Denmark
Jasper Rees
It’s been a confusing week for British fans of Borgen. As they prepared to say farewell to Birgitte Nyborg and co, their beloved statsminister’s factual avatar was trending in the global media. If you know your Borgen, Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt’s selfie with a President and a Prime Minister looked more like a brilliant script idea than a pesky news item. As outlets in Denmark and beyond devoted pages of print and hours of screen time to unpicking the semiotics of the moment, you can bet series creator Adam Price kicked himself he hadn’t thought of it as a storyline.Anyway, Birgitte Read more ...
Caroline Crampton
Borgen wasn’t supposed to be an international hit. Even though viewers all over the world had adored other Danish and Swedish TV exports like The Killing and The Bridge, the show’s creator Adam Price was told early on in the commissioning process that his slow-burn drama about Danish coalition politics was not something that was going to bring him global recognition.Three series later, the show has been sold to 75 different countries. The straightforwardly liberal values espoused by many of its main characters have become so familiar that the word “Borgen” has become a frequently-used Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Lest anyone think that the measured performances in Borgen, The Bridge and The Killing or the personal cinema of, say, Susanne Bier, Pernille Fischer Christensen, Lars von Trier or Thomas Vinterberg define Danish drama, along comes the British release of Klown, a film which – despite a few local touches – plays to the familiar: the uncomfortable comedy of The Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and the gross-out, road-trip fare of The Hangover.Like the first The Hangover film, Klown hinges on an arrested-development male presented with a scenario where he ought to commit to his girlfriend. He Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Sidse Babett Knudsen, alias the absurdly photogenic Danish Statsminister Birgitte Nyborg, provoked gasps at the Nordicana festival in London last June when she revealed that she was no longer Prime Minister in series three. And indeed, as the curtain rose on episode one, we could see that she was not.Instead, the ex-premier had cashed in her political prestige for one of those nebulous but lucrative roles as roving speech-maker, consultant and corporate board-member. We observed a svelte and designer-chic Nyborg helicoptering in to the Hong Kong headquarters of a pharmaceutical company to Read more ...
Jasper Rees
God morgen. Yes, Borgen is back on Saturday nights, and it’s all change at the top of Danish coalition politics. It gives nothing away to say that Birgitte Nyborg is no longer statsminister – she called an election and the opposition’s bluff at the end of the second series but it turns out that after three years in power Denmark’s fictional electorate had had enough of the Moderates. So the most glamorous and likeable of politicians is now on the lecture circuit in the private sector, and doing very nicely - she even has a new love in her life. This will be the last series of DR’s Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In the half light of a small medieval church tucked behind London's St Pancras Station, a figure in white plays melancholy songs at a grand piano to the accompaniment of a cellist and violinist. This chamber ensemble had an audience of 84. The atmosphere of this special concert contrasted starkly with the close, humid and overhot day which led up to it.Denmark’s Agnes Obel had arrived in London to perform a month before the release of her second album, Aventine. Taking its name from one of Rome’s seven hills, the songs on the album – even in this live setting – already feel ageless. They Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Characterising a country’s music by its most successful exports or what seem to be typical local styles is inevitable. With Iceland, the home of Björk and Sigur Rós, it’s easy to assume that ethereality, otherworldliness and plain oddness rule the roost. Of course, that’s not the case. The artists awarded the Kraumur prize for the best albums released in 2012 testify to Iceland’s broad musical palette. On the next page, our look at the Kraumur winners ranges from the hotly-tipped Ásgeir Trausti to, among other surprises, home-grown reggae.Scandinavia as a whole doesn’t always escape similar Read more ...
fisun.guner
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is famous for its collection of antiquities: Egyptian carvings, Greek statues and Roman sculpture form the heart of its collection. Indeed, its collection of Roman portrait busts are among the finest in the world. But the 19th century also has a strong sculptural presence. The double-bust of the founder of the museum Carl Jacobsen and his by then dead wife, Otillia – her ghostly arm placed protectively on his shoulder as she hovers behind him – might well be the most disconcerting. But amid the neoclassical marble statuary from lesser-known 19th-century Danes, there’s Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It’s more pulse-quickening than a visit from Denmark’s actual prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt. This weekend Sidse Babett Knudsen, Borgen’s Statsminister Birgitte Nyborg, arrives in London to open Nordicana, an event dedicated to the ever-increasing amount of Scandinavian exports seen on our TVs. She will also be interviewed and take questions from the audience. Who needs real PMQs?Over Saturday and Sunday, Knudsen will be joined by the cast of Borgen’s fellow DR production Arne Dahl and Jan Arnald – the author of the books it’s based on, who writes as Arne Dahl. Also stopping off are Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
The last two years have seen the Tiger Lillies hit a prolific peak of activity, to be found as often on the theatrical as the concert stage, drawing on plenty of influences from outside the UK to boot. Mike Pickering came on board last year in place of drummer Adrian Huge, who’d been part of the trio’s line-up from its founding back in 1989, but there was no let-up in levels of intensity last night from lead performer Martyn Jacques, who gave his all to a 90-minute set drawn from numbers from their last four albums, from 2011’s Woyzeck & the Tiger Lillies through to this year’s Either Or. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Are you thirsty? I’ve got water and beer.” The car’s trunk is opened to reveal a picnic-style plastic cooler. But this is a taxi, so in goes the case. “If you’re hungry, I’ve got liquorice.” It’s unusual hospitality, not what’s expected from a taxi driver. Even one this young, hip and, well, blonde and classically Nordic looking. It was a fine, if surprising, welcome to Denmark and smoothed the departure from Billund airport, a functional facility adjacent to the original Legoland, one of Scandinavia’s top tourist draws.Miniature towns made of plastic bricks, rides and a small-scale Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Tales of pirate drama on the high seas have come a long, unpleasant way since Errol Flynn. Borgen and The Hunt co-writer Tobias Lindholm’s debut as solo writer-director explores the human factor behind Somali pirate headlines, with the cool grip Nordic drama fans now expect.Inspired by the real seizure of two Danish freighters, Lindstrom uses a parallel narrative split between Copenhagen and the terrifying emptiness of the Indian Ocean, where the crew of his fictional freighter are trapped below decks by Somali captors. At their shipping company’s HQ, CEO Peter Ludvigsen (Soren Malling – Read more ...