religion
The Pendle Witch Child, BBC FourWednesday, 17 August 2011
A nine-year-old girl testifies in court. She’s clear, precise and damning. The case revolves around her testimony alone. All the accused – 10 of them, her family and neighbours - are declared guilty and executed. The girl is the only one of the... Read more... |
The Borgias, Sky AtlanticSaturday, 13 August 2011
The pre-publicity has been spinning this saga of the notorious Renaissance family as a kind of origin story for The Sopranos. I suppose you could argue that Rodrigo Borgia, like Tony Soprano, was in the waste management business, as he himself... Read more... |
Thomas Struth: Photography 1978-2010, Whitechapel GalleryWednesday, 03 August 2011
In Düsseldorf in the 1970s there was an astonishing art academy, the Kunstakademie, with amazing teachers – and amazing students. Düsseldorf was a proud art city, and published at the time a book of photographs called Düsseldorf City of Artists. The... Read more... |
Tannhäuser, Bayreuth FestivalTuesday, 02 August 2011
In 1981, when I last came to Bayreuth, the festival still seemed to be a battleground between the German Left and Right, between the blame faction and the guilt faction, between the commie East and the fat-cat West. Plus ça change. Without quite... Read more... |
The Code, BBC TwoThursday, 28 July 2011
Can Marcus du Sautoy do for maths what Brian Cox did for physics? Can he convince us of the beauty of numbers and help us fall in love with pi? It’s a tall order, but not only does Professor du Sautoy have an unstoppable passion for ratios, he’s... Read more... |
Holy RollersThursday, 07 July 2011
Great idea. Geeky Hasidic kid from Brooklyn's claustrophobic Jewish community finds his attention wandering during his rabbinical studies, and falls under the raffish spell of the older and wilder Yosef Zimmerman. He finds the slope is slippery... Read more... |
The Tree of LifeThursday, 07 July 2011
At the end of last week it was reported that a Connecticut cinema, besieged with requests for refunds, had posted up a sign warning punters that The Tree of Life “does not follow a traditional, linear narrative approach to storytelling”. And so what... Read more... |
Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe, British MuseumWednesday, 06 July 2011
At the end of my road is a shrine dedicated to a young man murdered there more than a year ago. For the first few months lighted candles, plastic flowers, cards and poems penned by friends and relatives were left on a doorstep; now, though, a blue... Read more... |
Emperor and Galilean, National TheatreThursday, 16 June 2011
Miracles and omens, blind faith and free will: Ibsen’s epic 1873 drama sinks its teeth into some tough, meaty themes. That it neither breaks the jaw, nor proves totally indigestible in this British premiere is testament to the power of Jonathan Kent... Read more... |
CD: Emmy the Great - VirtueSaturday, 11 June 2011
I'm tired of Emmy the Great being lumped in with crappy singer-songwriters who've had way too much hype but couldn't write a decent lyric if they were tied to a chair and had a pistol pointed at their temple. Emma-Lee Moss bloomed from a singer-... Read more... |
Into Thy Hands, Wilton's Music HallSunday, 05 June 2011
“Where once was certainty is now only void.” The age of John Donne was also the age of Galileo, Milton, of Hobbes, Francis Bacon and, of course, the King James Bible, whose 400th anniversary we celebrate this year. At the intersection of politics,... Read more... |
Wonderland: The Men Who Won’t Stop Marching, BBC TwoWednesday, 01 June 2011
Not long after the Good Friday Agreement, BBC Northern Ireland broadcast a charming drama featuring a tale of two drums. An Ulster Protestant was too wedded to the marching season to join his wife on holiday in Donegal, so she wrought her revenge by... Read more... |
