history
Adam Sweeting
Some directors are just grateful that their movies get funded and released, but Robert Redford has loftier aspirations. Scornful of the routine popcorn-spattered multiplex-filler, he thinks we should be prodded to improve our lot by learning the lessons of history, and says he wants to tell stories about "ordinary people that are affected by larger forces out of their control". This lofty blueprint has brought us Bob's latest behind-the-camera odyssey, The Conspirator.It's the story of the aftermath of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, when the American Civil War was Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Continuing BBC Four's trend of creating surprisingly watchable programmes out of dowdy and unpromising ideas, this survey of the plants gardeners love to hate was a mine of information and offered plenty of food for thought. And for that matter, plenty of food, since it appears that wheat has only survived to become one of our top crops because, several thousand years ago, it was genetically beefed up by getting spliced to a weed.What is a weed, anyway? Presenter Chris Collins, a seasoned horticulturist despite his protection-racketish demeanour, came up with several plausible definitions. He Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
There’s a lovely moment in A Midsummer Night’s Dream where Peter Quince assigns roles to his company of rude mechanicals. Unsatisfied with the part of the hero, Bottom interrupts, insisting he be allowed to play not only Pyramus but heroine Thisbe too, as well of course as the murderous lion. It’s hard not to see just a little of Bottom’s eagerness in Simon Callow’s Being Shakespeare – a one-man show penned by Jonathan Bate that casts Callow as Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and Lear, Falstaff and Puck.Originally conceived and performed as The Man From Stratford, Bate’s play has now been reworked Read more ...
josh.spero
The dramatic music, blue-tinged reconstructions and menacing voiceover all suggested that we should be sceptical of World War Two heroine Vera Atkins. The title of the programme indeed, Secret War: The Spymistress and the French Fiasco, told us how we should feel. We know that she was a brave member of the Special Operations Executive, the British department responsible for secret agents in occupied lands, but thankfully this programme came along to debunk her. Or did it?It certainly intended to. The story of how Atkins, a senior operator in charge of the F Section, which ran missions in Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
With The Tudors recently departed from BBC Two, the kindly Channel 4 has stepped in to fill the gap with this new cod-mythological romp through a Middle Ages that never existed. Funnily enough, it comes from the same Irish-Canadian production consortium that cooked up The Tudors, and shares similar attitudes to casting, production values and dialogue.The story so far: Arthur, an insipid blond wimp (Jamie Campbell Bower), spends his time bonking the local wenches, until Merlin (Joseph Fiennes) drops in one day and tells him he's the heir of Uther Pendragon (deceased) and is now King of Britain Read more ...
fisun.guner
Albert Speer was Hitler’s most high-ranking war minister, but just how much was he complicit in Nazi atrocities? Thirty years after his death, and 16 after Gitta Sereny’s controversial biography, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth, Speer remains a most enigmatic figure. Made in 2005 and now released on DVD, Speer and Hitler: The Devil’s Architect (dir: Heinrich Breloer; English subtitles) is an award-winning three-part docudrama that attempts to unravel that enigma.Sebastian Koch, who starred in the outstanding Lives of Others (dir: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck; 2006), plays Speer as the Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It just worked. The rave reactions from critics and audiences, and the hail of Baftas, Oscars and Golden Globes which showered down on it, made it clear that The King's Speech wasn't just any old movie, but a rare moment in cinema history. It cost about $15 million to make, and has grossed $400 million worldwide so far. Now there's music to a producer's ears.Colin Firth's mesmerising portrayal of the stammering Duke of York, thrust traumatically into the imperial limelight by the abdication of his flaky Wallis Simpson-obsessed brother, has elevated him from mere greasepaint aristocracy to the Read more ...
josh.spero
There is little rational explanation for why Giles Coren and Sue Perkins are still on the television, other than that the trained ferrets have still not yet been found. They brought their inimitable, emetic style to royal weddings with last night's Giles and Sue's Royal Wedding on BBC Two. Were one forgiving (very forgiving), you could call their shtick - making every obvious joke going, hamming up their historical situations - ironic.Their series - Giles and Sue camp their way through historical meals - is perfect for wet Tuesday afternoons when the GCSE history students need some time off Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It's unlikely that this soap-esque miniseries about America's most notorious political clan will stir up the kind of furore in Britain that has engulfed it in the States. Over there, merely to mention the Kennedys seems to conjure up visions of a lost Eden (well, Camelot) in which America stood square-jawed against the Russians, won the race to the moon and policed the planet with its colossal Arsenal of Democracy. Add in the horrific assassinations of JFK and his brother Bobby and the obliteration of all that glamour and promise, and it's a great shining myth that even Hollywood has never Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The history of the census is a fascinating one. The Babylonians and the Chinese held censuses mainly for military and taxation purposes, and Egyptians in order to organise the huge number of people required to build the pyramids and to redistribute land following the annual flooding of the Nile. Christians, meanwhile, give thanks for the census that recorded the birth of Jesus of Nazareth; during the five-yearly census ordered by Caesar Augustus, which required every man in the Roman Empire to return to his place of origin, Joseph and the heavily pregnant Mary had travelled to Bethlehem, Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The first thing that must be said is the paintings, captured by Herzog and his crew, are breathtaking beyond description. Among the animals depicted with remarkable clarity are mammoths, horses, bison, rhinoceros, ibex, lions and the only known instance of a panther in paleolithic art. There is even a giant creepy crawly clambering up one wall. And the cave itself is a mini-miracle of preserved evidence. Skulls of a vanished species of bear litter the floor, while their claws left the first scratch marks high on the walls some 40,000 years ago.Herzog has never been a film-maker to swim Read more ...
aleks.sierz
The political background is vital to the play, so pay attention: during the Second World War, the small Baltic state of Latvia was threatened by its two big neighbours, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. In fact, when these countries signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, this document included a secret clause which put Latvia in Russia’s “sphere of influence”. Soon after, Soviet troops occupied the country, only to be chucked out when the Nazis invaded in 1941. Then the Soviets returned at the end of the war, and some Latvians joined the Germans in fighting to keep them out. After the war Read more ...