The Comedy of Errors. Review by Barbara Lewis. This is the HandleBards’ uplifting summer tour, which after 935 miles of pedalling, brought the cycling players to a picnicking audience in the grounds of Horace Walpole’s Gothic revival mansion at Strawberry Hill, west London.
Barbara Lewis
Kyoto. Review by Barbara Lewis. If Shakespeare put the English town of Stratford-upon-Avon on the global map, the Kyoto climate treaty arguably did the same for an ancient Japanese capital.
By Barbara Lewis • plays, theatre, year 2022 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, theatre
What is Quality in Art? Review by Barbara Lewis. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder – or so they say. For Alejandro Vergara-Sharp, art historian and senior curator of Flemish and Northern European Paintings at the Prado in Madrid, art appreciation can be more much objective than that if your standard is quality.
By Barbara Lewis • art, books, year 2024 • Tags: art, Barbara Lewis, books
Stephen Sondheim Society. Review by Barbara Lewis. The SSSSPOTY, as it is known in Sondheim circles, technically is a competition, but, like Bonnie Langford, compere of this year’s 16th edition, you may prefer to see it as a celebration.
By Barbara Lewis • music, musicals, performance, theatre, year 2024 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, musicals, performance, theatre
Cutting the Tightrope. Review by Barbara Lewis. The arts have always had a role in saying the unsayable, making it all but inevitable that Arts Council England’s effort to clarify advice issued early this year on the risk of making political statements would only add to the controversy.
By Barbara Lewis • plays, theatre, year 2024 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, theatre
Hong Kong Whispers. Review by Barbara Lewis. Hong Kong, one of the most densely populated places on earth, was the muse of the late German photographer Michael Wolf.
By Barbara Lewis • books, photography, year 2024 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, books, photography
Your Lie in April. Review by Barbara Lewis. In the fantasy world of “Your Lie in April”, based on a Japanese manga, adapted into a television series, a film, and now brought to London’s West End, even football is relegated to a poor second to musical prowess when it comes to winning teenage hearts.
By Barbara Lewis • music, musicals, theatre • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, musicals, theatre
Sherlock Holmes: The Valley of Fear. Review by Barbara Lewis. A cast of five tackles all the complexity of Conan Doyle’s fourth and final Sherlock Holmes novel that is as clever, contrived and satisfying as a cryptic crossword.
By Barbara Lewis • plays, theatre, year 2024 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, theatre
The Prince and the Plunder. Review by Barbara Lewis. The story of Ethiopian Prince Alamayu, or Alemayehu, depending on your choice of spelling, is haunting because it could have been so different. Above all, he should never have died when and where he did.
By Barbara Lewis • books, history, year 2024 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, books, history
Blue. Review by Barbara Lewis. George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, which triggered waves of Black Lives Matter protests, together with the U.S. Capitol attacks of January 2021, when off-duty police officers were found to be among the rioters, inspired June Carryl to write Blue.
By Barbara Lewis • plays, theatre, year 2024 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, theatre
Extérieurs. Review by Barbara Lewis. Annie Ernaux in 2022 became the first French woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature after producing a body of work that charts her progress from working class origins, feelings of shame during her years being educated at private school that she was not sufficiently bourgeois, to her career as a teacher, then full-time writer.
By Barbara Lewis • art, exhibitions, photography • Tags: art, Barbara Lewis, exhibitions, photography
The Trumpeter. Review by Barbara Lewis. Mariupol, where Ukraine for nearly three months in 2022 resisted Russia’s determination to create a land bridge between Crimea and Donbas, became a byword for horror.
By Barbara Lewis • plays, theatre, year 2024 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, theatre