Arts
Fact and fantasy
Britain’s country houses were constantly in the news a generation ago. In 1974 The Destruction of the Country House, an…
Blurring boundaries
Each of the Buddhist monks’ faces tells a variation on the same story. One simmers with fury, another sags with…
Twin peaks
According to an old ballet commonplace, no one can beat the Russians when it comes to Swan Lake. Biased and…
A step away from buying toothpaste
Fifty years ago it was not possible to bid at auction via the telephone — that first historic telephone bid…
Wheels of change
Bicycles can be powerful images in cinema. Like the 1948 masterpiece Ladri di Biciclette, Wadjda, the first film ever to…
Wheels of change
Bicycles can be powerful images in cinema. Like the 1948 masterpiece Ladri di Biciclette, Wadjda, the first film ever to…
Sex and the city
We don’t do burlesque here. We do bawdy, Benny Hill, end-of-pier prurience instead. Montmartre may have the Moulin Rouge, but…
Sex and the city
We don’t do burlesque here. We do bawdy, Benny Hill, end-of-pier prurience instead. Montmartre may have the Moulin Rouge, but…
Building on the past
London was an industrial city until remarkably recently. It seems extraordinary now, but Bankside Power Station was built in 1947,…
Incredible string band
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain are performing at the Albert Hall: playing their tiny instruments in a very big…
Incredible string band
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain are performing at the Albert Hall: playing their tiny instruments in a very big…
The place to be
A display of drawings by 20th-century sculptors is a welcome event, and the multi-levelled, multi-functional Kings Place provides just the…
The place to be
A display of drawings by 20th-century sculptors is a welcome event, and the multi-levelled, multi-functional Kings Place provides just the…
American beauty
Tragically, the number of ballet directors who can orchestrate good programmes and good openings is dwindling these days. Helgi Tómasson,…
Royal rocks
It’s a smallish dark room but, wow, what a lot of sparklers. There are more than 10,000 diamonds set in…
Science fiction as reality
What’s that in your pocket? Magic or art? The near ubiquitous iPhone may be rammed with very new technology, but…
Royal rocks
It’s a smallish dark room but, wow, what a lot of sparklers. There are more than 10,000 diamonds set in…
Science fiction as reality
What’s that in your pocket? Magic or art? The near ubiquitous iPhone may be rammed with very new technology, but…
Grim realities
It was somewhat weird that Pina Bausch’s Palermo Palermo opened on the same night as Spain’s victory over Italy in…
New world order
When World Cities 2012 — better known as the current Pina Bausch season — was first presented, questions were raised…
Tales of the city
Last Wednesday two of the three live pooches that appeared in Pina Bausch’s Viktor did onstage what most dogs do…
New build
The Bauhaus was a sort of university of design, whose progressive ideas eventually fell foul of the Nazis. But as…
Unconditional love
Not many dance-makers have had their art celebrated in major, award-winning feature films. Pina Bausch has. Wim Wenders’s 2011 Pina…
New build
The Bauhaus was a sort of university of design, whose progressive ideas eventually fell foul of the Nazis. But as…
Me and my shadows
Shadows and reflections have always triggered all sorts of fantasies. Theatre itself, in the words of many playwrights and theorists,…
