Peter Grimes. Review by Barbara Lewis. In difficult times, it would seem, people crave total escapism – or deep catharsis from confronting our own failure as humans and society.
Barbara Lewis
Chicago. Review by Barbara Lewis. Born of a rift between French and Dutch speakers in the Belgian city of Leuven, Louvain-la-Neuve, one of Europe’s youngest cities, dates back to 1971 and has a history of creating new traditions.
Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur. Review by Barbara Lewis. One of the joys of Grayson Perry’s exhibition is that it is he who provides the explanatory notes. A standout peg is: “An artist’s job is to bite the hand that feeds him, but not too hard”
Stiletto. Review by Barbara Lewis. On average 5,000 boys were castrated every year in 18th-century Italy in a desperate attempt by poor families to change their fortunes. They nearly always managed only to add tragedy to their misery.
Maison Bonaparte. Review by Barbara Lewis. Napoléon Bonaparte was born into a noble family in Ajaccio on August 15, 1769, and left around nine years later for France, where he took up a scholarship at the Brienne military academy.The house where he was born is now a museum remarkable for its less than total enthusiasm for Corsica’s most famous son.
Tempest Project. Review by Barbara Lewis. On March 21, Peter Brook would have been a hundred. To celebrate the birthday his beloved Bouffes du Nord Theatre in Paris is staging his and Shakespeare’s final project.
Impressionist Paris. Review by Barbara Lewis. Impressionist Paris, A Panoramic View of Paris in French Impressionism. Published by Hannibal Books to coincide with the exhibition New Paris: From Monet to Morisot at the Kunstmuseum in the Hague until June 9
Cry-Baby, The Musical. Review by Barbara Lewis. “Cry-Baby” may be set in 1950s Baltimore, but lyrics that at once celebrate and satirise the democratic checks and balances of the “nifty country” that is the United States of America make it tailor-made as a tonic for our times.
Stalled. Review by Barbara Lewis. The toilet options in the refurbished King’s Head Theatre are urinals for the real men and, for everyone else, unisex cubicles – or should I say stalls? to pick up the central pun in this musical set in a restroom that is exclusively for women.
855-FOR-TRUTH: An end of the world love story. Review by Barbara Lewis. “LUST IS A SIN. BURN IN HELL, OR CALL 855-FOR-TRUTH,” were the words writer Eva Hudson saw screaming from a billboard at the side of a highway as she journeyed through America.
The Double Act. Review by Barbara Lewis. This unsettling, multi-layered, hilarious dive into the great modern British divisions of north versus south, woke versus non-woke – and bullies versus clowns – has its deepest roots in a childhood lived close to the seaside towns of northwest England.
Books of Hours, Books of Hope. Review by Barbara Lewis. If, like me, you need a reminder of the definition, a book of hours is a devotional manual designed for personal prayer.
By Barbara Lewis • added recently on London Grip, books, exhibitions, history, religion • Tags: Barbara Lewis, books, exhibitions, religion