South Africa
Album: Charles Webster - Decision TimeWednesday, 18 November 2020
Charles Webster is one of those connecting figures who make the idea of “the underground” seem quite convincing. Originally from the Peak District but coming of musical age in Nottingham, he was inspired by Chicago house and Detroit techno music... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Dudu Phukwana and the "Spears"Sunday, 09 August 2020
Whether explicitly or indirectly, what’s written on a master tape box can tantalise. Revealing part of a picture creates a desire to want to know more. Take the example seen above. It’s for an album by South African alto saxist Dudu Pukwana. The... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: MoffieTuesday, 14 July 2020
Characterised by jarring juxtapositions of intense, appalling violence and the serene beauty of South Africa, Oliver Hermanus’ fourth feature is the story of a young man coming to terms with his sexuality against the background of apartheid and... Read more... |
Moffie review - heart rates will rise with Oliver Hermanus’ powerful war filmThursday, 23 April 2020
Oliver Hermanus’ potent fourth feature Moffie certainly has a controversial film title. A homophobic slur, it can be translated from Afrikaans as "faggot". If you were to see buses with film posters emblazoned with the title in translation... Read more... |
Album: Shabaka & the Ancestors - We are Sent Here by HistoryThursday, 12 March 2020
Londoner Shabaka Hutchings's other main groups, The Comet Is Coming and Sons Of Kemet, are pretty modernist. They incorporate dub, post-rock, post punk and rhythm patterns that recall London pirate radio sounds into the playing of his ensembles,... Read more... |
Escape from Pretoria review - fun but facile prison-break dramaWednesday, 04 March 2020
Based on the book by former political prisoner Tim Jenkin, Escape from Pretoria is an intermittently engaging jailbreak tale set in South Africa’s apartheid regime in the 1970s, as well as further evidence of Daniel Radcliffe’s determination to run... Read more... |
Kunene and the King, Ambassadors Theatre review - a Shakespearean voyage through the legacy of apartheidThursday, 30 January 2020
John Kani’s Kunene and the King is history in microcosm. Its premiere at the RSC last year, in this co-production with Cape Town’s Fugard Theatre, coincided with the 25th anniversary of the end of apartheid, offering a chance to assess the momentous... Read more... |
Dada Masilo's Giselle, Sadler's Wells review - bold, brutal, unforgivingTuesday, 08 October 2019
The most arresting thing about Dada Masilo’s contemporary South African take on Giselle is Masilo herself. Tiny and boyishly slight, she inhabits her own fast, fidgety, tribal-inspired choreography with the intensity of someone in a trance. Costumed... Read more... |
'Master Harold' ... and the Boys, National Theatre review - timelessly movingWednesday, 02 October 2019
Time has been kind to Athol Fugard's "Master Harold"...and the Boys. It's a stealth bomb of a play that I saw in its world premiere production in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1982 and that has been a regular part of my playgoing life ever since. Yes,... Read more... |
CD: Africa Express - EgoliFriday, 05 July 2019
Damon Albarn isn’t just a national treasure but an international one. He seems to spread his reach so widely, with a mix of curiosity and boundless energy, a great deal of discernment and a vision as different as possible from the narrow-minded... Read more... |
SS Mendi: Dancing the Death Drill, Isango Ensemble, Linbury Theatre - evocative and essential lyric theatreSaturday, 20 April 2019
While Bach's and Handel's Passions have been driving thousands to contemplate suffering, mortality and grace, this elegy for black lives lost over a century ago also chimes movingly with pre-Easter offerings. First seen in Southampton last year as a... Read more... |
Blood Knot, Orange Tree Theatre review - defining apartheid-era drama delivers afreshSaturday, 23 March 2019
London's impromptu mini-season devoted to the work of Athol Fugard picks up real steam with Blood Knot, Matthew Xia's transfixing take on one of the benchmark titles of the apartheid era and beyond. I first encountered this play during its Tony-... Read more... |
