Eurofile

TIM WALKER reviews Bitter Wheat at Garrick Theatre One imagines Harvey Weinstein must be flattered that John Malkovich should now be playing a character so obviously inspired by him on the London stage. Sure, he would probably have preferred it if the star hadn’t felt the need to don a fat suit, but, other than […]

As baroque peaked, the classical era beckoned. SOPHIE DEBOICK reports on a year of big names and shifting tastes. Portrait of Leopold Mozart (1719-1787). Found in the Collection of Mozarteum (ISM), Salzburg. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images) – Credit: Getty Images The boundaries of thought and the borders of the known world were […]

‘On the surface, this is an incredibly stylish piece of theatre’. TIM WALKER gives four stars to the Chichester Festival’s Plenty. If playwrights like Noel Coward and Terence Rattigan wrote plays that largely show Great Britain as she likes to see herself, David Hare has a habit of writing about her as she really is. […]

The Jazz Age reached full swing, while blues and country were starting to make big sounds. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports on an exciting year where the possibilities seemed endless. The wounds of the recent past were still fresh. As Ypres’ Menin Gate was unveiled in July 1927, Siegfried Sassoon condemned it in verse: “Well might the […]

Avant-Garde Artist Natalia Goncharova was an Exponent of ‘everythingism’, producing work that spanned techniques and styles. Claudia Pritchard reports on an exhibition that reflects her dazzling varied output. “I am by no means European,” declared the Russia-born artist Natalia Goncharova as she pursued her studies in Moscow at the beginning of the 20th century, just […]

Diego Maradona’s spell with Napoli in the 1980s was a combustible mix of cocaine, the Camorra and some of the finest football ever seen. JASON SOLOMONS reports on the new documentary film which chronicles this extraordinary period NAPLES, ITALY – JANUARY 01: SSC Napoli player Diego Maradona pictured controlling the ball during a Seria A […]

When it comes to this aspect of language, it’s not as straightforward as a, e, i, o, u, says PETER TRUDGILL If you ask English-speaking people how many vowels there are in their language, many of them will tell you that there are five: a, e, i, o and u. If you ask Greek speakers […]

Why we have the Ancient Greeks to thank for almost all our misfortunes. In English we don’t really have a true equivalent of the French expression bon appétit, wishing people who are about to start a meal a ‘good appetite’. But most other European languages seem to have some kind of bon appétit-type formula: German […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK on a year in which music was helping to forge state identities on both sides of the Atlantic. Capitalism, colonialism and immigration were transforming the world in 1850. The founding of shipment company American Express, by Henry Wells and William G. Fargo, and of the Lehman Brothers dry goods store, by Bavarian immigrants, […]

Bold, challenging theatre which encapsulates the joy and misery of that crazy thing called love. Kiln Theatre, London, until July 6 “All you need to know about A Doll’s House is a woman walks,” says Suzannah, the bohemian actress played by Sirine Saba in Samuel Adamson’s new play, Wife. Ibsen’s classic hastened the march towards […]

TIM WALKER speaks to Michael Longhurst about the Donmar Theatre’s revival of Europe – and why he is keen that it sends a very political message. “This country has been sitting on a powderkeg for too long. A spark was bound to catch. He said he’d tighten up on immigration controls. After all… feelings were […]

JASON SOLOMONS speaks to the makers of an enigmatic and ominous film set in Budapest shortly before the First World War, and finds plenty of parallels with today. Director of Sunset, Laszlo Nemes. Photo: Laookon Filmgroup – Credit: Archant Europe is glorious yet divided, on the brink of collapse. Warring factions and clashing political interests […]

TIM WALKER’s latest stage review says a career revival for aging teen idol Matthew Broderick has failed to launch. What does Matthew Broderick, the fresh-faced, teen-idol star of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, do when he gets older? He makes an attempt at relaunching his career on the West End stage. I’m not quite sure if […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK on a barnstorming year when female performers took the lead on pop. Despite April’s Good Friday Agreement, the Omagh bombing, war in the Congo and Kosovo and UN weapons inspectors being expelled from Iraq, it was another story that dominated the year. When the Washington Post reported in late January that Bill Clinton […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on pair of new releases, their contrasting receptions and authors, and what they tell us about Britain today. Author Kerry Hudson has published the “astonishing” tale of childhood poverty, Lowborn. Photo: Nick Tucker – Credit: Archant It’s not often I enjoy seeing an author getting an absolute savaging from reviewers but the way […]

PETER TRUDGILL tells the story of Norn, now vanished from the British Isles, though some of its sounds still linger. Philologists generally divide the Scandinavian languages into two historical branches: eastern and western. Swedish and Danish fall into the Eastern Scandinavian division, while Norwegian, Faroese and Icelandic form the Western Scandinavian languages, the Faroe Islands […]

Tim Walker reviews stage show Anna. The peculiar acoustics of the Whispering Gallery, directly beneath the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, mean it’s possible to randomly eavesdrop on the conversations of strangers, even if they are some distance away. Ben and Max Ringham, the sound designers of Anna, achieve the same effect in this startlingly […]

For 500 years, Verrocchio has been overshadowed by his more famous pupil, Leonardo Da Vinci. Claudia Pritchard reports on a new exhibition attempting to draw him into the limelight. The distinctions between painter, sculptor, goldsmith and architect were more blurred in 15th century Italy than today, and it was not uncommon for artists and craftsmen […]

TIM WALKER reviews Orpheus Descending at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. I’m on a theatrical bender without end, and, take it from me, I’m on the hard stuff. I’ve downed three Arthur Millers in quick succession and now it’s time for a shot of Tennessee Williams, who is, quite frankly, right up there with […]

Its author might now be deeply unfashionable, but that shouldn’t put us off The Jungle Book, says CHARLIE CONNELLY. The British poet, Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), is known for his verse collections and animal stories, including the Jungle Books and Just So Stories. Picture: National Portrait Gallery, London. – Credit: Bettmann Archive Who among us doesn’t […]

These days we hear the word like, meaning ‘similar to’, quite a lot. In fact, in the speech of many younger people today it seems to occur, like, all the time. But it is a word with an extraordinarily interesting and complex history, and one which is not completely understood. One fascinating aspect of its […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY finds a true sense of patriotism in a collection of poems that tries to wrest that word back from nationalists. Chinese Spring by Christopher New will be published later this month to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. – Credit: Archant One of the more frustrating aspects of the […]

TIM WALKER reviews Arthur Miller’s best-known play Death of a Salesman. Musicals and comedies have traditionally always been in demand during bleak times, but London would appear to have come to the view that it’s beyond cheering up and is bingeing on Arthur Miller, the theatrical equivalent of a bottle of Bruichladdich with a Mogadon […]

Two deaths overshadowed an ominous 12 months for Britain and the planet. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. David Bowie during his concert in West Berlin in front of the Reichstag building on the 6th of June in 1987. Photo: DPA/PA Images – Credit: DPA/PA Images According to a Mayan prophecy, doomsday was set for December 2012. In […]

Fifty years ago saw the most controversial Eurovision Song Contest yet held. SOPHIE DEBOICK looks back to an event that began with intrigue and ended in farce. Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco. Photo: Dominique BERRETTY/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images – Credit: Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images Eurovision is rarely without a row, but this year’s contest – […]

As the Premier League draws to a close, PETER TRUDGILL explores the meanings behind some of its biggest names. As is well known to most English football fans – and to the entire population of Norway over the age of three – the manager of Manchester United is called Ole Gunnar Solskjær. Like very many […]

While European sounds veered towards the melancholy, and often morose, America was tuning in to something far more effervescent. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. The Victorian age was being left behind, but in 1904 the western world was still torn between civilized modernity and brutal primitivism. It was the era of the New Imperialism, and April’s Entente […]

Tim Walker reviews stage show Small Island. A white couple find themselves the parents of a black baby and they’ve not adopted him. This sounds like the start of an awful racist joke, but it’s what happens towards the end of Small Island, and, given the setting is post-war Britain, there’s nothing remotely funny about […]

His musical talent and passion might have been overshadowed by other elements of his reign, but Henry VIII deserves his reputation as a king with an ear for a tune, says SOPHIA DEBOICK Henry VIII is known as a musician monarch, but it is a characterisation based on a song he almost certainly didn’t write. […]

Almost by chance, CHARLIE CONNELLY finds himself engrossed in a timely novel set in a Paris beset by rising floods. Most of the books featured in these pages I buy myself. I hear about them, I buy them, I write about them. I’m also sent review copies of forthcoming books and if the right book […]

Still life may lack the drama and passion of other forms of art. But, as CLAUDIA PRITCHARD discovers at an exhibition of one of its great proponents, it is no less intense Battle scenes, expansive nudes, eye-popping abstracts and ravishing views compete in the art gallery to catch the eye, with their scale of ambition, […]

In this week’s stage review, TIM WALKER, reviews All My Sons at the Old Vic. ‘I just want everybody to be happy,’ trills Jenna Coleman, playing the love interest in All My Sons. This being an Arthur Miller play, that was always going to be at best a forlorn hope. Indeed, the sense of despair […]