The Banality of Evil. Review by Barbara Lewis. “The banality of evil” is a concept expounded by Hannah Arendt in her 1963 book on Adolf Eichmann, one of the organisers of the Nazi Holocaust. It refers to the theory that evil is committed not out of malice but out of thoughtlessness and it is highly relevant to our polarised times when people blindly follow trending ideas and theatre security has to be elevated around the staging of a Jewish play.
Barbara Lewis
Fatal Monsters. Review by Barbara Lewis. Cleopatra VII was not just the Egyptian queen and legendary lover of Mark Antony, immortalised by Shakespeare, she represented the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty that endured from 305 BCE to around 40 BCE.
Ai Weiwei. Review by Barbara Lewis. This book accompanies the exhibitions Ai Weiwei: The Art of Defiance at Patrick Derom Gallery, Brussels, Belgium (September 19 – November 14) and Ai Weiwei: Life – Revolt – Poetry at the Emile Verhaeren Museum, Sint-Amands, Belgium (September 21– December 13)
2 White Guys Rapping. Review by Barbara Lewis. Simon Cowell declared Australians Macshane & Delby “the fastest free style rap” he’d ever seen when they reached the finals of Britain’s Got Talent 2026.
Still Life. Review by Barbara Lewis. One of the most romantic films ever made “Brief Encounter” was based on the 1936 play “Still Life” by Noel Coward, who, as a homosexual long before it was legal, knew all about the intense agony of forbidden love.
Giulio Cesare in Egitto. Review by Barbara Lewis. Baroque opera is about repeating things again and again, which means time stands still, bass-baritone, stage director/lighting designer – and master of ceremonies – Marcio da Silva tells the audience.
British Landscapes. Review by Barbara Lewis. In the depths of World War Two, the British government funded a project called “Recording Britain” that commissioned artists to capture landscapes and buildings at risk of disappearing.
Rinaldo. Review by Barbara Lewis. Handel’s Rinaldo, the first Italian-language opera created for a London audience, was an 18th-century hit about love, war and redemption. It was written at speed and performed with lavish special effects at a time when tales of crusading knights filled the popular imagination.
Dido and Aeneas. Review by Barbara Lewis. Singer and director Marcio da Silva opens his version of Purcell’s only fully sung opera with a request that the audience vote on who takes the role of Dido. It felt at first like a gimmick, at odds with high tragedy, and yet it takes on a serious purpose: we, like the gods, or the fates, or Purcell’s witches, are the arbitrary deciders of one human’s destiny.
Truth to Power Café. Review by Barbara Lewis. Jeremy Goldstein is celebrating the 20th anniversary of his company London Artists Projects, whose missions include taking his “Truth to Power Café” across the world.
Macbeth. Review by Barbara Lewis. The vocation of the HandleBards touring theatre company is to share a love of Shakespeare through sheer entertainment in settings that range from the classroom to country estates on summer’s evenings. That means comic relief prevails over tragic significance even when the chosen drama is The Scottish Play.
Bunk’Art 2. Review by Barbara Lewis. In the just over a century since Albania became an independent country, it has been a monarchy, endured Fascist occupation and spent nearly 50 years as an isolated Communist dictatorship, mostly under the rule of Enver Hoxha. Hoxha died in 1985 and the Communist Party collapsed in 1990, heralding a turbulent transition to a market economy.
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