France
Downton Abbey: A New Era review - will we ever see its like again?Friday, 29 April 2022
A dozen years have passed since Downton Abbey first landed on our TV screens, since when it has passed into folklore. Whether you thought it was escapist historical froth, a ludicrous anachronism full of class-system clichés or a documentary probing... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Jules et JimTuesday, 26 April 2022
François Truffaut’s Nouvelle Vague masterpiece revolves around an endlessly mutating love triangle, set in a world that encompasses the hedonism of the Belle Époque, the horror of the First World War, and the book burning that ushered in the Nazi... Read more... |
Happening review - searingly intimate, furious abortion dramaSaturday, 23 April 2022
France is a female dystopia in Audrey Diwan’s immersive illegal abortion drama, set in 1963 and based on Annie Ernaux’s autobiographical novel.Anamaria Vartolomei is Anne, the first girl from her rural family to go to college, where she is a modest... Read more... |
The Forest, Hampstead Theatre review - puzzling world premiere from Florian ZellerWednesday, 16 February 2022
If Florian Zeller isn’t a Wordle fan, I’d be very surprised. As with the hit online game, the French playwright likes to offer up a puzzle for the audience to solve, clue by clue, before the curtain falls. His latest play, The Forest, which had its... Read more... |
Louise Bourgeois: The Woven Child, Hayward Gallery review - the wife, the mistress, the daughter and the art that came out of itSaturday, 12 February 2022
Louise Bourgeois didn’t throw anything away and, during the last 20 years of her life, she used her own and her mother’s old clothes to create theatrical tableaux which revisit painful childhood memories. “These garments have a history,” she... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Hiroshima mon amourTuesday, 08 February 2022
Hiroshima mon amour (1959), Alain Resnais’s first feature-length film, followed a number of remarkable short documentaries, the most famous of which was Nuit et brouillard (Night and Fog, 1956), a haunting evocation of Nazi terror, and still a... Read more... |
Sandrine Piau, David Kadouch, Wigmore Hall review - the joy is in the detailTuesday, 18 January 2022
“It mustn’t be a surface thing. You have to put in the work,” Janet Baker once said. Sandrine Piau’s Wigmore recital of German song followed by French song was the perfect demonstration of that credo in action.Whereas Piau described the repertoire,... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Belleville RendezvousTuesday, 23 November 2021
Why Les Triplettes de Belleville was rechristened Belleville Rendevous in the UK is one of several questions left unanswered by this reissue. Along with what happened to French director Sylvain Chomet’s animation career, which seems to have fizzled... Read more... |
Album: Jarvis Cocker – Chansons d’Ennui Tip-TopSaturday, 16 October 2021
Wes Anderson and Jarvis Cocker do 1960s French pop – this frothy confection couldn’t be any more “art school” if it were smoking a gauloise in a black polo-neck. Truly, what a match made on the Eurostar! For one so thoroughly Sheffield born-and-bred... Read more... |
Devieilhe, Tharaud, Wigmore Hall review - French soprano attracts young audienceMonday, 13 September 2021
Soprano Sabine Devieilhe (pronounced Devielle) and pianist Alexandre Tharaud are both well on their way to becoming "Monuments Nationaux" in France. When their most recent album Chanson d'Amour (Erato/Warner) was launched in September 2020... Read more... |
Two of Us review - a lesbian love story with a differenceThursday, 15 July 2021
“Do you have a problem with old dykes?” demands Nina (the superbly ferocious Barbara Sukowa) of a bland, nervous young estate agent, halfway through this wonderfully original first feature from director Filippo Meneghetti. No, he stammers. “You see... Read more... |
Carlos Ghosn: The Last Flight - Storyville, BBC Four review - the tycoon who fell to earthThursday, 15 July 2021
The extraordinary story of motor industry executive Carlos Ghosn is a heady combination of power, money, corruption and international politics, with a Mission: Impossible-style ending that carries it over the finishing tape in dramatic style. It... Read more... |
