Surrealism Beyond Borders. Review by Barbara Lewis. Surrealism has never respected borders of any kind. As a movement, it crystallised in 1924 in Paris, and, even then, some artists questioned whether they could belong to something that by definition defied easy categorisation.
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Truth to Power Café. Review by Barbara Lewis. Speaking Truth to Power has come to mean “saying something to those in a position of trust or authority who don’t want to hear it,” Jeremy Goldstein, the MC of the Truth to Power Café, tells us. It’s a non-violent means of conflict resolution whose origins lie in the anti-war movement.
An Earl’s Court Miscellany. FinboroughFrontier online content. Review by Barbara Lewis. The ever-inventive Finborough Theatre has combined its return to real-life drama with an enlightened decision to carry on delivering original online work for free that surely can only enhance one of the strongest off-West End brands.
Gianni Schicchi. Review by Barbara Lewis. Gianni Schicchi, the protagonist of Puccini’s only wholly comic opera, was a 13th-century Italian knight immortalised by Dante in the Circle of Impersonators for pretending to be the rich gentleman Buoso Donati and dictating a testament highly favourable to himself.
The Great Melt By Alister Doyle Published by Flint Books My only churlish quibble with Alister Doyle’s highly readable distillation of years of meticulous research into climate change and sea level rise is that it might make the reader desperate for the kind of far-flung adventures we can no longer undertake lightly.
Hot Air: The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change Denial. By Peter Stott. Review by Barbara Lewis.
A year before the Kyoto Protocol committed the developed world to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, Britain’s Education Act of 1996 incorporated the Thatcher government’s 1986 Education Act that was designed to deal with a perceived issue of left-wing teachers indoctrinating school pupils. Two decades on, mathematician Peter Stott found himself defending climate science against its deniers, who used Thatcher’s legal legacy to take to the High Court their objections to Al Gore’s climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth being streamed in schools.
Dürer’s Journeys, Travels of a Renaissance Artist. Review by Barbara Lewis.
Billed as the first major UK exhibition of Albrecht Dürer in nearly 20 years, ‘Dürer’s Journeys’ explores how travel filled him with wonder, stocked his mind with images and shaped not just his art, but that of his contemporaries.
Georgia O’Keeffe. Review by Barbara Lewis. For those in any doubt, the first retrospective in Paris of Georgia O’Keeffe overwhelmingly makes the case that there is even more to the first woman artist to be taken seriously by critics, collectors and art museums than her gigantic sensual flowers.
Thesmophoria in ancient Greek religion is a festival typically held in late autumn in honour of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. A celebration of human and agricultural fertility, it has been interpreted as the carrying on of things laid down.
Scottish stand-up comedian Daniel Sloss is a centurion by his own admission – in other words, he has slept with at least 100 women. One triggered the dark outpouring Jigsaw, which became a Netflix sensation, notorious for causing more than 300 divorces, 350 cancelled engagements and 120,000 breakups – so far.
The Norwich School of Painting at Norwich Castle. Founded in 1803 by John Crome (1768-1821) and Robert Ladbrooke (1768-1842), the Norwich Society of Artists, later joined by John Sell Cotman (1782-1842) was the first English artistic movement outside London. Of far greater than merely regional influence, it can be credited with establishing the views […]
Anyone Can Whistle. Southwark Playhouse. Review by Barbara Lewis. Anyone Can Whistle opened on Broadway in April 1964 to mixed reviews and closed shortly afterwards. Nearly 60 years on, this Southwark revival deserves to run and run as Georgie Rankcom’s inspired direction does justice to Sondheim’s genius, even when in its early phase, to make musicals from the most unlikely material.
By Barbara Lewis • musicals, theatre, year 2022 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, musicals, theatre