medieval
Boyd Tonkin
In 1018, the Princess of Chen – a member of the Liao dynasty that ruled northern China – was buried in a treasure-filled tomb in Inner Mongolia. Excavated in the 1980s, her grave contained luxury items sourced in Egypt, Syria, Iran, India, Sumatra – along with prized adornments in carved amber imported from the Baltic shores of Europe, 6500 km away. It hardly counts as news, perhaps, that the Chinese elites of a thousand years ago stood at the wealthy heart of an international trading and information system that spanned distant continents. “They lived in a globalised world, pure and simple,” Read more ...
Marianka Swain
The latest in Sadler’s Wells’ Digital Stage programme – an impressively assembled online offering to keep audiences entertained during the shutdown – is balletLORENT’s family-friendly dance-theatre production Rumpelstiltskin. It was streamed as a "matinee" on Friday afternoon, and is available to watch for free on Sadler’s Wells’ Facebook and YouTube for a week.The 90-minute work, first seen in 2018 and filmed for broadcast at Northern Stage, was the third successful collaboration between director Liv Lorent and then poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy – once again Read more ...
Jill Chuah Masters
Welcome to New Mushroomton: a fantasy land that’s forgotten itself. This is how we’re introduced to Pixar’s Onward, which is set in a Dungeons & Dragons daydream of suburbia. Director Dan Scanlon’s film is a tribute to his late father, but it begins with a separate elegy. “Long ago,” we’re told, “the world was full of wonder.” Until the day that convenience killed magic — electricity was invented, spells cast aside. Today’s mythical creatures have become ordinary: trolls run tollbooths, gnomes are garden-variety.Such is life for Onward’s heroes, the elven Lightfoot family. There’s meek Read more ...
Owen Richards
It’s an event that only comes around once a generation: a new Matt Groening TV series. The Simpsons is rightly regarded as one of the greatest shows ever made. It changed the face of American television, and 10 years later was followed Futurama, a series that may lack the cross-demographic appeal of its predecessor, but consistently produced satirical masterpieces. Now, with a vastly changed viewing landscape, Groening makes the jump to streaming giants Netflix with his new show Disenchantment. The question is, can lightning strike thrice?On first appearances, probably not. Disenchantment is Read more ...
David Nice
Valiant Opera Holland Park, always taking up the gauntlet for Italian operas which should mostly never be staged again. Worst was Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini, where musical ambition vastly outruns technique and inspiration. Mascagni's Iris with its hideous misogyny has now been followed by the same composer's Isabeau of 1911, turgid of libretto and dramaturgy. Leoncavallo's Zazà and Puccini's La rondine are in a different league, but both had already impressed London audiences in concert and at the Royal Opera respectively before travelling westwards. Here the heart sinks to see the same Read more ...
graham.rickson
Jabberwocky is all the more enjoyable once you get past what it isn’t; Terry Gilliam’s 1977 directorial debut is a medieval romp starring Michael Palin and a short-lived Terry Jones, but audiences shouldn’t expect a Monty Python film. Gilliam and Palin’s bonus commentary is a joy, Gilliam describing his relief at “not having to be funny all the time,” free to let this baggy, rambling tale unfold at a more stately pace. There are many mirthsome moments, but Gilliam admits that Jabberwocky “is more quirky than funny.”The inspiration for Gilliam and screenwriter Charles Aveson was the nonsense Read more ...
Florence Hallett
It is sobering to think that the medieval and Renaissance paintings that fill our galleries represent just a fraction of the artistic output of that period. Panel paintings – not to mention exquisitely fragile wall paintings – have for the most part succumbed to the ravages of time, and those not destroyed by fire or flood, acts of war or vandalism, or abortive attempts at restoration have simply faded, darkened or discoloured.Safely tucked away in libraries, illuminated manuscripts have survived in far greater numbers and, as such, form the most substantial, if most easily overlooked, legacy Read more ...
Alison Cole
This exhibition – the UK's first major exploration of the history of Sicily – highlights two astonishing epochs in the cultural history of the island, with a small bridging section in between. Spanning 4,000 years and bringing together over 200 objects, it aims to "reveal the richness of the architectural, archaeological and artist legacies of Sicily", focusing on the latter half of the seventh century BC and the period of Norman enlightenment, from AD1000 to 1250.For anyone who has visited Sicily’s ancient archaeological sites of Segesta, Agrigento and Selinunte, which still boast some of Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
This was one of the most disturbing, terrifying and informative programmes imaginable, made more so by Dan Cruickshank’s calm demeanour as he interrogated everyone from scholars to fanatics about the actions and rationale of the Islamic State (IS) during the past two years in Iraq and Syria. These conversations were set against his own visits to the Middle East and terrifying videos of IS hammering to smithereens the contents of museums and bulldozing world-famous archaeological sites.When Cruickshank visited Iraq's ancient sites in 2002, he feared the destruction Western bombs might bring; Read more ...
stephen.walsh
It’s well-known that Wagner shelved The Ring two thirds of the way through in favour of Tristan with the aim of producing something that could be put on quickly in a conventional theatre. Of course, it didn’t quite work out that way. Yet Tristan, for all its technical difficulties, does lend itself to a relatively small stage. Its ensemble scenes are few and manageable, and for the rest it’s basically a conversation piece. For the barn theatre at Longborough it presents no insuperable problems, and it’s no surprise that the summer festival there has come up with a wonderful performance to add Read more ...
Florence Hallett
When in Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies Thomas Cromwell exclaims in exasperation, “to each monk, one bed; to each bed, one monk. Is that so hard for them?” he sums up the state of moral decay into which the monasteries had apparently lapsed by the time of their dissolution. They had, we are told, become dens of iniquity, the monks indulging in every vice and pleasure they were supposed to abstain from, and in command of such monstrous power and wealth that it is hard not to feel that maybe Henry VIII had a point.Much as we tend to think of the monasteries as essentially medieval, Read more ...
Florence Hallett
Attracting over one million visitors each year, Canterbury Cathedral is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country. With its picturesque location and very nice, very white staff, the cathedral offers an easy metaphor for the version of England that Ukip supporters apparently hanker after, the narrator Saskia Reeves describing it as “England in stone”. With traditions and routines that haven’t changed much in 1000 years – although one imagines the Reformation shook things up a little – the very idea of Canterbury must be balm to the soul for anyone given to bouts of flag- Read more ...