Under Stewart Laing’s inspired direction, four permanently-glowing screens help to convey the bigoted characters of a charmless northern French village, where violence, shame, pride, racism and homophobia form the fabric of society.
Barbara Lewis
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In our blasé age, we may take for granted that a remote Yorkshire parsonage managed to produce three sisters who defied rigid Victorian convention to give voice to raw passions and sexual frustration no respectable woman was meant to feel.
A show that leaves the line “Are you fucking kidding me?” ringing in your ears and delivers a series of morals that include “don’t pressure other people into sex because it doesn’t work” and “don’t judge people by appearances, unless they’re really hot” could cause offence.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses comprise nearly 12,000 lines and over 250 myths that have inspired more modern writers as great as Shakespeare and Dante.
What do you do when life gives you lemons? Make lemonade is the wrong answer, says Elf Lyons, who is the product – and that’s not too economic a term – of father Gerard Lyons, former economic advisor to Boris Johnson, artist mother Annette Lyons and the Philippe Gaulier clown school on the outskirts of Paris.
The museum in Doughty Street, London, has a temporary exhibition to revisit the established view that Dickens had no truck with science, presenting the discipline not so surprisingly as an extension of his concern with social justice and reform rather than abstract theory.
Born in the Normandy port of Honfleur in 1824, son of a mariner and whose dying wish was to return to the coast, Eugene Boudin had an instinctive understanding of the play of light on water and in the sky.
Writer, philosopher and English aristocrat Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) was way ahead of her time and she knew it, writing: “I regard not so much the present but future ages”.
Rambouillet – known for its graceful chateau that is the summer seat of French presidents and the setting for international summits – also has appeal for those seeking a gentler life on the sidelines – or even in the sidings.
When Iolanthe in 1882 became the fourth consecutive major success for Gilbert and Sullivan, Gladstone, a Conservative-turned-Liberal, was prime minister and women had no vote.
It’s testimony to the vibrant creativity and style of Sao Paulo that its international art festival – SP-Arte – can transform an object as potentially mundane and outdated as the tea trolley into a pinnacle of design.
Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt defied theatre’s limitations with a vast cast, sprawling action and special effects.
By Barbara Lewis • plays, theatre, year 2018 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, theatre