1930s
I Am a Camera, Southwark PlayhouseSaturday, 08 September 2012
The Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret, inspired by the Berlin stories of Christopher Isherwood, is soon to return to the West End with Will Young. Its less well-known source is John Van Druten's 1952 play I Am a Camera. The title comes from the opening... Read more... |
LawlessMonday, 03 September 2012
Australian director John Hillcoat certainly knows what he likes, and what he likes is lawlessness. It’s the central focus of his brilliantly uncompromising film Ghosts… of the Civil Dead, which saw a high-security prison driven to bloody ruin, and... Read more... |
Cornelius, Finborough TheatreMonday, 20 August 2012
Accolades are due again for the tiny Finborough Theatre, whose production of JB Priestley's all-but-unknown Cornelius constitutes the most exciting reclamation from the English theatrical canon since the same venue produced Emlyn Williams's... Read more... |
Priestley in the House: Cornelius RevivedWednesday, 15 August 2012
I am keenly looking forward to seeing the new production of JB Priestley’s play Cornelius at the Finborough Theatre. This will be the first time I have seen the work performed, though I have of course read it. But my father always said his plays... Read more... |
Storyville: Hitler, Stalin, and Mr Jones, BBC FourFriday, 06 July 2012
The Storyville documentary strand must rank as one of the special glories of British television. As its opening titles unfold in different languages, we can only celebrate programmes that still give time to international stories, told in their own... Read more... |
The Grand Tour/ Faster/ The Dream, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham HippodromeThursday, 28 June 2012
Cafés, ballets, it’s all the same to the mighty petty bullyboys of the London Olympics, who have not only devised two of the most revolting mascots in Olympic history (the one-eyed slugs Wenlock and Mandeville) but also employed teams of... Read more... |
DVD: The 39 StepsWednesday, 27 June 2012
Anyone familiar with the 1915 spy thriller The 39 Steps and Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1935 adaptation – fleet, déclassé, and oneiric – knows the movie is a superior piece of entertainment to John Buchan’s coincidence-laden potboiler, which as a... Read more... |
Spiro, Kings PlaceSunday, 10 June 2012
If the three-day Songlines Encounters Festival got off to a rousing start with folk-punk rowdiness from Poland’s R.U.T.A, by last night things were decidedly more genteel. The Festival, anyway, was an exhilarating musical voyage. Spiro’s last album... Read more... |
DVD: Island of Lost SoulsTuesday, 29 May 2012
Island of Lost Souls might be from 1932, but its release on DVD verifies that it’s one of the freakiest, most disturbing films made. This adaptation of H. G. Wells’s Island of Dr Moreau is dominated by Charles Laughton as the eponymous Doctor.... Read more... |
Jean Vigo: Celebrating the father of French New WaveTuesday, 15 May 2012
The release of Jean Vigo’s wonderful L’Atalante on DVD is cause enough to celebrate, but the arrival of everything he committed to film in one place is more than that – it commemorates this special filmmaker’s genius and humanity. Zero de Conduite... Read more... |
Picasso Prints: The Vollard Suite, British MuseumTuesday, 08 May 2012
The Vollard Suite is Picasso’s most celebrated series of etchings. Named after Ambroise Vollard, the influential avant-garde art dealer who gave the 19-year-old Picasso his first exhibition in Paris in 1901, the series was commissioned by the dealer... Read more... |
Upstairs Downstairs, Series Two, BBC OneMonday, 20 February 2012
You remember Upstairs Downstairs – the lavish 2010 period drama-cum-soap based around servants and their masters that had the misfortune of not being named Downton Abbey. Making its entrance some three months after ITV’s series despite being filmed... Read more... |
