| | | Visit, or Memories and Confessions review – Manoel de Oliveira's remarkable testament | | by Peter Bradshaw Aug 30, 2021 | | The Portuguese director’s stately cine-memoir about his singular life was shot nearly four decades ago but withheld at his request until his death, aged 106 The remarkable Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, who died in 2015 at the age of 106 and made movies right until the very end, often seems to me a film-maker from a statelier, almost pre-cinematic era: an epistolary director or manuscript-culture director. Here is what could be called his testamentary film, a personal cine-memoir or cine-meditation. It was shot in 1982, but withheld from release at the director’s request until after his death, which would be much further off than anyone imagined. It has only now found a release in the UK. Continue reading... | | | | | 'You can't fake this stuff': how we made Made in Chelsea | | by Interviews by Kate Samuelson Aug 30, 2021 | | ‘We were hyped-up versions of ourselves but I became a parody – that’s why I cut all my hair off in series five’ We were casting for another show, Young, Dumb and Living Off Mum, and kept coming across people in their late teens and early 20s who weren’t right for that but were charismatic, funny and led dramatic lives. They were the type of people who used to be dismissed as “Sloanes”, but they were much more interesting than that. The community was very tight-knit: they all knew and lived near each other. Continue reading... | | | | | Override review – TV robot goes rogue in Stepford Wives meets Truman Show sci-fi | | by Leslie Felperin Aug 30, 2021 | | Jess Impiazzi stars as a TV show android who has a different husband each day but gets hacked in this scattershot drama This is an inane hodgepodge of sci-fi, political thriller and perhaps some kind of ill-considered satire – of reality TV, venal politicians? It’s hard to divine the target when the attack is so scattershot. It is supposed to take place in the US in 2040 where everyone is obsessed with watching a daily TV show about a buxom android housewife with an English accent named Ria (Jess Impiazzi); she spends every day nearly the same way with her husband Jack, from waking up and breakfasting to winding down with an evening soap opera and then sex if Jack so wishes. In other words, it’s The Truman Show meets The Stepford Wives, except there’s just the one wife – and the twist is that “Jack” is played by a different person in each episode. The first we meet is Luke Goss, who seems to be merely passing though before being replaced the next night while a recharged Ria gets rebooted with Jack number 2 (Amar Adatia), a coarser, crueller mate for a day, who is in turn replaced by many more Jacks – some of them women. Continue reading... | | | | | Kanye West: Donda review – misfiring lyricism from a diminished figure | | by Thomas Hobbs Aug 30, 2021 | | There is some sustained brilliance here, but unfortunately it comes from the guest stars – and at 108 minutes, this long-awaited album is in need of an edit Chaotic preview events for Kanye West’s 10th studio album Donda have dominated social media feeds in recent weeks, each one promising a release date that never materialised. The coverage of the events has focused on Kim Kardashian dressed as a Balenciaga-clad sleep paralysis demon, $50 chicken tenders, potential Drake disses, levitation and cameos from alleged rapist Marilyn Manson and the homophobic DaBaby. Fans called West a genius capable of creating exciting theatre that evolves in real time; others saw him as an empty provocateur. Much like kindred spirit Donald Trump, West seems to instinctively know how to weaponise controversy to drive interest in a new project. With the eventual release of Donda (named after West’s English professor mother, who died in 2007), there is a nagging sense the spectacle has overshadowed the actual music, with this bloated 108-minute album rarely sure of what it is trying to say. The intro, Donda Chant, a sequence of eerie recitations of his mother’s name seemingly designed to send you into a sunken place, is arresting, giving you the impression you’re about to undergo an immersive religious experience. But too often the songs that follow are built on half-baked ideas from a West more concerned with self-pity and martyrdom than confronting his contradictions. Continue reading... | | | | | Bedknobs and Broomsticks review – Disney fantasy is a bumpy flight | | by Chris Wiegand Aug 30, 2021 | | Marlowe theatre, Canterbury
This stage update adds new songs to the much-loved movie caper but despite deft illusions it lacks sparkle and eccentricity Well, hocus pocus and substitutiary locomotion! Half a century after the Disney caper cast its spell on screen, Bedknobs and Broomsticks has been transformed into a stage musical. There are extra songs, deft illusions by Jamie Harrison – one of the wizards behind Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – and fuller backstories for the young wartime evacuees and their reluctant host, apprentice witch Eglantine Price, in the village of Pepperinge Eye. The three children are orphans in this version, directed by Harrison and Candice Edmunds, with a book by Brian Hill and additional music and lyrics by Neil Bartram. After a glimpse of their cosy home in London, Harrison’s set cracks apart, leaving two hulking bombed-out facades framing the action. It’s a constant reminder of the danger which threatens to engulf them once more with the imminent arrival of the Nazis. Unlike in the film, that enemy is never directly named and the darkness looming behind this show’s flights of fancy grows more open to interpretation, not least amid a pandemic. Continue reading... | | | | | Laura Mvula review – joyous, keytar-toting pop masterclass | | by Katie Hawthorne Aug 30, 2021 | | Edinburgh Park
Closing the Edinburgh international festival after years out of the spotlight, Mvula delivers a triumphant evening of lush 80s soundscapes Static pours from the speakers on the final night of the Edinburgh international festival. If not for the rolling waves of warmth, rustling like autumn leaves, it could be a soundcheck gone awry. Laura Mvula’s third album Pink Noise is named after precisely this kind of comforting static and as it builds to a crescendo, a waterfall of sound, Mvula steps out into a brief, awed silence. This moment has been years in the making. If you Google the Birmingham singer, “What happened to Laura Mvula?” is a suggested search. Her 2013 debut Sing to the Moon was a Mobo-winning, Mercury-nominated triumph, combining her church choir background with a crisp, striking sound. It had legends including Prince, Nile Rodgers and David Byrne clamouring to work with her. In 2017 she won the prestigious Ivor Novello album award for her rich second record The Dreaming Room. But despite the acclaim, Mvula was dropped from her Sony record deal – via a forwarded email, no less. She’s spoken frankly about the crisis of confidence that followed, in herself as an artist as well as in the thought of a future in a plainly exploitative pop industry. Continue reading... | | | | | Lee 'Scratch' Perry: 10 of his greatest recordings | | by Erin MacLeod Aug 30, 2021 | | From Bob Marley to the Congos, Junior Murvin and his own outstanding work on the mic, we celebrate the work of a man who seemed to dissolve time When I moved to Kingston, Jamaica, in 2003 for a job, it was in the month that Lee “Scratch” Perry won the best reggae album Grammy for Jamaican ET, a record that, in true Scratch style, contained everything including the kitchen sink. I remember tuning in to a call-in radio programme during which Jamaicans were wondering who this guy was. It was not entirely surprising – Perry, though arguably the most influential Jamaican artist (and therefore arguably one of the most influential artists ever), is most renowned for his work as producer rather than frontman. In truth, Perry – who has died aged 85 – was astoundingly skilled and prolific in both roles, and so it would be laughable to attempt any comprehensive “best of” or representative listing of Perry’s work (though you could turn to this good primer by David Katz, author of the exhaustive and essential 2000 biography People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee “Scratch” Perry). The music he created seems to expand – perhaps explode – all notions of what music can be, so it is more prudent to pick some standouts that demonstrate his breadth and depth than a definitive greatest hits. Continue reading... | | | | | Savitri/At the Boar's Head review – Holst rarities double-bill offers mixed blessings | | by Hugh Morris Aug 30, 2021 | | Leeds opera festival, Morley town hall
Although staged with verve and given polished and committed performances, the case was not made for these two lesser known chamber operas The enterprising Northern Opera Group continues to hone in on the opera world’s curiosities. At this year’s Leeds opera festival the spotlight was on Gustav Holst’s rarely performed operas, works that range from the slender and focused through to the downright verbose.
Holst’s own translation of an episode from the Mahabharata provides the libretto to his 1909 chamber opera Savitri and, though littered with anachronisms (smatterings of “wendeth”s and “methinks”-es) the source is treated with the reverence it deserves. It’s an opera with asceticism at its heart, as Savitri bargains with Death to return her vanquished husband Satyavan (Kamil Bien), often with little to no instrumental accompaniment. That sparsity made George Johnson-Leigh’s luridly hued design an odd choice – a plainer set would have carried the drama better. Kamil Bien’s Satyavan was fresh and chirpy, making a good foil for Julian Close’s commanding Death, delivered with echoes of the Wagnerian spirit the opera frequently falls back on. Lewis Gaston encouraged a committed display from Skipton Camerata, but even the small forces required for Savitri overwhelmed the singers during the meatier musical passages, a persistent issue throughout the evening. Those problems of balance didn’t deter soprano Meeta Raval though, whose Savitri was polished and emotive. Continue reading... | | | | | Second Spring review – bracing optimism in the face of dementia diagnosis | | by Phil Hoad Aug 30, 2021 | | Andy Kelleher’s accomplished drama debut is packed with deft performances as its characters make the best of a grim situation Andy Kelleher has directed documentaries about the film-makers Carol Reed, Alan Clarke and Chris Petit, but now makes an accomplished fiction debut with a film hovering in the edgelands of London, the south-east and on the protracted plains of middle age, receding out towards uncertainty. It concerns a medical diagnosis that should be devastating, but – aided by a deftly off-key performance from lead actor Cathy Naden – actually functions as an awakening. Naden plays fortysomething history lecturer Kathy, whose impulsive behaviour has begun to unsettle her friends. Stuck in a zombie marriage, she takes up with gangly, long-haired landscape gardener Nick (Jerry Killick) after throwing him a line next to his vintage BMW: “You can take me for a spin some time.” Alarmingly forthright has become her social modus operandi. She wakes up one morning on a disused railway platform after a night of alfresco boozing with a stranger. When her friends press her to get a brain scan, the news is not reassuring: she has fronto-temporal dementia, which can be lived with, but not cured. “It’s not Alzheimer’s,” husband Tim (Matthew Jure) feebly comforts her. Continue reading... | | | | | | | Reading and Leeds festival review – Stormzy and Liam Gallagher unite the masses | | by Dave Simpson Aug 30, 2021 | | Bramham Park, Leeds
With thoughts of Covid banished in a blitz of teenage hugging, there are some terrific moments amid this disappointingly male-heavy lineup “Who fancies a party? We’re all out of the house!” yells Wolf Alice bassist Theo Ellis as this festival – traditionally a post-GCSE blowout, with a simultaneous leg in Reading – returns after its 2020 cancellation. Lateral flow tests and daily health checks are as much part of this year’s festival experience as bucket hats and glitter, but it’s otherwise rather eerily as if the pandemic never happened, with 75,000 attendees – many of them teenagers joyously hugging – and no masks or social distancing. The addition of a second main stage makes for a more continuous flow of music, although Wolf Alice’s triumphant, ethereally powerful teatime slot deserves a later billing. With music in semi-limbo for 18 months and some high-profile US withdrawals, the scattergun bill combines zeitgeisty YouTubers and drill rappers in the tents with tried and trusted festival staples such as Catfish and the Bottlemen or Two Door Cinema Club on the outdoor stages. Friday headliners Biffy Clyro (late replacements for Queens of the Stone Age) first played in 2001, but the audience haven’t lost their enthusiasm for the topless, bearded, tattooed Scottish rockers and Many of Horror, about togetherness after a struggle, becomes a mass singalong. Continue reading... | | | | | |
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