fri 16/05/2025

South Africa

Robin Rhode: Variants, White Cube Hoxton

Still from 'Piano Chair' by Robin Rhode

Robin Rhode’s animations are pure pleasure; there’s perfection in their simplicity. They are so perfectly tuned, so light on their feet, that one simply wants to enjoy them; but because they are multilayered, they offer more than momentary pleasure...

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Life, Above All

There was a time not long ago when British films and television dramas were shot in the Czech Republic and Hungary, where the studios were cheap and the landscape looked roughly analogous to our own. In recent years what feels like the entire film...

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Fire in Babylon

To the relief of many an international batsman, there has never been anything to rival the stupendous West Indies teams which bestrode Planet Cricket with intimidating ferocity from the late Seventies into the Nineties. Fire in Babylon is the story...

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Photo Gallery: Figures and Fiction - Contemporary South African Photography, V&A

Jodi Bieber's photographs from her series 'Real Beauty' can feel uncomfortably voyeuristic

It’s been 17 years since apartheid came to an end in South Africa, and the transition to democracy has not been an easy one, for while political systems may change, social attitudes may prove yet more difficult to shift. The Victoria and Albert...

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The Knot of the Heart, Almeida Theatre

The Knot of the Heart takes its title from a Sanskrit phrase, but David Eldridge's new play for the Almeida Theatre is likely to speak forcibly to anyone who has witnessed, not to mention experienced, the addiction unsparingly charted across two...

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Kidnap and Ransom, ITV1

Notwithstanding his regrettable central role in the recent remake of Bouquet of Barbed Wire, Trevor Eve is an actor who has improved vastly with age. Once cursed with a kind of shiny smugness, the 21st-century Eve is rougher round the edges and...

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The Train Driver, Hampstead Theatre

Grave concerns: Owen Sejake in Athol Fugard’s 'The Train Driver'

Few playwrights have been so successful at moulding our view of a nation as Athol Fugard. It’s impossible to think of South Africa, especially during the apartheid years, without thinking of his Sizwe Bansi is Dead, The Island or Statements after an...

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Tony Allen, Barbican

Happy Birthday, Tony! Last night the great Nigerian musician celebrated the fact that he has spent 70 years on the planet, with 52 of those years exploring – as no other drummer has explored – the humble kit drum (or drum kit if you prefer). This...

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Or You Could Kiss Me, National Theatre

Puppetry of love, loss, and infirmity co-starring Handspring's Basil Jones in the flesh

Theatrical conceits, much like London buses, seem these days to come in threes. Or so it is suggested by the Neil Bartlett/Handspring collaboration Or You Could Kiss Me, the third Cottesloe production this year to peer into the future, albeit only...

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Truth and Lies: Jillian Edelstein on Show

Regulars of theartsdesk will be familiar with the work of Jillian Edelstein. Her portraits of cultural figures have adorned several of our series, theartsdesk Q&A. There is now a chance to see pictures from her most celebrated collection at a...

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New Music CDs Round-Up 12

This month's top releases are headed up by a brilliant covers album by Brazilian singer Seu Jorge, and the Manic Street Preachers and Richard Thompson on peak form. Elsewhere there is South African pianist Kyle Shepherd, Argentinian "eccentric...

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Now Newsnight is at it...

The BBC's cultural conscience has been pricked, it would seem, by the World Cup now reaching its endgame in South Africa. Either that or departments don't talk to one another. Singing for Life, Sunday night's documentary on BBC Four about the young...

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