Standing at the Sky's Edge, National Theatre review - razor-sharp musical with second-act woes

 STANDING AT THE SKY'S EDGE, NATIONAL THEATRE Chris Bush and Richard Hawley write a love letter to a friendly and flawed hometown 

Chris Bush and Richard Hawley write a love letter to a friendly and flawed hometown

Buildings can hold memories, the three dimensions of space supplemented by the fourth of time. Ten years ago, I started every working week with a meeting in a room that, for decades, had been used to conduct autopsies – I felt a little chill occasionally, as we dissected figures rather than bodies, ghosts lingering, as they do. 

Music Reissues Weekly: The Senders - All Killer No Filler

THE SENDERS - ALL KILLER NO FILLER A gap in the story of punk-era New York is plugged

A gap in the story of punk-era New York is plugged

The New York Dolls, The Ramones, Suicide, Television, Blondie, The Dictators, The Heartbreakers, The Shirts, Richard Hell and the Voidoids. From 1974 onwards, New York buzzed with bands. There were also Tuff Darts, The Fast, Pure Hell, Von Lmo and others who didn’t quite grab the brass ring. Out of towners like The Dead Boys, Pere Ubu, Devo and The Real Kids jostled for attention too.

Music Reissues Weekly: Bob Stanley / Pete Wiggs Present Winter of Discontent

BOB STANLEY / PETE WIGGS PRESENT WINTER OF DISCONTENT Saint Etienne-compiled series of do-it-yourself aural postcards from post-punk’s liminal zones

Saint Etienne-compiled series of do-it-yourself aural postcards from post-punk’s liminal zones

At some point in 1979 a duo called The Door and the Window are playing a London Musician’s Collective show in a large brick building along the road from Cecil Sharp House in Camden. One of them has a synthesiser, probably a WASP. The other has tape recorders and a guitar. The inscrutable noise made features clanks, grinding and drones.

Music Reissues Weekly: Rustic Hinge and the Provincial Swimmers

Seventies Britain’s freakiest freak-rockers finally get their day in the sun

A first encounter with Rustic Hinge and the Provincial Swimmers is unforgettable. Their summer 1970 recordings are so far out they at first seem unlistenable. Persistence pays though and the ear tunes in. It becomes clear this band swallowed the Captain Beefheart playbook and regurgitated it after applying a severe dose of the cut-up technique.

Enys Men review - mystifying Seventies Cornish folk horror

★★★ ENYS MEN Mystifying Seventies Cornish folk horror 

Mark Jenkin's follow-up to Bait is rooted in pagan history but fails to engage

Unlike the black and white Bait, Mark Jenkin’s highly acclaimed previous film, Enys Men (stone island in Cornish) is full of colour. Strange, saturated colour that doesn’t look quite real: a deep blue sea, a bright red raincoat, yellow gorse against brown bracken. And the flowers around which this abstract plot revolves don’t look real either. Such elongated stems and waxy white petals look like they come from outer space, not a windy Cornish coastline.

Album: Iggy Pop - Every Loser

★★★★ IGGY POP - EVERY LOSER A short, catchy album of California-touched, punk-tinted rock

The Ig returns with a short, catchy album of California-touched, punk-tinted rock

Iggy Pop is one of rock’s great survivors but his fans are divided into two categories; those who claim he hasn’t done anything worthwhile since the late-Seventies and those, like this writer, who find much to enjoy, right up to the present.

Stonehouse, ITV review - history repeats itself as farce

★★ STONEHOUSE, ITV History repeats itself as farce

Dramatisation of the John Stonehouse story feels strangely unnecessary

A disclaimer in the opening credits confessed that some scenes in this three-part history of disgraced Labour MP John Stonehouse had been “imagined for dramatic purposes”, but there was no need. The man’s life story fell comfortably into the “you couldn’t make it up” zone, and there wasn’t really much that screenwriter John Preston needed to add.

Album: CVC - Get Real

★★★ CVC - GET REAL Rising Welsh live phenomenon are catchy but cutesy on record

Rising Welsh live phenomenon are catchy but cutesy on record

CVC stands for Church Village Collective, a six-piece who hail from the countryside near Cardiff. They were the best live act I saw last year (of a long list which includes Melt Yourself Down, Paul McCartney, The Prodigy and Wet Leg). It was a joyously raucous and contagious gig, front-loaded with Seventies rock vibes and a sense of fun, so I’m intrigued to hear if their debut album can live up to it.

Music Reissues Weekly: Guerrilla Girlsǃ - She-Punks & Beyond 1975-2016

Compilation self-billed as ‘a five-decade alternative to the macho hegemony of rock’

In December 1977, the music weekly Sounds included an article about the County Durham punk band Penetration. By Jon Savage, it was headlined The Future Is Female. The same four words would be used by the band for their promotional badges.

Music Reissues Weekly: The Best of 2022

MUSIC REISSUES WEEKLY: THE BEST OF 2022 It was about more than The Beatles

It was about more than The Beatles

The Beatles loomed over everything else. It wasn’t inevitable, but the arrival of the revealing Revolver box set and Peter Jackson’s compelling Get Back film confirmed that there is more to say about what’s known, and also that there are new things to say about popular music’s most inspirational phenomenon of the 20th century.