France
Classical CDs Weekly: Guy Johnston, Joyce El-Khoury, Michael Spyres, The ChanteuseSaturday, 07 October 2017
Guy Johnston: Tecchler’s Cello - From Cambridge to Rome (King’s College Cambridge)Acquiring a second-hand instrument always leads one to wonder what sort of a life it led before. Did said instrument enjoy a flourishing professional career, or was it... Read more... |
CD: Carla Bruni - French TouchMonday, 02 October 2017
Carla Bruni delivers smooth and sophisticated pop. She undoubtedly has plenty of talent, and this latest collection of songs – all of them covers, and sung in impressive English – reeks of good taste, careful artistic choices and a wide knowledge of... Read more... |
Claire Tomalin: A Life of My Own review - the biographer on herselfSunday, 24 September 2017
The title says it all, or at least quite a lot. Luminously intelligent, an exceptionally hard worker, bilingual in French, a gifted biographer, Claire Tomalin has been at the heart of the literati glitterati all her working life. Here she turns her... Read more... |
Senza Sangue/Bluebeard's Castle, Hackney Empire - uneven French-Hungarian mixWednesday, 20 September 2017
Has Hackney ever seen or heard such a spectacle – a full Hungarian orchestra taking up most of the Empire stalls to complete the semi-circle of a relatively empty stage? And did enough of London get to hear about it? I certainly wouldn’t have done... Read more... |
Extract: Peter Brook - Tip of the Tongue: Reflections on Language and MeaningSunday, 10 September 2017
A long time ago when I was very young, a voice hidden deep within me whispered, "Don’t take anything for granted. Go and see for yourself." This little nagging murmur has led me to so many journeys, so many explorations, trying to live together... Read more... |
The 'self-experimenter': Howard Brenton on Strindberg in crisisMonday, 04 September 2017
I wrote The Blinding Light to try to understand the mental and spiritual crisis that August Strindberg suffered in February 1896. Deeply disturbed, plagued by hallucinations, he holed up in various hotel rooms in Paris, most famously in the Hotel... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Love of a WomanFriday, 01 September 2017
In Jean Grémillon's final fiction film The Love of a Woman, Marie Prieur (Micheline Presle) arrives on the Breton island of Ushant to replace the tiny settlement's aging Dr Morel (Robert Naly). While showing Marie her new digs and surgery, Mme Morel... Read more... |
Blu-ray: RoninFriday, 18 August 2017
There are three bravura scenes in Ronin that merit the price of acquisition. Two of them are French car chases, one along the twisting alleys of Nice, the other through the tunnels and up the wrong side of the carriageway in Paris. It’s a mark of... Read more... |
Fred Vargas: The Accordionist review - intriguing Gallic sleuthing yarnSunday, 13 August 2017
The two haunting series of crime novels by Fred Vargas, the writing pseudonym of a French archaeologist and historian, have acquired a worldwide following: quirky, idiosyncratic, eccentric and beautifully written, they are highly individual and, for... Read more... |
Matisse in the Studio, Royal Academy review - a fascinating compilationFriday, 04 August 2017
A 19th-century silver and wood pot in which to make chocolate, pertly graceful; 17th-century blue and white Delftware; a Chinese calligraphy panel; a 19th-century carved wooden god from the Ivory Coast; a bronze and gold earth goddess from South-... Read more... |
WOMAD 2017, Charlton Park review - multicultural nirvana transcends mud-bath conditionsMonday, 31 July 2017
Now in its 35 year, Womad is embedded into British festival culture, flying the flags of a musical multiculturalism that is about breaking down barriers and building new relationships. It’s not something you want to lose.Aside from pleasurable... Read more... |
DVD: Cézanne et moiFriday, 14 July 2017
For viewers not familiar with the background story of Cézanne et moi – which surely includes most of us without specialist knowledge of late 19th century French artistic and literary culture – the moi of this lavish yet curiously uninvolving double... Read more... |
