religion
DVD: Beyond the HillsFriday, 14 June 2013
Returning from Germany to her native Romania, Alina is reunited with her childhood friend Voichita, now resident in a convent. The pair return to Voichita’s orthodox sanctuary but Alina changes. Aggressive, hearing voices and seemingly suicidal, she... Read more... |
The Tudors Season, BBC TwoFriday, 24 May 2013
Is the BBC taking dictation from the Gradgrindian brain of Michael Gove? According to the education secretary’s latest wacky diktat, what the nation’s children want is facts facts facts. Plus, in the teaching of history, lots of stuff about... Read more... |
10 Questions for Artist Michael LandyMonday, 20 May 2013
Much of Michael Landy’s work concerns destruction or decay. The British artist, who recently turned 50 and is part of the YBA generation, came to prominence in 2001 with the Artangel commission Break Down, which saw all his worldly possessions... Read more... |
DVD: Hors SatanThursday, 09 May 2013
A female hiker is naked. A village is close. Lying on the slope down to a river, she invites the taciturn man she’s followed to have sex. They do. She begins shrieking and foaming at the mouth. He fastens his face to hers. She could then be dead yet... Read more... |
Dangerous Edge: A Life of Graham Greene, Sky Arts 1Sunday, 05 May 2013
Early on in Dangerous Edge: A Life of Graham Greene, John le Carré remembers Greene telling him that childhood provides “the bank balance of the writer”. Greene remained in credit on that inspiration front throughout his life, even while he... Read more... |
The Book of Mormon, Prince of Wales TheatreFriday, 22 March 2013
It’s one of the most anticipated theatrical openings of the year, with tickets allegedly changing hands for astronomical sums and some pundits rushing to issue dire warnings of the depths of its lewdness and its shattering shock factor well before... Read more... |
Rome - A History of The Eternal City, BBC FourThursday, 13 December 2012
Simon Sebag Montefiore is a historian in a hurry - as well he might be when there’s a whole millennium to fit into an hour. A year ago we had his three-parter Jerusalem - The Making of a Holy City, now we’re well into Rome - A History of The Eternal... Read more... |
Mariko Mori: Rebirth, Burlington Gardens, Royal AcademyWednesday, 12 December 2012
The Royal Academy’s spacious white galleries at Burlington Gardens are flooded with mystic light and filled with New Age baubles. You are bathed in a trippy purple haze as you enter one gallery which contains a giant glowing pod. The translucent pod... Read more... |
Robert le Diable, Royal OperaFriday, 07 December 2012
My phone's predictive text posed an interesting question. Robert le Doable it insisted on calling last night's opera. And it's often been asked of this and other grands opéras. Are they doable? Such was the munificence of the times in which they... Read more... |
DVD: The Passion of Joan of ArcFriday, 16 November 2012
How much suffering is it possible to take? Can suffering be depicted on film in a way which evokes its true depths? Is it possible to draw anything positive from a film that succeeds in capturing the essence of suffering? In short order: the human... Read more... |
Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life, More4Monday, 29 October 2012
Perhaps only someone as supremely confident of his world view as Richard Dawkins might think he could come up with a TV series that would live up to such an all-embracing title. But at least in this three-part series the evolutionary biologist gets... Read more... |
Kafou: Haiti, Art and Vodou, Nottingham ContemporaryThursday, 25 October 2012
I’ve rarely come across an exhibition as loaded with context as this one. Voodoo – or Vodou, as the show has it – is a massively complex and contested phenomenon, from the pin-sticking and zombies of legend and fantasy to the no-less colourful... Read more... |
