatre or in film, taking over $10 billion (£7.68 billion) worldwide. It’s currently celebrating 25 years in the West End, hits 27 years on Broadway next month, and has been staged all around the world – from South Africa to South Korea, Australia to the United Arab Emirates – visiting every continent except Antarctica.
Continue reading “‘I got major doubt from the movie guys’: Julie Taymor”Sherlock’s toughest case — can the sleuth draw a new audience to opera?
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” It’s one of Sherlock Holmes’s most famous lines but you’ve never heard it like this before: sung in a rich, deep bass courtesy of Edward Hawkins, a knowing smile playing around his lips. As the now singing detective, he takes the lead in the first Sherlock Holmes opera to hit the stage.
Continue reading “Sherlock’s toughest case — can the sleuth draw a new audience to opera?”Review: Strictly Come Dancing Live, Birmingham Utilita Arena
After a particularly fine 20th season – with a blisteringly high standard of dancing that drew almost 10 million viewers for the final – Strictly heads out on the road, with many of the season’s most impressive talents signed up. And Krishnan Guru-Murthy is there too.
Continue reading “Review: Strictly Come Dancing Live, Birmingham Utilita Arena”Coding is the new clubbing: on the rise and rise of algorave
Legend has it that algorave was invented on the M1. It was 2011, and Alex McLean was driving to a gig with his friend Nick Collins; both live coders, they would make electronic music on stage in real time — effectively, writing instructions in code that tell a computer what sounds to play, in what order.
Continue reading “Coding is the new clubbing: on the rise and rise of algorave”Review: Billie Eilish, Leeds festival
Part way through her latest history-making set – Billie Eilish is the youngest star to headline Reading and Leeds festivals – the 21-year-old asks the crowd if they saw her here four years ago. In 2019, festival bosses had to move Eilish from the Radio 1 stage to the main stage – a sign of the nosebleed-inducing upwards trajectory she was on.
Continue reading “Review: Billie Eilish, Leeds festival”Miss Saigon is back on stage – and people are angry
The heat is on Miss Saigon: Sheffield Crucible is mounting the first all-new production of the mega-hit musical since its premiere in 1989 – and in doing so, has made many people angry.
Continue reading “Miss Saigon is back on stage – and people are angry”The great 16th-Century black composer erased from history
The Western classical music canon is notoriously white and male – so you might assume that a black Renaissance composer would be a figure of significant interest, much-performed and studied. In fact, the story of the first known published black composer – Vicente Lusitano – is only now being heard, alongside a revival of interest in his long-neglected choral music.
Continue reading “The great 16th-Century black composer erased from history”Inês De Castro: The macabre tale of the ‘skeleton queen’
It’s a tale as old as time – two lovers unjustly torn apart. But while the story of King Pedro I and his queen Inês De Castro has shades of Romeo and Juliet in its set up, it ends up somewhere altogether more macabre – imagine if Shakespeare’s tale swerved into horror movie territory in the final act.
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