fairytales
The Chapman Brothers: Children's Art Commission, Whitechapel GalleryFriday, 27 August 2010
When Jake and Dinos Chapman first came to the attention of a wider public at the Royal Academy’s Sensation exhibition, their work came with a parental warning: a sign barring under-18s. After all, naked child mannequins sporting surprised-looking... Read more... |
Into the Woods, Regent's Park Open Air TheatreMonday, 16 August 2010
Sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood. Sondheim meant that in a life-and-death kind of way, but it applied literally to this ingenious show at the autumnal August preview I attended. Some folk thought Act One’s knitting-up of... Read more... |
Hänsel und Gretel, GlyndebourneMonday, 26 July 2010
Glyndebourne’s Hänsel und Gretel comes in a large cardboard box, with plain brown wrapper, duct-tape and a barcode. There’s a public health warning, too: sugar and spice and all things nice come at a price. The evil witch Rosina Sweet-Tooth is... Read more... |
BluebeardSaturday, 17 July 2010
Sex, blood and shocking - these are the things Catherine Breillat does well. So long as she's busting taboos wide open you can forgive her the longueurs, the wilful refusal to attend to fundamental principles of storytelling, her characters'... Read more... |
Paula Rego: Oratoria, Marlborough Fine ArtWednesday, 14 July 2010
I must admit that I enjoy killing things and, since the target of my murderous instincts are clothes moths, fruit flies and, occasionally, rats or mice, society condones my bloodthirsty instincts. But while I get some satisfaction from my exploits,... Read more... |
Nevermore, Barbican TheatreThursday, 08 July 2010
If there was an opposite to the limitless “ever after” of fairytales, the relentlessly nullifying "nevermore" of Edgar Allan Poe’s raven would come pretty close. A deformed, sickly smiling "musical fable for adults", the ominously named Nevermore is... Read more... |
Rusalka, Opera NorthSaturday, 22 May 2010
A thousand miles away from the Disney version, the transformation scene in Dvořák’s Rusalka is bleak and terrifying. With not a cauldron, bat or cobweb to be seen, the heroine is strapped to an operating table before imbibing the witch’s magic... Read more... |
Cinderella, Royal BalletSunday, 18 April 2010
No longer, it seems, need ballet's most transformable heroine languish by the seasonal fireside. It's true that you'll have to wait until Christmas to see the most visually striking Cinderella of all again - Ashley Page's fitfully ingenious Scottish... Read more... |
Cinderella, English National Ballet, touringThursday, 25 March 2010
Was it with a hollow laugh that ENB programmed Cinderella for the election period - as a reminder that glittery fairy phaetons are in fact pumpkins with money? Was it a hint that ballet needs political fairy godmothers? With airwaves full of budget... Read more... |
Moonfleece, Rich MixThursday, 04 March 2010
Although our culture is obsessed with youth, very few adults can connect directly with teenagers. Instead teens have become the object of our fears — there’s even a posh word for this: ephebiphobia. In drama, teens are often portrayed as a problem... Read more... |
OndineThursday, 04 March 2010
Neil Jordan’s smaller films have often betrayed a fascination with wispy visitants from the borderlands of gender. In The Crying Game the beautiful young call girl turns out, in one of cinema’s more jawdropping reveals, to be somewhat less she than... Read more... |
The Princess and the FrogTuesday, 26 January 2010
For those of us brought up on classic Disney animation - from the first, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, through The Jungle Book and Lady and the Tramp to, more recently, The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast - it’s sad to think that a whole... Read more... |
