Entertainment
Joyce Glasser reviews White Elephant
- Monday, 29 April 2013
Argentinean Director Pablo Trapero makes films about his country’s specific social problems, but turns them into universal dramas that continually confound our expectations and avoid clichés. Lion’s Den was shot in an actual maximum security prison for women with children, while Carancho tackled personal injury scams in the motor insurance industry that kill 8,000 Argentineans a year. White Elephant is about priests and social workers who risk their lives in
The film is inspired by, and dedicated to Father Carlos Mugica, a highly educated Roman Catholic priest and activist born into a wealthy politically Conservative family in 1930. The two priests who star in White Elephant are a composite of Mugica who worked in the slums of
Robert Tanitch reviews Ballo at King’s Head, Islington, London.
- Friday, 26 April 2013
King Gustav III of Sweden was assassinated at a masked ball in 1792. When Verdi decided to turn history into opera he had to appease the censor who didn’t want a monarch murdered on the stage. The characters’ names, the location and the century were all changed. The opera was a great success in 1859.
Adam Spreadbury-Maher, artistic director of OperaUpClose, has decided to set the story in a modern, out-of-town Swedish furniture store, sub-title it Meatballs and Murder on the North Circular, and perform it in the round to the accompaniment of a piano.
Robert Tanitch reviews My Perfect Mind at Young Vic/Maria Theatre
- Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Edward Petherbridge had his first big chance when he created Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at the National Theatre in 1967 and he went on to have a distinguished career in the classical theatre.
Petherbridge was two days into rehearsing King Lear in New Zealand in 2007 when he suffered a stroke which left him paralyzed; but his memory remained intact. He still knew all his lines.
Robert Tanitch reviews Doktor Glas at Wyndham’s Theatre
- Tuesday, 23 April 2013
Jag har inte läst boken och jag talar inte svenska, or, as we say in English, I have not read the book and I do not speak Swedish.
Hjalmar Soderberg’s novel of love and guilt, a psychological crisis, was published in 1905. It is a modern Swedish classic. I tried to get hold of an English translation; but none is in print.
Can Krister Henriksson, the Swedish actor, who is best known to British audiences through his appearance on television in the Wallander series, fill Wyndham’s Theatre for 39 performances? The theatre seats 759. There are 25,000 Swedes living in the UK. That should help.
Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVDs
- Monday, 22 April 2013
BLOOD SIMPLE (StudioCanal). A private eye is paid to kill a couple but thingsactually turn out extremely differently than expected through a misunderstanding. The Coen Brothers made a memorable debut in 1984 with this stylish, first class noir thriller, the blackest of black comedies, one of the best, a classic, full of irony, totally gripping, and sometimes very brutal. There is a terrific performance from M Emmet Walsh as the detective.
Joyce Glasser reviews Rebellion
- Monday, 22 April 2013
French Actor/Director Mathieu Kassovitz’s 1995 film, La Haine (Hate) became a benchmark for dozens of gritty, neo-realistic films depicting young immigrants marginalised on ghetto-like housing estates. If his films since then – Crimson Rivers, Gothika and
Joyce Glasser reviews Olympus Has Fallen
- Monday, 22 April 2013
Director Antoine Fuqua’s (
Robert Tanitch reviews The Breadwinner at Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, Surrey
- Monday, 22 April 2013
Somerset Maugham was the most popular playwright in England in the first three decades of the 20th century and in the high comedy stakes he bridged the gap between Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward. He has long been out of fashion but his best comedies of manners, Our Betters (1917) and The Circle (1921), deserve to be revived.
The Breadwinner dates from 1930 and is one of his last plays. A middle-aged stockbroker (Ian Targett), facing bankruptcy, refuses all financial help and tells his family he is fed up with them and that he is moving out for good. He is no longer prepared to waste the rest of his life doing things that bore him for people in whom he takes no interest. He wants a life of his own.
Robert Tanitch reviews Ecstasy & Death at London Coliseum
- Monday, 22 April 2013
Ecstasy & Death is a good box office title for English National Ballet’s demanding triple bill which gets off to a thrilling start with Jiri Kylian's PETITE MORT (1991), which is performed to two Mozart concertos, and which opens with an impressive display of swordsmanship. The fencing foils spinning in sync seem to have a life of their own. The choreography, with its sexual energy and tensions, looks fiendishly difficult.
Roland Petit’s LE JEUNE HOMME ET LA MORT (1946), based on a short poem by Jean Cocteau and set to Bach’s Passacaglia, tells the story of an artist who is driven to suicide by his faithless, bitchy lover, who provides him with a noose to do it. Set in a Parisian attic it is a typical French drama of the period, with its caricature of a femme fatale, its erotic frustration, its preoccupation with death, its post-war existentialism, and its Gauloise cigarettes. The role, brilliantly created by Jean Babilee and famously performed by Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Barryshnikov, is dramatically danced and acted by Nicolas Le Roche (no longer a jeune homme at 41 but still very impressive in his agility) and Tamara Rojo in the role of Lover as Death.
More Articles...
- A taste for life
- Joyce Glasser reviews Love Is All You Need
- Charlie Hill reviews Priscilla Queen of the Desert at the Bristol Hippodrome
- Robert Tanitch reviews Beautiful Thing at Arts Theatre, London WC2
- Robert Tanitch reviews Children of the Sun at National Theatre/Lyttelton
- Over-50s arts festival returns in May
- Eileen Caiger-Gray reviews The Rocky Horror Show
- Joyce Glasser reviews The Place Beyond The Pines
- Joyce Glasser reviews Oblivion
