CD: Hot Chip - A Bath Full of Ecstasy

★★★★★ HOT CHIP - A BATH FULL OF ECSTASY Growing up in style

Growing up in style with the indietronic fivesome

Nineteen years, seven albums and untold side projects into their career, Hot Chip have for the first time enlisted outside producers: Rodaidh McDonald and French disco/house don Philippe Zdar. And it's worked. Over the course of the previous albums, the band had steadily evolved from ramshackle and rather self-consciously quirky writers and players to a far slicker operation.

Frank Skinner, Leicester Square Theatre - mixing some acid with the charm

★★★ FRANK SKINNER, LEICESTER SQUARE THEATRE Mixing some acid with the charm

Preamble to autumn tour works a treat

Frank Skinner walks onstage without introduction and a man in the audience gives him a friendly heckle by way of greeting. Skinner is straight on it, engaging him in a brief conversation; his responses are amiable enough but have a few barbs too.

Charlie Cunningham, Queen Elizabeth Hall review - Spanish guitar and strong songs

★★★★ CHARLIE CUNNINGHAM, QEH Spanish guitar and strong songs

An endearing, intimate set of warm melodies and powerful, percussive guitar

In a post Ed Sheeran world, with a glut of acoustic singer-songwriters like Lewis Capaldi, Tom Walker or Odell, James Bay, Jack Savoretti  all of whom are big on poignantly penned balladry, phonic flair and harmonious melody – is there room for another young male artist to make waves in the indi-folk arena?

While the Sun Shines, Orange Tree Theatre review - frothy, yes, up to a point

Slice of Rattigan esoterica is useful to see even as it shows its age

Terence Rattigan completists, and count myself among them, will leap at the chance to see a rare production courtesy the Orange Tree Theatre of While the Sun Shines, a 1943 monster hit for this great English writer that has languished in semi-obscurity ever since.

The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices with Lisa Gerrard, Queen Elizabeth Hall review - voices from another world

The enduring power of the choir founded in 1950s communist Bulgaria

A hushed expectation filled the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Friday night in advance of the return on stage of the legendary Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares (now rebranded as The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices), who graced Kate Bush’s 1989 classic The Sensual World with their astonishing style of throat singing, combining drones, quarter tones and complex rhythms, harmonies combining in marvellous permutations, seemingly colliding into each other from diff

The Diary of One who Disappeared, ROH review – song cycle-as-opera is a mish-mash

Padding out Janáček’s work with extraneous material merely diffuses the music’s power

Singer Ian Bostridge once described The Diary of One who Disappeared as “a song cycle gone wrong”. But this reimagining of it as an opera, by the Belgian director Ivo van Hove at the Royal Opera’s Linbury Theatre, also goes wrong, throwing in various extras which detract from rather than enhance the piece’s impact. I am no stranger to being baffled in an opera house.

Her Majesty's Cavalry, ITV review - my kingdom for a horse

★★★ HER MAJESTY'S CAVALRY, ITV My kingdom for a horse

Behind the scenes with the monarch's elite mounted troopers

If you should happen to be loitering in London’s Knightsbridge at 4am, don’t panic if you find yourself surrounded by the massed horsemen of the Household Cavalry. When they need to rehearse for great occasions like the Queen’s birthday, they can only do it in the middle of the night when there’s no traffic on the roads.

Bon Iver, All Points East festival review – powerful, poignant and a little bit weird

★★★★ BON IVER, ALL POINTS EAST Powerful, poignant and a little bit weird

Justin Vernon and friends head up the final day of the mammoth London event

With thousands of people trooping in to see headliners including The Strokes, Bring Me the Horizon, Mumford and Sons and, tonight, Bon Iver, this corner of London’s beautiful Victoria Park has become a bit of a dustbowl – and the dust certainly gets kicked up as the 10-day festival concludes.