James Woodall
james.woodall
- Bio
- James wrote (1999-2010) for the Financial Times, The Economist and Dance Europe, mainly from Berlin. His books include a biography of Jorge Luis Borges, a study of Rio's music through the life and work of Chico Buarque, and an account of the marriage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. He's now a writer back in England.
Articles by James Woodall
Tomatito, Sadler's Wells
Thursday, 21 March 2013
He looks the part: straggly, desert hair and haunted fizzog. He sounds the part: opening dry rhythmic strumming over unchorded strings; acrobatic trills; percussive attack. Flanked on the left by two... Read more... |
The Dark Side of the Moon: Introducing Prog
Sunday, 24 February 2013
In 1973 certain world events carved themselves, a bit like the faces on Mount Rushmore, deep into the landscape of the late 20th century. No sooner had Richard Nixon begun to end the Vietnam War than... Read more... |
Berlinale 2013: The Winners
Saturday, 16 February 2013
The 2013 Golden Bear in Berlin has gone to Poziţia Copilului (Child's Pose), by Romanian director Călin Peter Netzer. Starring Luminita Gheorghiu as a mother, Cornelia, drumming up support for her... Read more... |
Berlinale 2013: Side Effects, Night Train to Lisbon, Reaching for the Moon
Friday, 15 February 2013
Big hitters have graced Berlin, with the festival now reaching its close - Damon, Huppert and Binoche have been and gone, Deneuve is yet to come - but one of the more anticipated visits this week was... Read more... |
Berlinale 2013: Before Midnight
Tuesday, 12 February 2013
They’re in trouble. They had to be. Otherwise there’d be no drama. And if you’re a fan of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004) skip the next two paragraphs to avoid... Read more... |
Berlinale 2013: Don Jon's Addiction, Charlie Countryman, Vic+Flo, Gloria
Monday, 11 February 2013
Great fun on day three in Berlin: Scarlett Johansson co-stars in a porn movie. Well, a movie about a young man’s love of porn sites, in which she flashes her famous curves - and starts sleeping with... Read more... |
Berlinale 2013: The Grandmaster, Promised Land, More Than Honey
Saturday, 09 February 2013
Ecology at the first full day of the Berlin film festival. An intriguing Matt Damon city-versus-country movie, Promised Land, puts fracking into the mainstream for the first time. Damon plays Steve... Read more... |
Batsheva Ensemble, Sadler's Wells
Tuesday, 20 November 2012
Batsheva Dance Company is reaching its half-century, which makes it, as one of the world’s leading dance brands, not quite as old – or as young – as Israel, but Martha Graham helped launch it several... Read more... |
DVD: Your Sister's Sister
Thursday, 01 November 2012
With her jewel-blue eyes and intense presence, Emily Blunt can illuminate anything – a screen, a stage, a red carpet, any location for any old interview. She might seem unable to put a foot wrong.... Read more... |
Continu, Sasha Waltz & Guests, Sadler's Wells
Saturday, 29 September 2012
When she broke through in the mid-1990s, with her preposterously appropriate surname, Berlin-based Sasha Waltz was all about cheek and chutzpah. Her choreography in pieces such as Twenty to eight and... Read more... |
Barbara
Monday, 24 September 2012
For a remarkable BBC Radio Four half-hour programme broadcast on 14 September, The Stasi Jigsaw Puzzle, Chris Bowlby pieced together tales of treachery in the former German Democratic Republic. At... Read more... |
DVD: Elles
Friday, 17 August 2012
Elles promises much. Małgorzata Szumowska, from Poland, is an engaged, serious film maker. 33 Scenes from Life (2008), which won a Locarno special prize, had an edgy, bohemian authenticity to it, and... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Locarno: Sunshine Cinema in the Alps
Sunday, 12 August 2012
The most radical Locarno ever: it's in the upper 20s Celsius in the southern Alps. The sky is cloudless blue. Moreover, not for one, or two, or three, or four nights in a row, but for FIVE has it not... Read more... |
Wiesenland, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Sadler's Wells
Monday, 09 July 2012
Let us conclude, after London’s season of World Cities - 10 dance shows - that Pina Bausch was not a choreographer. She began 50 years ago in Essen as a ballet dancer and like so many dancers in that... Read more... |
Água, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Barbican Theatre
Saturday, 30 June 2012
It opens with a siren saying she’s got cramp. She’s glad she’s got cramp because she can stay outside and enjoy the sky. It closes with people blowing water at each other, glugged from plastic... Read more... |
The Suit, Young Vic Theatre
Monday, 28 May 2012
Peter Brook is probably at his happiest in Africa. Through his Paris theatre, the Bouffes du Nord, he has long had access to gifted Francophone black African actors. They’ve always been a significant... Read more... |
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