violence
Samuel Takes a Break... in Male Dungeon No. 5 after a long but generally successful day of tours, The Yard Theatre review - funny and thought-provokingFriday, 23 February 2024
You do not need to be Einstein to feel it. If the only dimension missing is time, 75% of a place’s identity can invade your very being, hollow you out, replace your soul with a void. It happened to me at Auschwitz and it’s happening to Samuel at... Read more... |
The Settlers review - a western populated only by anti-heroesFriday, 09 February 2024
From its opening shot – of a flock of sheep backlit by the sun’s rays – The Settlers is visually stunning. But the beauty ends there; as the narrative unfolds, it becomes clear that everything else about this episode in Chile’s history is cruel and... Read more... |
Othello, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - 21st century interpretation delivers food for thoughtThursday, 08 February 2024
Detective Chief Inspector Othello leads a quasi-paramilitary team of Metropolitan Police officers investigating gang activity in Docklands. With a chequered past now behind him, he has reformed and has the respect of both the team he leads and his... Read more... |
10 Questions for 'The Settlers' film director Felipe Gálvez HaberleThursday, 08 February 2024
Felipe Gálvez Haberle’s Chilean Western The Settlers traces the roles played in the genocide of the country’s indigenous Selk’nam people by the Spanish businessman José Menéndez (1846-1918) and his brutal Scottish sheep station manager Alexander... Read more... |
The Most Precious of Goods, Marylebone Theatre review - old-fashioned storytelling of an all-too relevant taleTuesday, 30 January 2024
As last week’s news evidenced, genocide never really goes out of fashion. So it’s only right and proper that art continues to address the hideous concept and, while nothing, not even Primo Levi’s shattering If This Is a Man, can capture the scale of... Read more... |
The Good John Proctor, Jermyn Street Theatre review - Salem-set drama loses some of its power in LondonSaturday, 13 January 2024
It is no surprise that the phrase “Witch Hunt” is Donald Trump’s favoured term to describe his legal travails. Leaving aside its connotations of a malevolent state going after an innocent victim whilst in the throes of a self-serving moral panic, it... Read more... |
Macbeth, The Depot, Liverpool review - Ralph Fiennes leads a conventional production in an unconventional spaceFriday, 01 December 2023
Next door to the beautiful Art Deco Littlewoods Pools Building, nearly 30 years standing derelict, a set of grey sheds stand, a seat of potential for Liverpool’s nascent film industry. Nearly a century ago, the long, white, towered construction in... Read more... |
Oh What A Lovely War, Southwark Playhouse review - 60 years on, the old warhorse can still bare its teethMonday, 27 November 2023
In Annus Mirabilis, Philip Larkin wrote,"So life was never better than In nineteen sixty-three (Though just too late for me) – Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban And the Beatles' first LP."That might be the only point... Read more... |
The Mongol Khan, London Coliseum review - unique operatic spectacle utterly overwhelms flaws in pacing and storyWednesday, 22 November 2023
“But that’s what they’re paying for!” replied my son as we, a little shellshocked by the previous three hours, skirted Trafalgar Square on the way home. I had reservations about some key components of the alchemy that produces great theatre, but... Read more... |
1984, Hackney Town Hall review - Room 101 shapeshifts into 2023, but remains as terrifyingly plausible as everTuesday, 31 October 2023
The day after I saw the show, as went about the mundanities of domestic life, I wondered how long it would take to come across a reference to 1984. My best bet was listening to an LBC phone-in concerning next week’s conference at Bletchley Park on... Read more... |
Trueman and the Arsonists, Roundhouse Studio review - new warnings in old lessonsTuesday, 31 October 2023
A dystopian present. Sirens ring out across the city. Firefighters rush to the wrong locations. A man insists on entry to a big house. He’s not selling anything, so he can’t be an arsonist can he? His friend turns up and she’s pretty upfront about... Read more... |
The Flea, The Yard Theatre review - biting satire fails to stingThursday, 19 October 2023
A flea bites a rat which spooks a horse which kicks a man and… an empire falls?James Fritz has won writing awards already in his developing career, but he has set himself quite the challenge to weave a thread that can bear that narrative weight. Two... Read more... |
