World War Two
The Mill, Series 2, Channel 4 / The Lancaster: Britain's Flying Past, BBC TwoMonday, 21 July 2014
Supposedly, The Mill [*] was Channel 4's highest-rating drama of 2013, and the viewers' reward is this second series. However, the secret of the success of this dour, dimly lit series is hard to fathom. Its attempt to convert the history of working-... Read more... |
Sniper Elite IIIFriday, 27 June 2014
Sometimes virtual violence can simply be fun, even morally dubious violence. Sniper Elite III is pretty reprehensible and fairly morally indefensible. It gleefully glamorises violence. Yet throughout, it's fun. Really good fun.Sniper Elite's key... Read more... |
Les Rendezvous/Dante Sonata/Façade, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham HippodromeSunday, 08 June 2014
“The touch is light. We like it so,” wrote Ninette de Valois in one of her later poems. You didn’t know the founder of the Royal Ballet wrote poetry? Don’t worry, you’re not missing much – except the occasional phrase which can serve as an epigraph... Read more... |
D-Day Sacrifice, National GeographicWednesday, 04 June 2014
With the 70th anniversary of D-Day following hard on the heels of the extensive World War One commemorations, battle fatigue is becoming a very real concern for TV-watchers. Breaking the mould of retrospective war documentaries becomes increasingly... Read more... |
Generation War, BBC TwoSunday, 27 April 2014
This German-made drama about World War Two scored huge ratings when it was shown in its homeland last year, but has also prompted scathing criticism. Chiefly, its detractors don't buy the series' portrayal of five photogenic young German friends as... Read more... |
Quartet for the End of Time, Village UndergroundThursday, 24 April 2014
Take a cushion or two among the beautiful young people gathered around the players – no Proms Arena crowd, this - pull up a chair or find your standing place; sit bolt upright, lie back, stretch your legs, tweet during the music if you like (an... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Calais: Monument, Musée des Beaux-ArtsSunday, 30 March 2014
Were it not for the bombs which rained down on Calais, its current Musée des Beaux-Arts would not exist. The 1966 building was part of a civic reconstruction programme, so it too is a war memorial of sorts. And it's now playing host to an exhibition... Read more... |
Georg Baselitz, Gagosian Gallery/British MuseumWednesday, 12 March 2014
Georg Baselitz, the veteran German artist who likes to bait, provoke and raise hackles, most recently with an interview in Der Spiegel in which he said women artists couldn’t paint (he mentioned the few exceptions, which was generous of him), is... Read more... |
Repin, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, Fedoseyev, RFHTuesday, 25 February 2014
Valery Gergiev once described Yevgeny Svetlanov’s USSR - later Russian - State Symphony Orchestra to me as “an orchestra with a voice”. Then Svetlanov died and the voice cracked. Which are the other big Russian personalities now? Gergiev’s own... Read more... |
The Book ThiefMonday, 24 February 2014
Derived from Markus Zusak's bestseller, director Brian Percival's movie is well cast and brimming with good intentions, but it's too long, too safe and too uneventful to do justice to its subject matter. The story charts the rise of Nazi Germany... Read more... |
The Monuments MenMonday, 10 February 2014
The Nazi war machine had great taste: it wanted all of the world’s art treasure for itself. Someone had to stop them .Based on Robert M Edsel’s book, George Clooney and Grant Heslov’s screenplay takes a starry stab at telling a culturally serious... Read more... |
The Railway ManTuesday, 07 January 2014
The agony of war and of surviving it almost destroyed Eric Lomax. A British POW after the fall of Singapore who was put to work by the Japanese on the Burma Railway, he suffered brutal and prolonged torture, trauma he dealt with in subsequent... Read more... |
