GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
Moon master
This is music that brings the party, the catharsis and the love all at once, says GEORGE FOGARTY
MUSIC FOR OUR TIMES: Disraeli leads the singing at Edinburgh's Voodoo Rooms
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PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
Dizraeli’s Joy Machine
Jericho Tavern, Oxford
KNOWN for his masterly blend of rap with English folk — most notably on the album Engurland: City Shanties — Dizraeli opens today’s set with an acapella singalong of that album’s anthemic Take Me Dancing, a fitting way to start a set that is all about connection.
After that, though, we’re off somewhere entirely new. A Love for the Rain, opening track of new LP Joy Machine (released May 31) is a shimmering triptych of spoken word, free jazz and roof-raising, butt-shaking funk. The drums kick in like a shamanic calling up of the spirits, echoed by Dizraeli’s literal calling up of “freaks to the front.” We oblige willingly.
Dizraeli has been open about his struggles with depression. And tonight his call to “soak up the rain when it comes” reminds me of Emily Tammam’s wise words on how grief, through its contrast with beauty and joy, heightens them both.
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