At one point in The Commitments, a review is quoted which describes the band as ‘a good time’, and this eloquently sums up tonight’s experience at Norwich Theatre Royal. The musical, based on the book by Roddy Doyle, and following the fortunes of Jimmy (played solidly by Andrew Linnie) as he forms a Dublin soul…
What does it feel like to be beautiful? The question strikes me hard now and again, Before life takes control once more and I Forget your face, and that question recedes. We’re always moving on yet hanging back, With feet on new ground, minds on where we’ve been. And whenever I think of where we’ve…
Tonight’s performance of The Sound of Music highlighted the unique qualities of the stage show as opposed to the classic 1965 film musical, and did this, on the whole, to wonderful effect. The most obvious differences arise from the experience itself: feeling the sound of the organ kicking the other tones into relief during the…
Norwich is one of the finest cities for art in the UK, with plenty to explore, regardless of your creative tastes. Your first year is also the ideal time to discover its treasures. Here are a few highlights. Let’s start with the most obvious: architecture. The UEA campus, aside from its beautiful broad and surrounding…
Our first castaway is Tom Rutledge, lecturer in English Literature, who has kindly agreed to talk about his musical preferences to Concrete Music, despite his anxiety that they might not ‘strike a chord’ with readers. His passions include rugby, hockey, and – luckily, given the nature of this interview – music. He plays the trumpet…
My encounters with Melvyn Bragg before this evening had consisted of his documentary on the origins of the English language, a couple of interviews with writers on The South Bank Show, and his In Our Time radio series. In other words, it was entirely YouTube-based. Listening to a handful of the In Our Time podcasts…
Samuel Barber’s Agnus Dei will always hit you from the outset, and tonight’s rendition, by UEA’s Choir, directed by Tom Primrose, did not fail to disappoint. Despite what sounded like slightly too abrupt closures to the opening passages, it soon got into full swell, and despite the fact that the piece was composed in 1936,…
The concept of cultural celebration is central to discussions of art, of whatever kind, but cultural appreciation will always attract the odd charge that it is instead cultural appropriation. There will always be someone who claims that enjoyment of the products of another culture is in fact a form of theft or ridicule or offence….
Hair flowing all over the scene in whiplash curves, flowers whose colour is so precise that you feel as if you can almost smell their fragrances, robes whose folds are almost too perfectly rendered, and women whose beauty is unreal yet exquisite. This is the art of Alphonse Mucha. Most people will recognise the 1897…
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