16th century
Sarah Kent
Despite the fact that it’s a cruel depiction of an aging woman, I have always loved Quinten Massys’ The Ugly Duchess (pictured below, left). The Flemish artist invites us to laugh at an old dear who, in the hope of attracting a suitor, has tucked her hair into a horned headdress and decked herself in a décolleté gown that exposes her wrinkled cleavage. Even in 1513, her ridiculous outfit would have been outmoded. In her hand she holds a rosebud, suggestive of amorous intent; the implication is that this misguided soul has donned her youthful finery in an attempt to regain her lost allure and Read more ...
David Nice
When the first volume of Estonian master Jaan Kross’s peerless historical trilogy first appeared in an English translation by Merike Lepasaar Beecher back in 2016, what leapt out at me about this fictionalised saga about the adventures of real-life chronicler Balthasar Russow was how much it had in common with the Thomas Cromwell of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall.Like Cromwell, Russow came from humble stock – though whether the peasantry into which he was born was Estonian-speaking, as Kross assumes, is open to question – and rose to mingle with aristocracy and royalty, a thorn in the side of many Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
“It was like Woodstock on steroids,” opines an expert in Netflix’s new release about the doomed marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn (yes, another one).Not sure you remember anything of that description from your history lessons? That would be the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the lavish spectacle staged near Calais in 1520 for a summit between Henry and François I of France. This remark should tell you the key thing you need to know about Blood, Sex & Royalty. It’s probably not for you, unless you are vetting it on behalf of teenage offspring. Its mesh of costumed soap with Read more ...
David Kettle
"The poem is real," intones entertainer-turned-courtier Ellen solemnly as a prologue and epilogue to Rona Munro’s vivid, vibrant new James IV: Queen of the Fight, presented by Scottish producers Raw Material and Edinburgh’s Capital Theatres in association with the National Theatre of Scotland, and getting its premiere at the city’s Festival Theatre before a Scotland-wide tour.It’s the follow-up – and latest in a projected series of no fewer than seven historical plays (the sixth, Mary, opens soon at London’s Hampstead Theatre) – to Munro’s James Plays trilogy unveiled at the Edinburgh Read more ...
Matt Wolf
"Get out!" The order, spoken some way into the third and final episode of Channel 5's entry into the Tudor drama sweepstakes, Anne Boleyn, certainly seizes one's attention. Not only is our doomed heroine snapping under pressure on the way to one of history's most-chronicled deaths, but her command to Thomas Cromwell marks one of the very few times across nearly three largely prosaic hours that Jodie Turner-Smith, in the title role, raises her voice. For most of the rest of the director Lynsey Miller's retread of this time-honoured story, Turner-Smith speaks in an often coy, whispery purr Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
For their concert debut at St Martin-in-the-Fields, The Gesualdo Six brought a programme of English motets for the final instalment in the venue's trio of Easter concerts. Having come together for a one-off project in 2014, singing Carlo Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories for Maundy Thursday, this young, all-male ensemble found their vocal chemistry worked so well they carried on making music together. Though Gesualdo was absent from this performance, the works performed were all from around his time, opening with Orlando Gibbons’s "Come oh Holy Ghost".The group have a remarkable blend, Read more ...
Robert Beale
There’s an atmosphere of tender restraint through most of the programme created by Ruby Hughes and Manchester Collective for Lakeside Arts at the University of Nottingham. It was streamed live yesterday afternoon, and, as is the way with most performances just now, was in an empty hall, with its slightly strange "empty" acoustic affecting the spoken word as the artists introduced their music.Talking to an audience is very much the style of Manchester Collective, though, and artistic director Rakhi Singh does it with natural ease even when she can’t see who she’s talking to. She and the other Read more ...
Saskia Baron
Terrence Malick completists might consider this Blu-ray of The New World the dream version. Criterion's three-disc release contains the three different cuts of Malick's 2005 opus, which critics either believe is an incomparable masterpiece or an overly lavish work of self-indulgence.As well as a 4K restoration of the 172-minute version, there’s the 135-minute theatrical cut and the 150-minute first cut. Also included are an on-set documentary and new interviews with the producer, the production designer, the editors, and the stars, all of whom speak reverentially of Malick and made Read more ...
Jill Chuah Masters
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 commodity these days.Andy (Charlize Theron) leads a band of renegades who use their immortality to thwart crime. Their secret power makes them outcasts, so their existence is increasingly threatened by surveillance and modern technology. A new immortal, Nile (KiKi Layne), joins their ranks at the exact moment that their freedom is most threatened. Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
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 individual paintings, 10 in all starting with Leonardo's Mona Lisa.The “greatest” in the title is misleading, as this handful of the world’s best-known paintings are not necessarily the best. Aesthetically, the jury has long been out as to the quality of this early 16th century portrait. Her enigmatic smile fascinates, but she only leapt into mega- Read more ...
David Nice
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 deserves. Before the reading came the very public coronation of The Mirror & the Light, Mantel ubiquitous throughout, but always her unique, authentic and incorruptible self. Never, surely, has a greater novel deserved such a fanfaring blaze of publicity.How, then, to incorporate an element of thriller to an end we already know? It's all in Read more ...
mark.kidel
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 Legend of the Mountain (1979). The director's trailblazing and stylish work inspired the later renaissance of wuxia films, with Ang Lee’s masterful Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Zhang Yimou’s House of Flying Daggers (2004)The action, overflowing with complex and unfolding intrigue, takes place in 16th century Ming dynasty China, in a Read more ...