religion
The Heresy of Love, Shakespeare's GlobeThursday, 06 August 2015
Helen Edmundson’s The Heresy of Love may be set in 17th century Mexico and follow the conflict between strict religion and personal development, but its theme of a woman denied her voice by a surrounding male hierarchy retains real contemporary... Read more... |
Buddha: Genius of the Ancient World, BBC FourThursday, 06 August 2015
This programme was a puzzle. It didn't quite work, and it should have worked an absolute treat, as Buddhism is in some respects the religion, or rather the way of life, that has more and more caught the attention of the West in terms of scholarship... Read more... |
10 Questions for Broadcaster Bettany HughesSunday, 26 July 2015
How do you live a good life? Is wealth a good thing? How do you create a just society? The United Kingdom's electorate recently pondered such questions in the polling booth, and made their decision. The Labour Party is agonising over them as it... Read more... |
Sex and the Church, BBC TwoSaturday, 11 April 2015
I’ve got no idea what the opposite of dumbing down might be. Swatting up? Whatever it is, it’s surely going to set the tone for the next couple of Friday nights on BBC Two, where Sex and the Church is as erudite a piece of television as we’re going... Read more... |
MacMillan's St Luke Passion, King's College ChapelSaturday, 04 April 2015
The St Luke Passion I heard last night was my second sung Passion of the day. The first was in a parish church as a central part of the liturgy of the day on Good Friday: nothing too fancy, as befits an amateur choir, the words of St John as set by... Read more... |
Why everyone should see The Mysteries from Cape TownMonday, 30 March 2015
One night in Cape Town, I was caught in a power cut. Like an untenanted theatre, the city went utterly dark, darker than perhaps it had been since settlers first arrived three centuries earlier. Street lamps, restaurants, car showrooms, offices were... Read more... |
Saints and Sinners: Britain's Millennium of Monasteries, BBC FourFriday, 20 February 2015
When in Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies Thomas Cromwell exclaims in exasperation, “to each monk, one bed; to each bed, one monk. Is that so hard for them?” he sums up the state of moral decay into which the monasteries had apparently... Read more... |
Bach B minor Mass, Trinity College Choir, OAE, Layton, St John's Smith SquareTuesday, 23 December 2014
While the embers of the concert year are dying out around the country, you can be sure of a great blaze-up at St John’s Smith Square. The annual Christmas Festival of quality early-music groups and top choirs – this is the 29th – now traditionally... Read more... |
Canterbury Cathedral, BBC TwoSaturday, 13 December 2014
Attracting over one million visitors each year, Canterbury Cathedral is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country. With its picturesque location and very nice, very white staff, the cathedral offers an easy metaphor for the version... Read more... |
Stations of the CrossWednesday, 26 November 2014
There is ice at the heart of German director’s Dietrich Brueggemann’s Stations of the Cross (Kreuzweg). Winner of this year’s Berlinale Silver Bear for best script – the director wrote the film in collaboration with his sister Anna – it’s a chilling... Read more... |
The OvernightersMonday, 27 October 2014
In The Overnighters documentarist Jesse Moss found his story and pursued it with remarkable empathy, all in the best traditions of the genre. He persuaded both sides in this tale of (quiet) confrontation to trust him, and they opened up completely.... Read more... |
Shadows of War, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Sadler's WellsSaturday, 18 October 2014
Another week, another war commemorative; it’s the story of all the arts in 2014. But – because you can always rely on David Bintley and Birmingham Royal Ballet to be different – last night’s programme at Sadler’s was overshadowed by the Second World... Read more... |
