history
The Great Fire, ITVFriday, 17 October 2014
It takes some brass neck to look at one of the most destructive events in London’s history, which destroyed a chunk of the poorest part of the city and left an estimated 70,000 people homeless, and think that it wasn’t dramatic enough. But that must... Read more... |
Blenheim Palace: Great War House, ITVFriday, 03 October 2014
Julian Fellowes, now the Conservative peer Lord Fellowes, left behind the fictional world of Gosford Park and Downton Abbey to give us this sumptuous tour of Blenheim Palace. Nor were its surroundings neglected as vista after vista showed us... Read more... |
Patrias, Paco Peña Flamenco Company, Edinburgh PlayhouseThursday, 28 August 2014
Dance as an art form doesn’t have a great track record in social and historical commentary. The endless grey areas, not to mention the complicated details, of history really require words to do them justice. Flamenco, of course, has words, but it’s... Read more... |
Kate Adie's Women of World War One, BBC TwoMonday, 11 August 2014
The role of women during the First World War has been heavily mythologised in a way that has cast them as both the angels of the home front and a force for positive political change. What made this documentary, written and presented by revered war... Read more... |
Art of China, BBC FourThursday, 31 July 2014
If, like me, you switched this on feeling sheepish about your sketchy knowledge of Chinese art, you would have welcomed as a ready-made excuse the news that some monuments synonymous with Chinese culture are relatively recent discoveries. It seems... Read more... |
The Secret History of Our Streets, BBC TwoSaturday, 26 July 2014
Joseph Bullman's first series – about six London streets – won several awards, and deservedly so. Now he has turned his attention to Scotland in a three-parter starting in Edinburgh's Moray Place, and last night's opener was another beautifully... Read more... |
Burning Desire: The Seduction of Smoking, BBC TwoThursday, 29 May 2014
When he's not investigating terrorism and the security services, Peter Taylor can usually be found probing into the tar-dripping innards of the tobacco industry. He's made a string of documentaries about it since the 1970s, as well as writing the... Read more... |
Choreographics, English National Ballet, Barbican PitFriday, 23 May 2014
“We want to be the most creative and the most loved ballet company in this country,” Tamara Rojo told the audience in the Barbican Pit last night. “We want you to love us.” The director of English National Ballet knows a thing or two about gaining... Read more... |
New Worlds, Channel 4Wednesday, 02 April 2014
It's been six years since Peter Flannery's lurid Civil War series The Devil's Whore, which ended shortly after the death of Oliver Cromwell. This sequel, co-written by Flannery and Martine Brant, speeds us forward to 1680, which means Charles II is... Read more... |
The Missing PictureFriday, 03 January 2014
History has been told in many ways on film, but Rithy Panh achieves something new, something unique and unsettling, in The Missing Picture. It’s the story of his native Cambodia, specifically the years from 1975, when the Khmer Rouge occupied the... Read more... |
Henry V, Noel Coward TheatreWednesday, 04 December 2013
It has been a hard slog, but he's emerging victorious in the end. Essentially, Shakespeare's Henry V tracks a military campaign. In Act One, the eponymous king declares war on France. By Act Five, against the odds, he has won and is sealing an... Read more... |
Roberto Devereux, Welsh National OperaThursday, 03 October 2013
Whatever it was about the kings and queens of England that so intrigued Donizetti, it certainly wasn’t their politics. The third, and last, in WNO’s autumn cycle shows Elizabeth once again in a state of unrequited love with one of her rebellious (... Read more... |
