Moonage Daydream
(Written and directed by Brett Morgen) (2022) The great David Bowie died in 2016. He’d have liked this ‘documentary,’ we suspect, because like him, it is sui generis, an assault on the eyes, ears, and (pace his philosophical meanderings) the mind, that satisfies for almost all of its 2 hours and 15 minutes. With a mountain of footage and full estate authorisation, Morgen has lovingly assembled a vibrant, moving monument to the peripatetic searcher and androgynous transformer who was Starman, Ziggy Stardust, Cracked Actor, DJ, the Man Who Sold the World, the Space Oddity, a Young American, a Hero, and…
Continue Reading →The Great Degeneration
(How Institutions Decay and Economies Die) (Niall Ferguson, 2014) This compendium of Reith Lectures by historian Niall Ferguson given in 2012 is no less topical a decade later. In fact it is a fortiori, given that the subsequent years have borne out many of the predictions made. For example, the author quotes ‘cliometrician’ Peter Turchin predicting “the next instability peak [of violence] should occur in the United States around 2020.” Orwell’s pigs have taken over Manor Farm: “What Charles Murray has called the ‘cognitive elite’, educated at exclusive private universities, intermarried and congregated in a few ‘super zip codes’, looks…
Continue Reading →Straight Line Crazy
Written by David Hare / Directed by Nicholas Hytner – Bridge Theatre, London, 17 September, 2022 Breaking news: Fat Book inspires Thin Play. Robert Caro’s monumental work about Robert Moses, reviewed by us in March, gave us a character of Shakespearian complexity. Alas, David Hare is not Shakespeare. Not even close. In his play he cherry-picks two episodes in the powerful public servant’s hectic agenda: an expressway cutting a line through estates of the leisured and treasured on Long Island (Moses is depicted having a slanging match with Henry Vanderbilt). The First Act, declamatory, expository, and facile, shows Ralph Fiennes,…
Continue Reading →“This never happened to the other fellow”
The Music of James Bond with George Lazenby By Guest Reviewer David Ross My parents used to receive coarse brown envelopes in the mail bearing the enigmatic label ‘OHMS’, but invariably containing something disappointing (most often a bill). How much more exciting to be On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, as George Lazenby was in 1969. Conductor, Nicholas Buc, took a scaled-back ASO through a selection of Bond themes in chronological order from the instantly recognisable theme written by Monty Norman for the 1962 release of Dr. No to the latest outing of 007, No Time to Die. Breaking up the…
Continue Reading →Something for Everyone
A Day on the Green, Spring, 2022 Omnivorous music fans thronged the tent at the Fumier Winery to enjoy the ne plus ultra in nuovo-Punk, Prog and Grunge. Wound Pump This hard-working Birmingham band, all of whom were expelled from art school, opened at the reasonably unpopular time of 4 am. Their set included “Get Two Free,” “Monkeypox Mary,” “Signing On,” “UB40 IS KRAP,” “Chilean Torture Chamber,” and a great cover of Wayne/Jayne County’s immortal “If You Don’t Want To F**k Me, F**k Off.” TVC particularly liked Pump’s snipe at the likes of Leonard Cohen and Patti Smith: “this old…
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