France
Dora Maar, Tate Modern review - how women disappearWednesday, 27 November 2019
In one of Dora Maar’s best known images, a fashion photograph from 1935 (pictured below), a woman wearing a backless, sparkly evening gown appears to be making her way backstage through a proscenium’s drapes. The star of the show exits the limelight... Read more... |
Julian Barnes: The Man in the Red Coat review – all that glitters…Friday, 08 November 2019
“Chauvinism is the worst form of ignorance” is the maxim of Dr Pozzi, the hero of Julian Barnes’s latest book, The Man in the Red Coat. This historical biography follows the life of a renowned gynaecologist during the Parisian Belle Époque, the “... Read more... |
Chantal Ackerman: My Mother Laughs review - too umbilically linked?Sunday, 27 October 2019
My Mother Laughs was first published in Chantal Ackerman’s native French in 2013. This year it has been translated into English for the first time, twice. Silver Press’ elegant version is framed by a foreword by the poet, Eileen Myles (who also has... Read more... |
By the Grace of God review - a dark, meticulous drama from François OzonSaturday, 26 October 2019
This is a departure in every sense for François Ozon. The prolific French director has established himself as a master of ludic style in past dramas played out by predominantly female casts, the exceptions, among them his sad black-and-white period... Read more... |
theartsdesk Radio Show 25 - with bohemian chanteuse Anne PigalleSaturday, 26 October 2019
This edition of Peter Culshaw’s periodic global music radio show features guest special guest Anne Pigalle. A flâneuse and doyenne of the urban demi-monde, she came to our attention recording for ZTT Records in the 1980s and ran Soho... Read more... |
LFF 2019: Le Mans '66 review - Matt Damon, Christian Bale and the Ford Motor Company go to warSaturday, 12 October 2019
While recent motor racing movies have been built around superstar names like Ayrton Senna and James Hunt, the protagonists of Le Mans ’66 (shown at London Film Festival) will be barely recognisable to a wider audience. They are Carroll Shelby, the... Read more... |
Two Ladies, Bridge Theatre review - Cvitešić and Wanamaker really rockThursday, 26 September 2019
Are first ladies second-class citizens? Do they always have to stand behind their husbands? What are they really like as people? Questions such as these have inspired Irish playwright Nancy Harris to explore the relationship between two fictional... Read more... |
The $50m Art Swindle, BBC Two review - ramblin' gamblin' man comes home to roostTuesday, 24 September 2019
“It’s nice to make money – lots of money,” said Michel Cohen, former high-flying New York art dealer turned debtor, jailbird and fugitive. He made oodles of the stuff and then lost it all, leaving a string of wealthy art collectors and galleries to... Read more... |
Prom 72/3: Aurora Orchestra, Collon review – Berlioz not quite lost in showbizFriday, 13 September 2019
For a few seconds last night, the Royal Albert Hall turned into London’s biggest – and cheesiest – disco. At the end of the Ball movement in the Aurora Orchestra’s dramatised version of the Symphonie Fantastique, Berlioz’s tipsily lurching waltz... Read more... |
The Shiny Shrimps review - worth the plungeSaturday, 07 September 2019
Whoever thought of crossing the social conscience of Pride with the sporting acumen of Dodgeball? Out of this unlikely union comes The Shiny Shrimps, a joyous dive into the world of gay water polo. Though it follows your typical obscure sports... Read more... |
Prom 44: Finley, LSO & Chorus, Orfeó Català, Rattle review - lurid inter-war triptychWednesday, 21 August 2019
So the Proms ignored the Berlioz anniversary challenge to perform his Requiem and serve up four brass bands at the points of the Albert Hall compass. Yet at least last night in works of the 1920s and 1930s we got one offstage in the crazed baggy-... Read more... |
Transit review - existential nightmares for a German refugeeSaturday, 17 August 2019
If you’re looking for escapism from anxieties about Brexit, the worldwide refugee crisis and rising authoritarianism, Christian Petzold’s Transit is not going to provide comfort. Adapted from Anna Segher’s 1944 novel about a Jewish writer fleeing... Read more... |
