3.5 stars The Mikado is perhaps the most well-known of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Victorian-era comic operas, famously set in Japan. Why Japan, one might wonder? Back in 1885, it was all about keeping political satire hidden in plain sight. By setting their scenes in fantastical or wildly foreign
For twelve years BBC Introducing has been helping upcoming artists break into the industry. Every year the BBC holds an event (BBC Introducing LIVE), a relative candy shop for musicians to get insider information from the insiders themselves. Alumni of the service include Little Simz, Ed Sheeran, and George Ezra,
A show bound to make you pine for a relationship or send you running scared
5 stars Imagine your favourite movie – any movie. Now, imagine it again without the music and its iconic soundtrack: it would simply not be the same. Music is a huge part of creating a film’s atmosphere, creating the right ambience and enhancing the emotional tug of the moment. And
Earl Sweatshirt is back, less than a year after his last release, with an EP as free form and abstract as his last album. Music writer Louie Ghalib weighs in.
Double, double, toil and trouble
4 stars We turn the corner, the gray lake at Canada Water still at the back of our minds. It’s pouring it down, and the group consensus is that we won’t miss the outside world for the next 10 hours. We’re going into the void. That is
The stellar cast unfortunately fails to sell the classic script
5 stars In their third album, Days of Abandon, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart almost ditched their last album’s heart bursting intensity. Frontman Kip Berman, once a starry-eyed “heart on his sleeve” daydreamer serenading anyone in earshot, now sounds like a young romantic who has seen his
4 stars I recently discovered a a new personalized playlist Spotify creates called “On Repeat”. As the name suggests, this contains the 30 songs you’ve been playing most over the last 30 days. While this initially served as a slightly unnerving reminder of the reams of data I willingly
I saw several bands live over the summer. Florence + The Machine and The National’s anthemic chamber pop at BST in front of thousands in Hyde park, Black Midi drawing a respectable crowd at EartH despite having released virtually no music (I also wrote a review for their show I’
It isn’t easy to picture a more magical setting than sitting in the historical auditorium of the Royal Opera House as you listen to the overture, eagerly waiting for the curtain to rise. Back for its seventh revival at Covent Garden, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) manages