World War One
Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One, Tate Britain review - all in the mindTuesday, 05 June 2018
Not far into Aftermath, Tate Britain’s new exhibition looking at how the experience of World War One shaped artists working in its wake, hangs a group of photographs by Pierre Anthony-Thouret depicting the damage inflicted on Reims. Heavy censorship... Read more... |
Journey's End review - requiem for the poor bloody infantryTuesday, 30 January 2018
With Dunkirk and Darkest Hour threatening to storm the Oscars, it seems there’s suddenly plenty of mileage in portraits of the British at war. There have been several film and TV versions of RC Sherriff’s World War One play, Journey’s End, since it... Read more... |
Goodbye Christopher Robin review - no escape for a boy and his bearFriday, 29 September 2017
“Isn’t it funny/How a bear likes honey?/Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!/I wonder why he does.” Those immortal words, said by the bear of very little brain in chapter one of Winnie-the-Pooh, don’t sound quite the same after watching a shell-shocked AA Milne (... Read more... |
The March on Russia, Orange Tree Theatre review – vividly funny amid the bleaknessWednesday, 13 September 2017
The late David Storey spoke movingly, elsewhere on The Arts Desk, of his sense of overwhelming powerlessness at the challenge of accepting his father’s death. “I was quite racked by his death, and what death had become as an abstraction - in other... Read more... |
Kiss Me, Trafalgar Studios review - Richard Bean two-hander is affecting if slightTuesday, 20 June 2017
Hampstead Theatre Downstairs' habit of sending shows southward to Trafalgar Studios continues with Richard Bean's Kiss Me. A character study set in post-World War One London, it's a two-hander concerning the attempts of a war widow to conceive a... Read more... |
Wonder Woman review - Gal Gadot shines in uneven superhero yarnThursday, 01 June 2017
After dipping a toe in the new-look DC Comics universe to brighten the otherwise leaden Batman v Superman, now Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman gets a chance to shine in her own Hollywood movie. Gadot makes a pretty fine job of it too, bringing a bit of... Read more... |
Frantz review - François Ozon in sombre mood: it worksSaturday, 13 May 2017
François Ozon’s Frantz is an exquisitely sad film, its crisp black and white cinematography shot through with mourning. The French director, in a work where the main language is German, engages with the aftermath of World War One, and the moment... Read more... |
Three Comrades, Sovremennik review - well-oiled Russian take on 1920s BerlinFriday, 05 May 2017
Time runs on different lines in Russian theatre to our own. The 83-year-old Galina Volchek co-founded Moscow's Sovremennik Theatre in 1956, and has been its artistic director for the past 45 years; Three Comrades has held its place in the... Read more... |
The Wipers Times, Arts Theatre review - 'dark comedy from the trenches'Wednesday, 29 March 2017
You may be having a moment of déjà vu, as Ian Hislop and Nick Newman’s new play (which lands in the West End after a UK tour) was previously a BBC film (shown in 2013), and a very fine one too, covering as it does a true story from the First World... Read more... |
Timeshift: Flights of Fancy - Pigeons and the British, BBC FourWednesday, 08 February 2017
Pigeons were described in this riveting programme as man’s best feathered friends, as well as an urban pest: the 35,000 of them that used to flock round Trafalgar Square deposited some 390 tons of unharvested guano – bird poo, in simpler words –... Read more... |
War in the Sunshine, Estorick CollectionTuesday, 17 January 2017
North London’s much loved Estorick Collection is reopening its doors after a five-month spruce up. The Georgian listed building that houses a 120-piece collection of modern Italian art now boasts a new glass conservatory, opened out entrance hall... Read more... |
Paul Nash, Tate BritainMonday, 31 October 2016
In Monster Field, 1938, fallen trees appear like the fossilised remains of giant creatures from prehistory. With great horse-like heads, and branches like a tangle of tentacles and legs, Paul Nash’s series of paintings and photographs serve as... Read more... |
