Sonoro, Ferris, St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate review - intriguingly programmed launch concert

★★★★ SONORO, FERRIS, ST BOTOLPH-WITHOUT-BISHOPSGATE New choir on the block delivers the promised passion and polyphony

New choir on the block delivers the promised passion and polyphony

Launched into an already crowded choral scene in 2016, the professional choir Sonoro has marked its second birthday with the release of a debut CD. Last night was the launch concert, featuring items selected from the disc. On the evidence of both CD and concert Sonoro is a very welcome new addition to the roster of excellent London choirs, with its own distinct sound and ethos.

Mosquitoes, National Theatre review - Olivias Colman and Williams dazzle amid dramatic excess

★★★ MOSQUITOES, NATIONAL THEATRE Olivias Colman and Williams dazzle amid dramatic excess

Lucy Kirkwood play fusing science and familial disarray is as exhausting as it is enlightening

There's enough plot for a dozen plays buzzing its way through Mosquitoes, Lucy Kirkwood's play that uses the backdrop of the Large Hadron Collidor (LHC) to chronicle the multiple collisions within a family.

Travesties, Menier Chocolate Factory

TRAVESTIES, MENIER CHOCOLATE FACTORY Tom Hollander stars in fiendishly clever Stoppard classic

Tom Hollander stars in fiendishly clever Stoppard classic

Is this the most dazzling play of a dazzling playwright? First staged in 1974, Travesties is the one which manages to squeeze avant-garde novelist James Joyce, Dada godfather Tristan Tzara and communist revolutionary Lenin into a story which resembles a riotous party, where Wildean pastiche, political history, debate about art, unreliable memory and song-and-dance routines stay up half the night, and howl gloriously at the moon.

CD: Yello - Toy

CD: YELLO - TOY Swiss electro-pop perennials mellowing nicely with age

Swiss electro-pop perennials mellowing nicely with age

You couldn’t make Yello up. They’re a couple of wry Swiss synth-pop ironists fronted by a suave, moustachioed, septuagenarian multi-millionaire poker-player, golfer and industrialist. Everyone and their uncle makes electronic music now, but when Yello began at the end of the Seventies, they were members of an elite club – Kraftwerk, Human League, Gary Numan, OMD, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and the rest of that relatively small crew of innovators.

theartsdesk at the Verbier Festival 2016

THEARTSDESK AT THE VERBIER FESTIVAL 2016 One-off hits and misses: what a festival's all about

One-off hits and misses: what a festival's all about

Idyllic setting, star-rated musicians, the sense of an occasion. Verbier so wholly fulfils the clichés of an international music festival that to the cynical it can seem complacent or arrogant in doing so. To the uninitiated – and this was my first visit to the Monaco of the Mountains – there is more than a sprinkling of magic about the sheer implausibility of the place.

Digital demands: time for artists to speak up?

Intellectual property expert Francis Gurry seeks solutions for creatives in the internet age

Galloping technological change, collapsing incomes and a climate of violence facilitated by anonymity are just a few of the challenges facing creative artists in today's digitally driven world. What can be done to put all this right? The man to ask is Francis Gurry, director general of the World Intellectual Property Organisation.

DVD: Story of My Death

Elliptical Catalan film illuminates hypnotic encounter of sensuality and darkness

Since his debut Honour of the Knights back in 2006 Catalan director Albert Serra has carved out a niche for himself, creating cinema that is frequently oblique and visually engrossing. Story of My Death (Història de la meva mort), which won the director the Golden Leopard at the Locarno festival two years ago, looks like his most approachable film to date – it includes considerably more language than his previous works, as well as a touch more narrative – but still reveals itself slowly.