history
P.E.Caquet: The Bell of Treason review - the sacrifice of CzechoslovakiaSunday, 26 August 2018
It was 80 years ago next month that Neville Chamberlain returned with the good news of peace in our time. The Munich Agreement was greeted as a triumph for the appeasers. The price Britain had to pay was a minor stain on its conscience: the... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: It Happened HereTuesday, 21 August 2018
Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo’s It Happened Here surely deserves the acclaim often accorded it as “the most ambitious amateur film ever made”, and the rich supporting extras on this BFI dual-format release make clear why. Best of all is a 65-... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Mishima - A Life in Four ChaptersTuesday, 07 August 2018
So much of Japan can be lost in translation, and yet the West is fascinated by a culture that articulates the possibilities of belief and being in such a different mode than our own. Paul Schrader’s now classic 1985 film on the writer and actor... Read more... |
Annie Ernaux: The Years, review - time’s flowSunday, 05 August 2018
“When you were our age, how did you imagine your life? What did you hope for?” It is a video of a classroom south-east of the Périphérique separating Paris from the working-class suburbs. The students are mostly girls between fifteen and sixteen and... Read more... |
Imperium, Gielgud Theatre review - eventful, very eventful, Roman epicThursday, 05 July 2018
History repeats itself. This much we know. In the 1980s, under a Tory government obsessed with cuts, the big new thing was “event theatre”, huge shows that amazed audiences because of their epic qualities and marathon slog. A good example is David... Read more... |
Sancho: An Act of Remembrance, Wilton's Music Hall review - pure entertainmentFriday, 08 June 2018
One space, one person, one story, one voice – the monologue is theatre distilled, the purest form of entertainment. On a stage of packing boxes and boards, over the course of just over an hour, Paterson Joseph relays and plays the life of... Read more... |
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... |
Hip Hop Evolution, Sky Arts review - foundations of a revolutionSaturday, 26 May 2018
Comprehensively charting hip hop’s rise from the underground to the mainstream is no mean feat, but that’s exactly what Canadian MC Shad aims to do over four hour-long episodes. Originally shown in the US in 2016, and available in full on Netflix,... Read more... |
A Change is Gonna Come, Brighton Festival review - lively, winning jazz adventureWednesday, 23 May 2018
Watching this band in action is a treat. They gel absolutely and play off one another in a manner that’s easy and mellow, yet also sparks by occasionally teetering on the edge of their virtuosic abilities. The songs played throughout the evening at... Read more... |
Lessons in Love and Violence, Royal Opera review - savage elegance never quite glows red-hotFriday, 11 May 2018
A rope is mercy; a razor-blade to the throat, a kiss; a red-hot poker… But, of course, we never get anything so literal as the poker in George Benjamin and Martin Crimp’s elegant, insinuating retelling of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II. The title... Read more... |
DVD: Blood and GloryFriday, 13 April 2018
George Orwell’s maxim that sport is war minus the shooting never loses its currency. This summer it may acquire more when the football squads of the pampered west head for Russia. Historically, it applies to a small sub-genre of films about the... Read more... |
DVD: QueeramaTuesday, 27 March 2018
Last year, the BFI commemorated the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality with the release of Queerama, part of its Gross Indecency film season. Now available on DVD, the documentary from Daisy Asquith eschews standard... Read more... |
