16th century
The Old Guard review - serious sillinessThursday, 09 July 2020
It’s hard to take The Old Guard seriously — it’s an action film about thousand-year-old immortal warriors. Pulpy flashbacks and fake blood abounds. But The Old Guard doesn’t need to be serious or even memorable: it’s a fun, feel-good film, a rare... Read more... |
The World's Greatest Paintings, Channel 5 review - enthusiastic presenter but no dazzling revelationsSunday, 07 June 2020
Andrew Marr’s art show is a lot of fun, although engulfed in almost overwhelming banality and cliché. Our enthusiastic presenter is a self-confessed addict of art. As a pillar of television presentation, he is a natural for this series looking at... Read more... |
Hilary Mantel: The Mirror & the Light review - magnificence must have an endSunday, 12 April 2020
Praise be to quarantine days for the chance to savour this, the crowning glory of the Wolf Hall trilogy - if not with the supernatural vigilance and attentiveness of Thomas Cromwell himself, then at least with something of the leisurely diligence it... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Raining in the MountainTuesday, 03 March 2020
King Hu is the original master of wuxia or martial arts films – visual feasts of balletic conflict and near-slapstick humour – and this 1979 film is one of his best, though perhaps less well-known than Dragon Inn (1967), A Touch of Zen (1971) and... Read more... |
Royal History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley, BBC Four review - is this version more valid than anyone else's?Tuesday, 18 February 2020
Perhaps somebody at BBC Four has had a quiet word with Lucy Worsley, because in this first of a new three-part series she did hardly did any of her usual irritating dressing up. There had to be a bit, though. She appeared briefly as a monk carrying... Read more... |
Requiem for Hieronymus Bosch, BBCSO, Bychkov, Barbican review – fire and brimstone on a flat canvasMonday, 09 December 2019
“Hieronymus!” bellowed David Wilson Johnson from the Barbican Hall’s circle on Saturday evening. “Hieronymus Bosch!” Commissioned by Dutch radio for a big piece to mark 500 years since the passing of the Dutch painter in 1516, the German composer... Read more... |
The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's Globe review - a gallimaufry of acting stylesWednesday, 29 May 2019
Need Shakespeare 's Falstaff charm to be funny? Those warm, indulgent feelings won by Mrisho Mpoto in the amazing Globe to Globe's Swahili Merry Wives and by Christopher Benjamin in a period-pretty version are rarely encouraged by this season's... Read more... |
Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing, The Queen's Gallery review - peerless drawings, rarely seenWednesday, 29 May 2019
It is a commonplace to describe Leonardo as an enigma whose genius, and perhaps even something of his character, is revealed through his works. But as his works survive only in incomplete and fragmented form, it is drawing, the practice common to... Read more... |
Man of La Mancha, London Coliseum review - historical work better left in the pastWednesday, 01 May 2019
English National Opera continues its run of semi-staged musicals, in commercial collaboration with Grade Linnit, with a revival of this vintage oddity. Mind, commercial might be a stretch, as Dale Wasserman, Joe Darion and Mitch Leigh's 1965 work –... Read more... |
First Person: Robert Hollingworth on I Fagiolini's 'Leonardo - Shaping the Invisible'Friday, 26 April 2019
Leonardo da Vinci died 500 years ago on 2 May this year. We all know he was a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, pioneer of flight and anatomist – yet according to Vasari, Leonardo’s first job outside Florence was as a result of his musical... Read more... |
Mary Queen of Scots review - Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie excelSaturday, 19 January 2019
Very much a woman of today, the Catholic Stuart heroine (Saoirse Ronan) of Mary Queen of Scots frequently hacks her way out of a thicket of power-hungry males, enjoys it when her English suitor Lord Darnley (Jack Lowden) goes down on her, and is... Read more... |
Ralegh: the Treason Trial, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - gripping verbatim court caseThursday, 29 November 2018
Forget the cloak in the puddle. Never mind potatoes and tobacco. The children's book cliché of Sir Walter Raleigh (or Ralegh as he seems to have preferred in an age of changeable spelling) represents little of the real man and is at best misleading... Read more... |
