India
Hotel Mumbai review – Dev Patel shines in harrowing real-life dramaThursday, 26 September 2019
Like recent films about the Anders Breivik terror attacks in Norway, Hotel Mumbai unavoidably raises questions of taste. Do audiences really need to be subjected to harrowing recreations of real-life suffering, when the events themselves... Read more... |
theartsdesk Radio Show 24 - hot subcontinental sounds with guest Viveick RajagopalanSaturday, 21 September 2019
This episode of Peter Culshaw's occasional global music radio update features guest interview Viveick Rajagopalan, one of the hits of this summers WOMAD Festival. He talks (from 40 minutes in) about how he mixes South Indian rhythms and contemporary... Read more... |
A Doll's House, Lyric Hammersmith review - Ibsen tellingly transposed to colonial IndiaThursday, 12 September 2019
Newly arrived from a much-lauded stint at the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, Rachel O'Riordan has undertaken to make "work of scale by women" during her time as artistic director of the Lyric. What better place to start than with Ibsen's once-shocking... Read more... |
William Dalrymple: The Anarchy review – masterly history of the first rogue corporationSunday, 08 September 2019
Serious historians don’t much care for counter-factual speculations. Readers, however, often enjoy them. So here’s mine. In 1780, the seemingly invincible forces of the East India Company had suffered a crushing defeat at Pollilur, west of Madras.... Read more... |
Photograph review - a fresh take on old love storiesFriday, 02 August 2019
“Movies are all the same,” says one character in Photograph, the latest film from India independent director, Ritesh Batra. It’s true, the plot feels familiar, but if stories are all the same, it’s how you play with the form that makes a film a... Read more... |
WOMAD, Charlton Park review - a gloriously defiant global music celebrationThursday, 01 August 2019
This was a year of superb musical standards, smooth organisation and a real sense of celebration. In the last couple of years, WOMAD being more liberal and internationalist than nearly anywhere else, there was a sense in the air of a collective... Read more... |
Beecham House, ITV review - a cartoon version of 18th century IndiaMonday, 24 June 2019
It has become routine to accuse Brexiteers of wanting to bring back the British Empire (though obviously it's OK to run an empire from Brussels), but the charge might more accurately be levelled at ITV. They’ve brought the ratings rolling in with... Read more... |
10 Questions for Musician Soumik DattaTuesday, 30 April 2019
“I think we need to get rid of labels, certainly World Music,” insists Soumik Datta, who is both composer and musician, and has lived in the UK since the age of 11. “It is possible to be a musician in the Indian tradition, as well as an electronic... Read more... |
Hussain, Symphony Orchestra of India, Dalal, Symphony Hall, Birmingham review - new sounds from a new bandWednesday, 20 February 2019
For its first ever performance in this country, the Symphony Orchestra of India - formed in only 2006 - kicked off its UK tour in spectacular style at Symphony Hall, Birmingham yesterday evening. Based at the National Centre of Performing Arts in... Read more... |
The Sound of Movie Musicals with Neil Brand, BBC Four review - genius of song and danceSaturday, 22 December 2018
The movie musical: money making or true art – or both? This was a programme to sing along to, in the company of Judy Garland and Gene Kelly, Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard. In this second instalment of Neil Brand’s brilliant three-part history, he... Read more... |
An Adventure, Bush Theatre review - epic but flawedSaturday, 15 September 2018
Director Madani Younis, who since 2011 has transformed the Bush Theatre in West London into one of London's most outstanding Off-West End venues, is leaving in December, on his way to becoming the creative director of the Southbank Centre. For his... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: ShirazTuesday, 13 March 2018
The subtitle of Franz Osten’s 1928 film, A Romance of India, says it all: this Indian silent film is a tremendous watch, a revelation of screen energy and visual delight. An epic love story-cum-weepie with lashings of action and intrigue thrown in,... Read more... |
