Album: Fred Hersch - Silent, Listening

★★★ FRED HERSCH - SILENT, LISTENING A 'nocturnal' album - or is it just plain dark?

A 'nocturnal' album - or is it just plain dark?

The previous solo piano solo album from Fred Hersch, one of the world’s great jazz pianists, was called Songs from Home, released on the New York indie jazz label Palmetto Records towards the end of 2020. Silent, Listening, released this month on ECM could not be more different in it moods and in its aims.

The Songs of Joni Mitchell, Roundhouse review - fans (old and new) toast to an icon of our age

★★★★ THE SONGS OF JONI MITCHELL, ROUNDHOUSE Fans old and new toast an icon of our age

A stellar line up of artists reimagine some of Mitchell’s most magnificent works

For most people’s 40th birthday celebrations, they might get a few friends together, rustle up a cake, and toast to another turn around the sun. But when musician Lail Arad realised the stars had aligned with her beloved Joni Mitchell's own 80th birthday, she knew she had to mark the milestone moment with something special.

Machinal, The Old Vic review - note-perfect pity and terror

★★★★★ MACHINAL, THE OLD VIC Note-perfect pity and terror 

Sophie Treadwell's 1928 hard hitter gets full musical and choreographic treatment

Virtuosity and a wildly beating heart are compatible in Richard Jones’s finely calibrated production of Renaissance woman Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal. It hits hard as a 1920s mechanical symphony with a lyrical slow movement and words/cliches used like musical refrains. There’s an army of generals at work in the team of 16 actors, led by fearless Rosie Sheehy, and in the genius lighting, movement, sound, design. You rarely see such meticulous, detailed work in the theatre.

Civil War review - God help America

★★★ CIVIL WAR A horrifying State of the Union address from Alex Garland

A horrifying State of the Union address from Alex Garland

Alex Garland’s fourth movie as writer/director is a chilling glimpse of an American dystopia, fortuitously timed for the run-up to the forthcoming US elections. However, it steers fastidiously clear of drawing any obvious Trump vs Biden parallels, though it’s difficult to imagine that it hasn’t imbibed any inspiration from the Maga mob’s insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021.

Album: Maggie Rogers - Don't Forget Me

★★★★ MAGGIE ROGERS - DON'T FORGET ME Full of warmth and personable introspection

Rogers continues her knack for capturing natural moments, embracing a more live sound

For the past almost two years, Maggie Rogers has taken an unexpectedly special place in my heart and musical tastes. Upon reviewing her previous album, Surrender, because of the difference in style and sound to my usual tastes I was caught completely off guard.

Combined with just as unforeseen changes in my personal life, Surrender was an unfounded delight that chimed completely at that point in time. Now it’s not just an album, but a time capsule of those summer months of 2022.

Long Day's Journey Into Night, Wyndham's Theatre review - O'Neill masterwork is once again driven by its Mary

★★★★ LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, WYNDHAM'S THEATRE Patricia Clarkson excels

Patricia Clarkson powers the latest iteration of this great, grievous American drama

Memory is a confounding thing. By way of proof, just ask the Mary Tyrone who is being given unforgettable life by Patricia Clarkson in London's latest version of Long Day's Journey into Night, which has arrived on the West End (and at the same theatre) a mere six years after the previous version of Eugene O'Neill's posthumously premiered masterwork; that one headlined a top-rank Lesley Manville in the same part.

Album: Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter

So much more than an Country album

The second act of a trilogy, launched with “Renaissance” (2022), Beyoncé’s latest release has been loudly proclaimed as her “Country” album. In a tradition of surprising and controversial self-reinventions that includes among others Bob Dylan’s gospel albums and Ray Charles’s “Modern Sounds in Country and Western” (1962), the superstar has once again broken the rules of genre, and done her own all-too-remarkable thing – with the usual brilliance and panache.

Mothers' Instinct review - 'Mad Women'

★★★ MOTHERS' INSTINCT Sixties suburban duel veers between daftness and spooky power

Sixties suburban duel veers between daftness and spooky power

This is a Nineties psycho thriller in Mad Men clothes, undermining its Sixties suburban gloss and Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain’s desperate housewives with genre clichés, yet sustained by the courage of debuting director Benoît Delhomme’s un-Hollywood conviction.