NICK CAVE

Idiot Prayer is a beautiful and painterly film in which little has been left to chance

Alexandra Palace, London, July 23 Pre-recorded but streamed ‘as live’, Cave’s stately Idiot Prayer raises the bar for isolation performance

AT the beginning of , we watch Nick Cave make a long walk to the stage while (in narration) he reads the words to “Spinning Song”. He walks from a green room lined with stacked chairs and across a painted concourse, as a story unfolds about and his wife. He descends a gleaming staircase, and walks across the historic Main Hall. As he saunters to the door of the building’s West Hall, the king is dead but the feather