Paris
Abel Selaocoe, Bouffes du Nord, Paris review - awakening the ancestorsThursday, 03 November 2022
A tall African man stands alone in a pool of light. He has a cello and an immensely versatile voice. In a matter seconds, he holds the audience enchanted. He inhabits the stage as if it were by a campfire in the bush.The Bouffes du Nord, the Paris... Read more... |
La bohème, Glyndebourne Tour review - Death and the Parisienne doing the roundsFriday, 14 October 2022
The sopranos are Ethiopian-Italian and Hispanic-American, the tenor Uzbek, the baritones South African (no EU principals, but it seems you can't have everything). This is opera at its best: the cream of international singers coming together to make... Read more... |
Mrs Harris Goes to Paris review - Lesley Manville as a Fifties charlady with a heart of goldSaturday, 01 October 2022
Mrs Harris Goes to Paris, based on Paul Gallico’s 1958 novel, is preposterous. But it’s as pretty as a pink cloud. The director, Anthony Fabian, knows that in these grim times, escapism is good box office.But still, would it hurt to get some... Read more... |
Eiffel review - sensuous secret historyFriday, 12 August 2022
This is a romantic historical epic with elan, giving sensual immediacy to a fanciful secret history of the Eiffel Tower, here inspired by a forbidden, rekindled romance between Gustave Eiffel (Romain Duris) and Arlette Bourgès (Sex Education’s Emma... Read more... |
Margot La Rouge/Le Villi, Opera Holland Park review – Parisian fancies and Black Forest gâteauFriday, 22 July 2022
Take an opera newbie along to Opera Holland Park’s double bill of rarities and they may have both their worst fears and their highest hopes confirmed. Outlandish plotting, overwrought melodrama and preposterous, supernatural stage business abounds.... Read more... |
Blu-ray: PickpocketTuesday, 12 July 2022
Pickpocket regularly makes it into the list of best films of all times. It is a film-maker’s film, more of an essay on the art of cinema and a discourse on crime than a thriller. Much French art house cinema is characterised by serious intent and... Read more... |
We (Nous) review - a low-key look at life in the suburbs of ParisTuesday, 28 June 2022
Director Alice Diop read an article by Pierre Bergounioux in which he described how he began writing to draw attention to his overlooked neck of the woods – Correze, in central France. It was a lightbulb moment for her: “My approach as a film-maker... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Last MetroTuesday, 14 June 2022
The Last Metro (Le dernier métro), from 1980, is without doubt one of François Truffaut’s best films: a story beautifully told, strong on character, sometimes funny and always profoundly moving. Most of the credit has gone to Truffaut and co-stars... Read more... |
10 Questions for art historian and fiction writer Chloë AshbySaturday, 11 June 2022
“Is she at a pivotal point in her life but unable to pivot…?” Eve, the young heroine of Chloë Ashby’s dazzling debut novel, Wet Paint, asks this question standing in front of Édouard Manet’s painting "A Bar at the Folies-Bergère" (1882). Yet she... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The 400 BlowsTuesday, 19 April 2022
Many groundbreaking cinema classics remain frozen in a particular zeitgeist, but François Truffaut’s first feature, from the early days of the French New Wave, is not one of them. Released in 1959, The 400 Blows (Les 400 coups) is so adventurous in... Read more... |
Pionnières: Artistes dans le Paris des années folles, Musée du Luxembourg, Paris review - thrilling and slightly flawedWednesday, 16 March 2022
The hidden history of women artists continues to generate some ground-breaking exhibitions that contribute to a radical re-assessment of art and cultural history. This is a welcome trend, though not entirely without risk, as a new show in Paris... Read more... |
Surrealism Beyond Borders, Tate Modern review - a disappointing mish mashMonday, 14 March 2022
The night after visiting Tate Modern’s Surrealism Beyond Borders I dreamt that a swarm of wasps had taken refuge inside my skull and I feared it would hurt when they nibbled their way out again.If I painted a self-portrait with wasps escaping from... Read more... |
