Naples
My Brilliant Friend, Season 2: The Story of a New Name, Sky Atlantic review – a troubling friendship deepensTuesday, 30 June 2020
In her surprisingly self-revealing collection of essays and interviews Frantumaglia (Neapolitan dialect word for a disquieting jumble of ideas), the writer who calls herself Elena Ferrante often ponders the metamorphosis from novel to film. “The... Read more... |
My Brilliant Friend, National Theatre review - sleek spectacle almost eats its charactersWednesday, 27 November 2019
It took no time for Elena Ferrante's two Neapolitan friends to join the ranks of great literary creations: Lenù as successful writer-narrator, critical of her past ambivalence; Lila the unknowable fascinator, her brilliance often diverted into... Read more... |
My Brilliant Friend, Sky Atlantic review - rich revelations of childhoodTuesday, 20 November 2018
This opening episode of My Brilliant Friend was a stunning symphony in grey. For any viewers concerned that HBO’s long-awaited Elena Ferrante adaptation might be tempted to sweeten the visual experience of the writer’s impoverished 1950s Naples... Read more... |
Così fan tutte, Opera Holland Park review - the pain behind the prettinessSaturday, 02 June 2018
A proper production of Così fan tutte should make you feel as if the script for a barrel-scraping Carry On film has been hi-jacked by Shakespeare and Chekhov – working as a team. The story is so silly (even nasty), the music so sublime. When, in... Read more... |
Gomorrah, Series 3, Sky Atlantic review - there will be bloodFriday, 02 February 2018
No doubt McMafia has its strengths, but it’s like a mug of Horlicks compared to the grappa-with-aviation-fuel blast of Gomorrah (Sky Atlantic). The Naples-set organised crime drama takes no prisoners. It gives no quarter, and expects none.As a... Read more... |
Andreas Scholl, Accademia Bizantina, BarbicanThursday, 16 March 2017
Marian devotions have given us some of sacred music’s most striking works, from graceful Ave Marias to anguished settings of the Stabat Mater. Andreas Scholl and musicologist Bernardo Ticci have recently gone in search of some less familiar ones –... Read more... |
Michael Palin’s Quest for Artemisia, BBC FourTuesday, 29 December 2015
For his latest journey Michael Palin, actor, writer, novelist, comedian, Python, traveller, has gone beyond geography in search of the visual arts with his characteristic enthusiasm, eclectic curiosity, and sense of discovery.With his usual... Read more... |
Royal Danish Ballet Soloists and Principals, Peacock Theatre, LondonSaturday, 10 January 2015
“A link in the chain of beauty” – that’s how the choreographer August Bournonville, in the 1840s, wanted every dancer in the Royal Danish Ballet to regard their art. And, remarkably, the chain of beauty we now call the Bournonville style has... Read more... |
Così fan tutte, European Opera Centre, RLPO, Pillot, St George’s Hall Concert Room, LiverpoolTuesday, 15 July 2014
One of the joys of attending an opera in the Concert Room at St George’s Hall, Liverpool, is the feeling that the audience is sitting in the set itself. Now one of the city’s foremost concert venues, this Victorian gem never ceases to amaze, even... Read more... |
DVD: Le mani sulla cittàSunday, 30 March 2014
Hands Over the City is to Naples at a crucial point in its 20th-century history what Rossellini’s Roma, città aperta is to the Italian capital and Visconti’s La terra trema to the Sicilian coast. Francesco Rosi’s decision to capture the only boom... Read more... |
Inner Voices, BarbicanFriday, 28 March 2014
We’ve now learned from the films of Paolo Sorrentino and honorary Roman Ferzan Ozpetek what great and nuanced ensemble acting the Italians can produce. Even so, the towering star of the current scene is the chameleonic Toni Servillo, already hailed... Read more... |
The Other Pompeii: Life and Death in Herculaneum, BBC TwoTuesday, 02 April 2013
Ten years ago Peter Nicholson made a BBC drama about Pompeii and its destruction. This fictionalised reconstruction, depicting made-up characters in togas saying made-up things, sounded cheesier than a pound of Brie, but was actually completely... Read more... |
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