France
Les Parents Terribles, Trafalgar StudiosMonday, 29 November 2010
This is the final production in the Donmar Warehouse’s 12-week season at Trafalgar Studios (which showcases the work of its resident assistant directors) and is a revival of Jeremy Sams’s translation of Jean Cocteau’s play - first seen in Sean... Read more... |
Of Gods and MenSunday, 28 November 2010
It has been one of the most surprising hits this year in French cinemas - a mostly male film which poses deep and pertinent questions about religion or, more specifically, religions. Its ultimate theme is the price of Christian devotion. Of Gods and... Read more... |
Steven Isserlis, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Viviane Hagner, Wigmore HallFriday, 12 November 2010
First, an admission. I have a blindspot for the chamber work of Fauré, Saint-Saëns and Ravel. I've tried my best, acquainted myself with the most stirring recordings of the finest pieces, got friends to hold my hand. But I've never been able to... Read more... |
My Afternoons with MargueritteSunday, 07 November 2010
These days Gérard Depardieu looks as though he wouldn't need much padding to play Obélix again. Though he continues to work with some of the biggest names in French cinema, it has been a while since he really surprised us, maybe because he's now... Read more... |
Roméo et Juliette, Royal OperaWednesday, 27 October 2010
We sophisticates aren't really meant to enjoy Gounod. His simple 19th-century brew - five parts sentimentality, one part religiosity - isn't supposed to wash with modern palettes that crave layers of meaning, irony and social context. The ENO's... Read more... |
The Misanthrope, Bristol Old VicThursday, 07 October 2010
When Tony Harrison transposed his version of Molière’s The Misanthrope from the 17th century to the early 1970s, he managed with his characteristic and brilliant combination of savagery and wit to make the play feel totally contemporary. For... Read more... |
Les Pêcheurs de Perles in concert, Royal Opera HouseMonday, 04 October 2010
Ditch the divers, the video-projected sea and the Relevance with a capital R of ENO's production last season - which managed all three very well indeed - and what remains of Bizet's Pearl Fishers in concert (and in French)? Three ravishing arias,... Read more... |
Gauguin: Maker of Myth, Tate ModernThursday, 30 September 2010
Gauguin has always been the poor relation in the art-legend sweepstakes. Unlike Van Gogh, there is no heartwarming story of overcoming lack of technical facility; no ghoulishly enjoyable story of genius crushed by madness. Instead, there is a... Read more... |
Enter the VoidThursday, 23 September 2010
The constant strobing lights us white like we’re watching an Atom bomb test. From its garish credit sequence to the somehow inevitable vagina’s view of a penetrating penis, Enter the Void attempts assaultive cinema. You’d expect no less from Gaspar... Read more... |
On Adapting Birdsong for the StageThursday, 23 September 2010
I remember walking into the Hawthorn Ridge cemetery, seeing a grave of a 20-year-old boy who died on 1 July, 1916, and knowing for the first time why Sebastian Faulks needed to write Birdsong, and why I desperately wanted it to live and breathe and... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Cambridge: 30th Cambridge Film FestivalSunday, 19 September 2010
Cambridge is in pre-term cocktail mood, almost. Its Film Festival slips in after Locarno and Venice, and as Toronto ends, and before Rome (increasingly important) and London (internationally a struggler) start. It tilts in the same direction as the... Read more... |
Phoenix, Picture House, EdinburghSunday, 29 August 2010
The French have got serious form when it comes to twisting the determinedly uncool into something hip, a fact Phoenix illustrated so winningly last year with Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, a beautifully crafted album of mid-tempo soft rock which lounged... Read more... |
