1930s
William J. Mann: Bogie & Bacall review - beyond the screenFriday, 13 December 2024
What is it about Humphrey Bogart? Why does he still spark interest, still feel relevant, so many decades after his death? It’s a complex question and may be impossible to satisfactorily answer, but there’s no doubt that Bogart being one half of... Read more... |
Ballet Shoes, Olivier Theatre review - reimagined classic with a lively contemporary feelMonday, 09 December 2024
Those with treasured battered copies of Noel Streatfield’s 1936 story of three young adopted sisters in pre-war London may have thrilled to the idea of a version coming to the National Theatre. But be warned: jolly though it is, it’s not the story... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Michael Powell - Early WorksTuesday, 22 October 2024
The missing element is magic, the swooning sense of the romantic, spiritual and supernal which Michael Powell’s partnership with Emeric Pressburger found in the British and especially English soul, sharpened by Hungarian Pressburger’s fascinated... Read more... |
The Crime Is Mine review - entertaining froth from a crack castThursday, 17 October 2024
For his latest pick’n’mix sortie into the world of the women’s picture, François Ozon has gone back to the 1930s and a popular play of the time, Mon Crime (1934). In his hands it emerges as an île flottante of a film that slips down easily but isn’t... Read more... |
The Truth About Harry Beck, London Transport Museum Cubic Theatre review - mapping the life of the London Underground map's creatorFriday, 20 September 2024
Iconic is a word the meaning of which is moving from the religious world into popular culture – win a reality TV show dressed as a teapot, and you can be sure that your 15 minutes of fame will be labelled iconic across social media. Not quite... Read more... |
The Critic review - beware the acid-tipped penSaturday, 14 September 2024
The setting is the lively 1930s London theatre world, but any sense that The Critic will be a lighthearted thriller should soon be dispelled by a soundtrack featuring “Midnight and the Stars and You,” the song that Stanley Kubrick used to ominous... Read more... |
The Grapes of Wrath, NT Lyttelton review - a bleak journey into migrant purgatoryFriday, 09 August 2024
It’s a brave company that embarks on a staging of John Steinbeck’s award-winning 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. A grim study of human goodness in an unrelentingly cruel universe, it’s a long slog for both cast and audience.Steinbeck based his novel... Read more... |
Visit from an Unknown Woman, Hampstead Theatre review - slim, overly earthbound slice of writer's angstSaturday, 13 July 2024
Who was Stefan Zweig? It's likely that it's mostly older folk who studied German literature at A-level who have encountered this superb Viennese writer in his native language, though his short story from 1922, Letter to an Unknown Woman, eventually... Read more... |
Album: Madeleine Peyroux - Let's WalkMonday, 24 June 2024
Madeleine Peyroux made her name with her second album, 2004’s Careless Love. It consists almost completely of cover versions, delivered in a quiet, jazz-bluesey shuffle redolent of singers from the 1930s. She’s never flown as high again but has... Read more... |
Marwood, Power, Watkins, Hallé, Adès, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - sonic adventure and luxurianceTuesday, 09 April 2024
For the second big concert of his “residency” with the Hallé this season, Thomas Adès chose one major piece of his own, rather than a set of shorter ones. Tevot, a 21-minute one-movement work written for the Berlin Philharmonic 18 years ago,... Read more... |
Gerstein, LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - American glitter and sinewMonday, 04 March 2024
How lucky those of us were who grew up musically with the young Simon Rattle’s highly original programming in the 1980s. He’s still doing it at a time when diminishing resources can dictate more careful repertoire, and last night’s Americana proved... Read more... |
Cable Street, Southwark Playhouse review - engaging new musical in an impressive stagingWednesday, 28 February 2024
Hot on the heels of Brigid Larmour’s updating of The Merchant of Venice to the East End in 1936, a spirited new musical across town at Southwark Playhouse is tackling the same topic: the impact of rising British fascism in the same era,... Read more... |
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