The London theatre scene could easily manage without another musical about love. But the UK premiere of this Australian-born celebration of the greatest of emotions by Peter Rutherford and James Millar is nevertheless as welcome, even as necessary, as every generation’s attempts to redefine love for themselves.
One of the joys of the MASP in the Paulista Avenue, Sao Paulo’s equivalent of the Champs Elysees, is that when you pay for entry (every day except Tuesday) nearly everyone else is too busy making or spending money to block your view of old and new masters.
As far as 1960s audiences were concerned, Lionel Bart – famed for the musical Oliver – had lost his “twang” when he came up with the box office flop “Twang!!”, with two exclamation marks. But if the audiences of the swinging sixties weren’t ready, the 21st century theatre-goers of London’s Union Theatre – renowned for alternative, low-budget, high-entertainment musicals – are.
The Danes have given us “hygge” as a not directly translate-able concept particular to their culture. The Cornish offer “hireth” to refer to an intangible feeling, a longing for the familiarity and comfort of a place.
With a new version of The Cherry Orchard transposed to the time of the 1917 Russian revolution, director Phil Wilmott’s aim was to reflect “our current edgy relationship with Russia,” he tells us in his notes.
Women bosses who bully their ambitious young rivals are one aspect of female careerism that is under-explored. Bella Barlow and A.C. Smith at least start to redress the balance with a miniature musical played out underneath Waterloo’s railway arches as part of London’s vibrant Vault festival.
When Christopher Marlowe wrote Doctor Faustus at the end of the 16th century, he was already drawing on German accounts of a medieval legend with eternal and universal reach. Two centuries later, the epic struggle of good and evil was translated back into German in Goethe’s towering tragedy.
La Forza del Destino was first performed in 1862. Not satisfied, Verdi carried on revising it for years, adding in 1869 the famous sinfonia overture that announces so many of the work’s overwhelming musical themes.
Human relationships boil down to trust and betrayal; power and powerlessness. It’s the story of Hollywood and Harvey Weinstein and it’s the gruelling plot of Tosca.
South Africa’s oldest working harbour in Cape Town has a new addition. Since September, 2017, its recently-developed Silo District has been home to the Zeitz Museum of Contemporay Art Africa, MOCAA for short, a giant silo of post 2000 art by the artists of Africa and its disapora, assembled by German entrepreneur Jochen Zeitz.
Stroll through the streets of Turin or look out from the city’s rattling trams and you’re confronted with wall after wall of windows framed by whatever architectural embellishments were fashionable at the time of construction, from the standard shutters of residential apartment blocks to ornate neo-classical gods and gargoyles on civic buildings.
T-Shirt: Cult-Culture-Subversion. Review by Barbara Lewis.
Of all the things we wear, the T-shirt has the ability to be both humble and exclusive. To underline the point, the Fashion and Textile Museum’s shop accompanies its exhibition on the T-shirt from the fifth-century, when it was a variant of the tunic, to now, with designer examples on sale for around 100 pounds.