1930s
DVD: Burnt by the Sun 2Tuesday, 09 July 2013
Nikita Mikhalkov’s Burnt by the Sun was one of the few good news stories in Russian cinema in the Nineties. Made with his longterm scriptwriter Rustam Ibragimbekov, it picked up a main prize at Cannes in 1994 and the Best Foreign Film Oscar the... Read more... |
Private Lives, Gielgud TheatreThursday, 04 July 2013
A champagne cocktail with a hefty dash of bitters, Jonathan Kent’s production of this exquisite Noël Coward comedy of impossible passions is as wince-inducing as it is delightfully effervescent. A hit at Chichester Festival Theatre last autumn, it... Read more... |
DVD: TabuTuesday, 25 June 2013
With its story of youthful love entrapped by fate, Tabu relishes the glorious primal energy of the South Seas, which was where German director FW Murnau, best known now for his expressionist Nosferatu, but then recently established in Hollywood and... Read more... |
The Cripple of Inishmaan, Noël Coward TheatreWednesday, 19 June 2013
Martin McDonagh's play, which premiered in 1997, here receives its first major revival as part of Michael Grandage's star-studded first season at the Noël Coward Theatre. It's a minor modern classic, full of the London Irish writer's trademark dark... Read more... |
Bracken Moor, Tricycle TheatreMonday, 17 June 2013
In Bracken Moor Alexi Kaye Campbell inhabits similar territory to J B Priestley, whose work he admires. Like his predecessor, Campbell combines social comment with the mystical and spiritual and even chooses to set the action in pre-war Yorkshire.... Read more... |
Power, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Wilson, Barbican HallSaturday, 04 May 2013
Blether on MasterChef about love and passion for one’s craft has so devalued the currency that I hesitated in applying the terms to conductor John Wilson, last night moving from Hollywood and Broadway to another enthusiasm, tuneful British music.... Read more... |
Laurencia, Mikhailovsky Ballet, London ColiseumWednesday, 03 April 2013
It’s not often you go to a ballet to watch a history lesson unfold, but Laurencia, the 1939 Soviet ballet choreographed by Vakhtang Chabukiani, gives us exactly that, and a gripping one under the froth and fun.Based on the 17th-century playwright... Read more... |
The Lady Vanishes, BBC OneMonday, 18 March 2013
This story is mostly familiar from Alfred Hitchchock's 1938 movie, starring Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood. Among the things it's best remembered for are the comic double act of Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, playing the cricket-obsessed... Read more... |
Liza Minnelli, Royal Festival HallSaturday, 02 March 2013
It’s Weimar Berlin time as the Southbank Centre’s The Rest is Noise festival moves through the 20th-century music scene – so it must be Liza Minnelli time too. Or must it? Though she’s immortalised through her Americanisation of Sally Bowles in Bob... Read more... |
Dancing on the Edge, Series Finale, BBC TwoTuesday, 26 February 2013
Stephen Poliakoff's slow-burning drama had turned into a propulsive whodunnit by this final episode, hurtling towards a resolution with panache and surprise. The five-part mini-series about a black jazz band in early 1930s high society has had the... Read more... |
Lulu, Welsh National OperaSaturday, 09 February 2013
What-ifs and might-have-beens are usually as pointless in music as in any other walk of life. Still one can’t help wondering how Alban Berg would have completed – and, no less interesting, revised – his opera Lulu, if he hadn’t been stung by some... Read more... |
Tango Fire: Flames of Desire, Peacock TheatreThursday, 07 February 2013
If by the end of a show you’ve both wowed and ouched out loud, I would declare it’s safe to say you’re getting your money's-worth. Tango Fire's new show at the Peacock Theatre, Flames of Desire, does all the above and more. In fact it could be... Read more... |
