Reviews by Nick Daisley
Robin Hood: The People’s Pantomime
Nick Daisley
So good to have one last blast and reminder of the Christmas season, in the form of a traditional pantomime! When it’s done right, panto is an experience for the whole family and draws in the ...
3 years ago
Robin Hood: The People’s Pantomime
Jess Gillam, saxophone, with James Baillieu, piano
Nick Daisley
Jess Gillam is something of a phenomenon: at the age of 21 she has brought the saxophone to new prominence through concerts and media appearances; putting huge energy into support for other young ...
6 years ago
Jess Gillam, saxophone, with James Baillieu, piano
Alexei Volodin, Piano
Nick Daisley
Perhaps the name of Medtner scares audiences a little - certainly there was a slightly disappointing audience this evening for Alexei Volodin’s storming performance of early 20th-C Russian piano ...
6 years ago
Alexei Volodin, Piano
Oxford Festival of the Arts 2019
Nick Daisley
Elizabeth Kenny, SJE Arts at the church of S. John the Evangelist, Thu June 27th 2019 When I first lived in London, I attended a Wigmore Hall concert by Anthony Rooley. In the cheap seats at the ...
6 years ago
Oxford Festival of the Arts 2019
Robert Max
Nick Daisley
I suspect that you don’t survive an evening of playing this material, in its totality, unless you have a massive personal enthusiasm for the work, and there was plenty of that in evidence from ...
6 years ago
Robert Max
Robin Hood & The Witches Of Sherwood
Nick Daisley
What a treat this really was - the enthusiasm of the cast was palpable from the start on the first night, completely reflected by the response of the audience. Sure enough, this is an amateur ...
7 years ago
Robin Hood & The Witches Of Sherwood
Darkest Hour [PG]
Nick Daisley
Darkest Hour is a reference not so much to the nation’s fear - since as the film points out, most people in Britain were kept largely innocent of the real state of the war - but to the political ...
8 years ago
Darkest Hour [PG]
Alien: Covenant [15]
Nick Daisley
"There's so much here that doesn't make sense." So says one of the characters of the film about halfway in, and I found myself agreeing completely.
I don't think it is particularly giving away ...
8 years ago
Alien: Covenant [15]
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Nick Daisley
This was a fine way of spending an evening, and the first time for me at which it felt like Christmas might be on its way! Vladimir Ashkenazy has a fondness for the recording studio that's perhaps ...
9 years ago
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Mahan Esfahani - Harpsichord
Nick Daisley
Mahan Esfahani recently created a recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations for Deutsche Grammophon, which has garnered accolades as a valuable, inventive, and extremely accessible approach to the ...
9 years ago
Mahan Esfahani - Harpsichord
The Masque of Queens by Ben Jonson
Nick Daisley
What a special privilege and rare treat to witness a Jacobean Masque in Oxford!
'A celebration of honourable and true Fame, bred out of Virtue'.
Masques of this kind were very much intended for ...
9 years ago
The Masque of Queens by Ben Jonson
Swan Lake
Nick Daisley
In recent years when the Russian State Ballet of Siberia has come to the UK - and toured quite extensively - reviews have tended to be positive, but a little mixed. Concerns were expressed that their ...
10 years ago
Swan Lake
Maciek Pysz: A Journey
Nick Daisley
This was a tour de force of acoustic jazz music, and a truly refreshing evening concert. Maciek Pysz played acoustic guitars, with Yuri Goloubev on a beautifully resonant double bass and Asaf Sirkis ...
10 years ago
Maciek Pysz: A Journey
Adderbury Ensemble
Nick Daisley
It’s an uncommon thing for the likes of me to be quite so engaged with the performance of quartets and quintets: they can be an intellectual exercise - interesting but uninvolving - if the ...
10 years ago
Adderbury Ensemble
Will Gregory Moog Ensemble
Nick Daisley
Decades ago, I went to a concert by Tangerine Dream. Three gents came on stage, sat at their vast Moogs with backs to the audience, and played entrancing but ultimately soulless music for two hours. ...
10 years ago
Will Gregory Moog Ensemble
Natalie Clein Cello
Nick Daisley
Natalie Clein, since winning the BBC's Young Musican of the Year in 1994, has forged a hugely respected career for herself as musician, festival manager and academic. The friday concert at the ...
11 years ago
Natalie Clein Cello
David Le Page As The Crow Flies | Vivaldi The Four Seasons
Nick Daisley
David Le Page and his group brought some potent new music to Oxford on Thursday evening, as well as a new interpretation of a major favourite.
We were playing witness to the launch of a new album ...
11 years ago
David Le Page As The Crow Flies | Vivaldi The Four Seasons
Jan Schmolck: Violin
Nick Daisley
Obviously, the Orchestra of St John's are well used to performing in a church space; they are homed at St John's in Smith Square, Westminster, though they tour nationally and have a particularly ...
11 years ago
Jan Schmolck: Violin
Old Times
Nick Daisley
I think this play was about possession; that is to say, possessiveness when it prevails over another human being's personality. Are the two women really two aspects of the same character, one lying ...
11 years ago
Old Times
Gone Girl [18]
Nick Daisley
This is a film that seems to have divided critics; it has been slammed for pretentious craftiness and coldness and distance of the characters, as well as lauded for brilliant construction and ...
11 years ago
Gone Girl [18]
George Emmanuel Lazaridis - piano recital
Nick Daisley
We were treated to a brilliantly presented concert of solo piano music at St John the Evangelist church on Iffley Road. The venue is one of the most comfortable and welcoming in the city - not that ...
12 years ago
George Emmanuel Lazaridis - piano recital
The Grand Budapest Hotel [15]
Nick Daisley
Set in and around a faded Eastern-European hotel in the distant mountainous state of Zubrowska, this purports to be a memoir from a significant meeting during a quiet holiday, which furnished a story ...
12 years ago
The Grand Budapest Hotel [15]
Mahan Esfahani
Nick Daisley
Mahan Esfahani is known for not only astonishing technique, but also for making the harpsichord sing.
After all, the harpsichord can be an astringent instrument - it doesn't work like a ...
12 years ago
Mahan Esfahani
Ian Bostridge (tenor), Elizabeth Kenny (lute) & Fretwork
Nick Daisley
I wasn't sure just how well this was going to work - the lute songs of Dowland are essentially very intimate pieces, and the Sheldonian Theatre can't very well be called an intimate space. ...
12 years ago
Ian Bostridge (tenor), Elizabeth Kenny (lute) & Fretwork
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug [12A]
Nick Daisley
The honest truth is that I came out of the cinema remembering a quote from the late Peter O'Toole as Laurence of Arabia: 'We killed too many really. There's been a lot of killing, one way ...
12 years ago
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug [12A]
Amahl & The Night Visitors
Nick Daisley
The big gothic church of St Andrews played host to an interesting and ambitious seasonal presentation on Tuesday, of a series of songs derived from Belloc and Carroll poems, and the short Menotti ...
12 years ago
Amahl & The Night Visitors
Indian Music Concert
Nick Daisley
There's a strong tradition in Indian music of going to a maestro of an entirely different instrument in order to hone an understanding of one's own. And that's because the fundamentals of ...
12 years ago
Indian Music Concert
Measure for Measure
Nick Daisley
This is classed as a comedy, but only insofar as things turn out alright in the end: mercy is dispensed instead of adamantine and unthinking 'justice', and love conquers all. On the way ...
12 years ago
Measure for Measure
John Etheridge & Pete Oxley
Nick Daisley
It's sometimes dispiriting, it must be admitted, to be at close quarters with a couple of musicians who have such extraordinary facility for their instruments; nobody should have quite such ...
12 years ago
John Etheridge & Pete Oxley
Stephen Kovacevich Piano Recital
Nick Daisley
This recital, in Oxford's cathedral, was part of Oxford Philomusica's Summer Academy programme.
Much time has passed since I last saw this pianist in concert - in those days he ...
12 years ago
Stephen Kovacevich Piano Recital
Much Ado About Nothing
Nick Daisley
This was a modern dress production, set around a city bar called Messina - and the alcohol is depicted as contributing to the protagonists' wayward plots, plans, and perceptions of each other! ...
12 years ago
Much Ado About Nothing
Pride & Prejudice
Nick Daisley
The Oxford Theatre Guild commanded the stage and carried the summer audience with them, celebrating the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice, in a manner that made you forget they’re an ...
12 years ago
Pride & Prejudice
The Taming Of The Shrew
Nick Daisley
I remember that I went to a very earnest professional production of The Taming of the Shrew when I first came to Oxford. The program notes told us we should regard the play as an interesting ...
12 years ago
The Taming Of The Shrew
Star Trek Into Darkness [12A]
Nick Daisley
I was convinced that on a Friday night, the second day of release, the cinema would be packed, which was a good reason to book in advance. But the place was less than a quarter full: I hope that ...
12 years ago
Star Trek Into Darkness [12A]
Set You Free
Nick Daisley
Set You Free by the young writer Gaelle Stark-Ordish, was an engaging and original piece of work - very well acted and presented, it held the audience in silent attention.
The themes were of ...
13 years ago
Set You Free
Much Ado About Nothing
Nick Daisley
It's always a leap of faith for both companies and audiences, when they offer up an open-air performance to the challenges of an english summer. Tuesday night was not well served by the weather, ...
13 years ago
Much Ado About Nothing
Avengers Assemble [12A]
Nick Daisley
Neither I nor my companion came to this film with much idea of the back-story: I don't think I have looked at a Marvel comic since I was around eight, and she never had done so. Yet we both ...
13 years ago
Avengers Assemble [12A]
Prometheus [15]
Nick Daisley
The initial scenes are breathtaking - we sweep over some of Iceland's most dramatic vistas, in company (as it turns out) with an alien space vessel on a mission.
Much of what follows is dark ...
13 years ago
Prometheus [15]
The Adventures of Tintin [PG]
Nick Daisley
There is an astonishing array of talent involved in this, as revealed by the excellent, engaging opening credits: aside from the actors (who are all rendered by motion capture anyway) this film has ...
14 years ago
The Adventures of Tintin [PG]
Contagion [12A]
Nick Daisley
The trailer, of course, paints this as a terrifying blockbuster, but in fact it is a bit more thoughtful and interesting than that. It's about human interactions and complicated relationships, rather ...
14 years ago
Contagion [12A]
