Classical CDs Weekly: Dutilleux, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Amy Dickson

CLASSICAL CDS WEEKLY Early works from a French 20th century giant, Russian piano concertos and Australian saxophone music

Early works from a French 20th century giant, Russian piano concertos and Australian saxophone music


Dutilleux: Le Loup, and other early works Vincent Le Texier (baritone), Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire/Pascal Rophé (BIS)

Forget Me Not, Bush Theatre

FORGET ME NOT, BUSH THEATRE Drama about the human costs of the White Australia policy is moving, if a bit unrelenting

Drama about the human costs of the White Australia policy is moving, if a bit unrelenting

Past wrongs cast long shadows. Following the passing of the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act, successive Australian governments favoured migrants from English-speaking countries in what was called the White Australia policy. Between 1945 and 1968, for example, more than 3,000 British children were sent to the antipodes and told they were orphans. They expected the sunshine of a new start; what they got was the darkness of abuse.

The Dressmaker

Kate Winslet revenge drama needs serious alterations

What begins as a would-be exercise in camp devolves into perfervid tosh and ultimately tedium in The Dressmaker, a belligerently over-the-top revenge drama that might just about have squeaked by as an opera - an art form better-suited to such deliberately over-the-top theatrics.

CD: The Necks - Vertigo

Veteran improvisers' 18th album both epically filmic and texturally detailed

It seems perverse and self-defeating to record Australian piano trio The Necks. Acquiring over 25 years a reputation as the ultimate long-form improvisers, their single-take performances unfold with intricate, mesmerising drama, each one differing according the environment, acoustic, and mood. A dedicated groupie who followed this month’s extensive European tour (15 venues, 19 gigs, 19 days) would hear a noticeably different piece every time.

Mad Max

MAD MAX The wastelands have far too much going on in this generic action-adventure

The wastelands have far too much going on in this generic action-adventure

From the sublime, to the mundane. Last week's insane Metal Gear Solid V gives way to this freeroaming action-adventure cash-in on the Mad Max: Fury Road film. But a threadbare plot and far too much back-and-forth in play does this game no favours. Particularly in comparison to the other big action game out this week.

Our Country's Good, National Theatre

OUR COUNTRY'S GOOD, NATIONAL THEATRE Moments of poignancy and humour don't quite add up to this play's full dramatic weight

Moments of poignancy and humour don't quite add up to this play's full dramatic weight

The political wheel has turned full-circle. When Our Country’s Good was premiered in 1988, it was a barely-veiled protest against Thatcher’s slash-and-burn approach to the arts in general and arts funding in particular. It couldn’t have returned at a more apt moment. Once again the arts are being forced to make a commercial case for their existence, to claw and squabble over scraps of government money, while the newspapers are filled with photos from Syria, of the apparent destruction of Palmyra.

Lady Anna: All At Sea, Park Theatre

LADY ANNA: ALL AT SEA, PARK THEATRE Bicentenary Trollope adaptation mixes fiction with sea voyage in agile show

Bicentenary Trollope adaptation mixes fiction with sea voyage in agile show

If you were expecting a fusty, formal adaptation of Anthony Trollope – and one of his least known novels, to boot – Lady Anna: All At Sea will come as a breath of fresh air. Colin Blumenau’s production of Craig Baxter’s play, based loosely around the Trollope novel of the same name and commissioned by the Trollope Society to mark the bicentenary of the writer’s birth, speeds through its two-hour-plus run, keeping a nimble crew of seven on its toes and the audience engaged in its ludic conspiracies.

52 Tuesdays

52 TUESDAYS Sensitive handling of complex subject in impressive Australian debut

Sensitive handling of complex subject in impressive Australian debut

An affectingly restrained Australian drama of adolescent development coloured by the repercussions of a parent undergoing gender transition, 52 Tuesdays may initially seem understated in its exploration of the balances (and imbalances) of family relationships under stress, but finally achieves something rather deeper than its innovative broken-up narrative style at first suggests.

CD: Owl & Mouse - Departures

CD: OWL & MOUSE - DEPARTURES Australian sibling band hit home with a set for the broken-hearted

Australian sibling band hit home with a set for the broken-hearted

Owl & Mouse is a name so cutesy that even the Scottish legions of twee who bloom, decade after decade, from the ashes of Eighties indie – the Pastels, Camera Obscura, Belle & Sebastian, etc – might flinch at it. And like that movement, with its endless coy, baby-sweet reassessment of the Velvet Underground, the music of Owl & Mouse initially seems to have a glaze of guilelessness about it, a pride in naivety. Keep listening, though, sucking down the sugar-coated but eventually lovelorn lyrical themes, and this debut defies such expectations.

Imagine... Frank Gehry: The Architect Says Why Can't I?, BBC One

IMAGINE... FRANK GEHRY: THE ARCHITECT SAYS WHY CAN'T I?, BBC ONE Portrait of the artist with a passion for questioning everything 

Portrait of the artist with a passion for questioning everything

The hook for Alan Yentob's portrait of the 86-year-old architect Frank Gehry was the initiation and progress of an enormous new building in a rough portside area of Sydney, the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building for the business school of the University of Technology. It opened after nearly two years of construction, on time and on budget, last autumn. To commission it, the dean of the school, Ron Green, simply rang Gehry up, and Gehry replied with just four words: "I’m up for it."