race issues
Martin Luther King and the March on Washington, BBC Two/MLK: The Assassination Tapes, BBC FourWednesday, 28 August 2013
It was only today I learned that, for copyright reasons, it is impossible to use Martin Luther King’s iconic “I Have A Dream” speech in its entirety without paying a hefty licensing fee to his estate. That knowledge made it easier to understand why... Read more... |
Petrushka/ Song of a Wayfarer/ Raymonda, English National Ballet, London ColiseumFriday, 26 July 2013
A magical folktale, a male duet, a classical jewel-box - programmes like this should be a rich part of the warp and weft of a ballet company, a night of rich interest and variety, stimulating dancers with challenges to their grace and storytelling... Read more... |
Josephine and I, Bush TheatreSunday, 21 July 2013
Cush Jumbo could very easily have put on a hit show about Josephine Baker. There would have been a chorus line of flappers, replete with spangles and feathers. She would have belted out some of the more enduringly popular hits from Baker’s glory... Read more... |
The Color Purple, Menier Chocolate FactoryTuesday, 16 July 2013
A joyful noise? Hell, yes. Alice Walker’s Pulitzer-winning 1982 feminist novel set in Georgia and spanning more than 30 years is crammed with suffering, injustice and cruelty. But in its characters’ journeys towards a realisation of identity –... Read more... |
Easy MoneyMonday, 15 July 2013
Based on Jens Lapidus's novel Snabba Cash (great title, even if it is meaningless to English-speakers), Easy Money is yet further evidence of the allure of the Scandi way of looking at the world. It's ostensibly a crime thriller, featuring healthy... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Saint Louis, Missouri: A Boxing OperaSunday, 14 July 2013
The Opera Theatre of Saint Louis has been sometimes dubbed the "Glyndebourne of America" due to the charming garden picnics enjoyed by patrons during the sizzling Missouri summer season. But that title also suggests the company's daring... Read more... |
Race, Hampstead TheatreSaturday, 01 June 2013
We know that David Mamet doesn’t beat about the bush. He tackles sensitive issues and the least attractive aspects of human nature head on, while his characters use language as weapons against each other with such ferocity and guile that the... Read more... |
DVD: Django UnchainedTuesday, 28 May 2013
There’s something profoundly infantile about Quentin Tarantino’s quest to right the wrongs of history. Last time round he was retroactively bitchslapping the Nazis for the Holocaust. Here he’s punishing Americans who accrued obscene wealth out of... Read more... |
Ellen Gallagher: AxME, Tate ModernWednesday, 01 May 2013
Ellen Gallagher is obsessed by the issue of black cultural identity; but if that sounds tedious or tendentious, think again. She explores her theme in work that is so varied, so beautiful and so humorous that the furrow she ploughs seems more like... Read more... |
Ayahs, lascars and munshis: staging The EmpressWednesday, 17 April 2013
It was over four years ago that I was commissioned by Michael Boyd, then artistic director of the RSC, to write a play which I had vaguely pitched to him as “a costume drama set in the nineteenth century with Asians running around in it”. And... Read more... |
BioShock InfiniteFriday, 29 March 2013
We're at a moment of change in games – new consoles, new ideas, new ways of playing. And what better game to usher out one era and in a new one than BioShock Infinite?This first-person shooter is still wedded to the core mechanics of traditional big... Read more... |
God's Property, Soho TheatreThursday, 28 February 2013
"Half-caste" and "mixed race" are terms that excite strong emotions. Are you black, are you white? Where do you belong? To whom do you owe your loyalties when the chips are down?Arinze Kene’s God’s Property will hardly be welcomed with open arms by... Read more... |
