ancient Rome
Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare's GlobeFriday, 02 May 2014
Lucy Bailey’s Titus Andronicus doesn’t pull any punches (or stabbings, smotherings and throat-slittings, for that matter). Bursting into a Globe smoky with incense, with shouts and drums, forcing itself at us and on us, this is a production whose... Read more... |
The Rape of Lucretia, Glyndebourne TourSunday, 20 October 2013
“Aren’t you sick of Britten yet?” asked a colleague three-quarters of the way through the composer’s centenary year. Absolutely not; there have been revelations and there still remains so much to discover or re-discover. Yet re-evaluation can sour... Read more... |
Total War: Rome IIFriday, 13 September 2013
The greatest strategy videogames deliver a balance of time to think and pressure to act. The greatest strategy videogames deliver the thrill of battle mixed with clear strategic choice. Several entries in the Total War series count as great strategy... Read more... |
Caligula with Mary Beard, BBC TwoTuesday, 30 July 2013
Loving the title. Caligula with Mary Beard. Professor Beard has been mentioned adjacently to some rum types of late. Internet trolls. AA Gill. They pale into nothingness, do they not, next to the emperor who mistook his horse for a consul. And his... Read more... |
Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum, British MuseumSaturday, 30 March 2013
"In the midst of life we are in death.” This is a line we may feel compelled to reverse as we encounter the first exhibits in the British Museum’s extraordinarily powerful exhibition, for this is a display vividly bringing... Read more... |
Julius Caesar, Noël Coward TheatreThursday, 16 August 2012
It’s brave to take Shakespeare into the West End in midsummer – and in this of all summers. Greg Doran’s all-black, African Caesar certainly doesn’t lack for impact, colour, zest, urgency. It takes the audience by the scruff of the neck and rams the... Read more... |
Coriolan/us, National Theatre Wales/RSCFriday, 10 August 2012
National Theatre Wales like the word “us”. It was there in Michael Sheen’s Passion of Port Talbot – its film adaptation was called The Gospel of Us – and it is here, prominently, in the multi-layered title of Mike Pearson and Mike Brookes’ latest... Read more... |
A Monstrous Reflection: on staging CaligulaFriday, 25 May 2012
"How light power would be and easy to dismantle no doubt, if all it did was to observe, spy, detect, prohibit, and punish; but it incites, provokes, produces. It is not simply eye and ear: it makes people act and speak." Michel Foucault,... Read more... |
Caractacus, Worcester Cathedral, Three Choirs FestivalThursday, 11 August 2011
“The text of Britain’s teaching, the message of the free…”. No, not the Last Night of the Proms or the Olympic Games ahead of time. This is the final chorus of Elgar’s concert-length cantata Caractacus, which was given a vigorous work-out in this... Read more... |
The Coronation of Poppea, King's Head TheatreMonday, 18 April 2011
When OperaUpClose's bar-side production of La bohème beat the ENO and Royal Opera House to the Olivier Awards' Best New Production gong earlier this year, it was hard - even in these award-sceptical parts - not to delight in the David versus Goliath... Read more... |
The EagleTuesday, 22 March 2011
A chorus of "Hooray! No CGI!" has greeted Kevin Macdonald's new film version of Rosemary Sutcliff's popular novel, The Eagle of the Ninth. Not for him a Gladiator-style digital Rome, or Troy-like computer-generated navies stretching away into... Read more... |
Dispatches: Train Journeys from Hell, Channel 4/ Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, Sky 1Monday, 21 March 2011
It would take the cunning of the insane to invent the British railway network. Privatised 18 years ago, it offers the worst of all worlds - persistent overcrowding and cancellations, outdated rolling stock and fares rising vertiginously as... Read more... |
