Naples
The Hand of God review - Sorrentino's unsentimental educationThursday, 16 December 2021
“It was the hand of God,” says the Neapolitan family patriarch about a rather unexpected consequence of Maradona's coming to play for the city’s team. That gives us a date, 1984, and, while the adolescent protagonist Fabietto remains in Naples, a... Read more... |
Elena Ferrante: The Lying Life of Adults review - a universal Neapolitan adolescenceSunday, 23 August 2020
The protagonist is a Neapolitan teenage girl; the settings move between the upper and lower parts, from the Vomero area on the hill to the industrial zone, of a city which has long been the main territory of the writer who calls herself Elena... Read more... |
Piranhas review - riding with the teenage gangs of NaplesThursday, 23 July 2020
Roberto Saviano’s book Gomorrah shone a blinding light on the Camorra crime clans of Naples, and spun off an acclaimed film and equally admired TV series. This film version of his 2016 novel La paranza dei bambini (“The Children’s Gang”) isn’t in... Read more... |
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... |
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