Carmen, Royal Opera review - clever concept, patchy singing, sexy dancing

★★★ CARMEN, ROYAL OPERA Clever concept, patchy singing, sexy dancing

No central chemistry, but Barrie Kosky serves up set pieces full of panache

Roll up, dépêchez-vous, for Carmen the - what? Circus? Vaudeville/music-hall/cabaret? Opéra-ballet, post-Rameau? Not, certainly, a show subject to the kind of updated realism which has been applied by just about every production other than the previous two at Covent Garden.

La forza del destino, Welsh National Opera review - rambling drama, fine music

★★★ LA FORZA DEL DESTINO, WELSH NATIONAL OPERA Verdi's Russo-Spanish hotchpotch given the full treatment with mixed success

Verdi's Russo-Spanish hotchpotch given the full treatment with mixed success

David Pountney’s tenure at WNO has been an almost unqualified success, despite some eccentricities of repertoire and a certain obstinacy in the matter of new commissions. His own productions have included at least three of unforgettable quality. He has vigorously promoted money-saving co-productions like this one with Theater Bonn.

BBCSO, Pons, Barbican review - love hurts in vivid Spanish double bill

★★★★ BBCSO, PONS, BARBICAN Love hurts in vivid Spanish double bill

Flamenco singer in Falla and dramatic mezzo as Granados's heroine cue vibrant passion

This was an evening of Iberian highways re-travelled, but with a difference. At the beginning of 2016, the centenary of Spanish master Enrique Granados's untimely death, two young pianists at the National Gallery shared the two piano suites that make up the original Goyescas; finally last night at the Barbican we got the opera partly modelled on their deepest movements.

Javier Marías: Between Eternities review - matters of life and death from the Spanish master

Stylish, and spooky, essays on films, books, places and people by a world-class novelist

One of these years, Javier Marías will probably win the Nobel Prize in Literature. If and when that honour happens, critics may well discuss the Spanish writer’s fiction, in all its “intensity, complexity and power to convince”, in much the same terms as he applies to one of his favourite works of art.

I Know Who You Are, series 2 finale, BBC Four review - Spanish drama literally took no prisoners

★★★ I KNOW WHO YOU ARE, BBC FOUR Finale of Spanish drama literally took no prisoners

All who got to the end of the draining telenovela deserve a medal. CONTAINS SPOILERS

So, if you’re reading this you probably trudged all the weary way to the very end of I Know Who You Are. Or you didn’t but still want to find out what the hell happened. After 20-plus hours of twisting, turning, overblown drama, long-service medals are in order for all who flopped over the line. We are probably all feeling as drained and battered as half the cast: black-and-blue Santi Mur, anaemic Ana, slapped-up Pol, smashed-to-smithereens Heredia.

I Know Who You Are, Series 2, BBC Four review - get on with it, por favor

★★★ I KNOW WHO YOU ARE, SERIES 2, BBC FOUR - Interrupted crime melodrama grinds on with mounting implausibilities

Interrupted crime melodrama grinds on with mounting implausibilities

Here we go again then. The “first series”, as the BBC are calling it after the fact, of I Know Who You Are slammed the brakes on and juddered to a bewildering halt back in the middle of August. Almost everyone who’d sat through the plot dodgems of those 10 episodes will have had the same reaction: eh?

DVD/Blu-ray: Vampir Cuadecuc

★★★★ DVD/BLU-RAY: VAMPIR CUADECUC Experimental filmmaking with a bite

Experimental filmmaking with a bite: Christopher Lee in a 'Dracula' like none you've seen before

Pere Portabella’s remarkable Vampir Cuadecuc is almost impossible to classify. It may have been filmed on the set of Jesús Franco's 1970 Hammer horror film El Conde Dracula – with the obviously enthusiastic participation of a cast led by Christopher Lee – but it certainly isn’t a "making-of" film.

theartsdesk Q&A: Musician Albert Hammond

THE ARTS DESK Q&A ALBERT HAMMOND The songwriting supremo talks Justin Bieber, rapping, and his new musical 'The Matterhorn'

The songwriting supremo talks Justin Bieber, rapping, and his new musical 'The Matterhorn'

Albert Hammond might not be a household name but he's still, undeniably, one of the world's greatest living songwriters. His songs have sold 360 million copies, ranging from Starship's soft-rock classic "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" to Julio Iglesias' "To All the Girls I've Loved Before".

I Know Who You Are, series finale, BBC Four review - gripping, but no one to root for

I KNOW WHO YOU ARE, BBC FOUR Gripping cliff-edge finale, but no one to root for

The mystery of Juan Elías and Ana Saura is resolved, but there's plenty more to sort out. Contains spoilers

The first thing to say is that this wasn’t the actual end. BBC Four scheduled I Know Who You Are to run two episodes a night over five Saturdays. The innocent punter might have assumed that after 10 x 70 minutes of the Spanish import, we’d arrive at some sort of terminus. With only a few minutes still to run, who wasn’t thinking, crikey, still quite a tick list of bows to tie up?