The Sitting Duck (La Syndicaliste) is a political thriller based in fact. Director Jean-Paul Salome and co-screenwriter Fadette Drouard craft their story around a trade union official and whistleblower who wasn’t believed after a violent personal attack. The central figure is Maureen Kearney (Isabelle Huppert). In 2012, she worked for a Areva, a French multinational…
The unmissable nighttime visual spectacle Lightscape has returned to the Royal Botanic Gardens for a third winter with a reimagined trail and new installations. It is a glorious exhibition of creativity, featuring a stunning array of large-scale illuminated sculptures, many colour-changing. More than that, trees are lit up, there is fire, fog and projections along the two-kilometre…
She could light up a room like no other and yet her tragic fate was sealed early on. I speak of the sparkling, enthusiastic Lucia Joyce, daughter of famed author James (Ulysses – 1922). This is her story, as it is that of the relationship between her and Samuel Beckett, and between Beckett and James Joyce. Lucia…
How do you know when it is best to end a relationship? That question is highlighted and spotlighted in the compelling and highly creative new work Cutting Onions. A young couple has just moved into fresh digs. Their home is quite spacious, with a good size kitchen and a large, if overgrown, backyard. There are still unpacked boxes…
A former star actor with a dark past tries to make a comeback in Joshua John Miller’s The Exorcism. Russell Crowe plays the actor, Anthony Miller. He’s cast as a priest, Father Arlington, in a supernatural horror film involving an exorcism. Miller was an altar boy who was molested. His wife became very ill with…
The second longest running play (excluding musicals) in London’s West End, The Woman in Black is no neatly packaged fairy story. It is a dark tale of despair and revenge. It concerns a man driven to tell his truth after the death of an elderly and reclusive widow, Mrs Alice Drablow. I speak of Arthur Kipps (John Waters),…
Music like, I dare say, you have never seen it performed before. An hour-long pulsating beat, complete with athleticism, instruments struck and strummed outside the norm, treadmill vocals and wild cheering from the bleachers. There’s also a commentator and a highly enthusiastic cheerleader who, too, breaks the conventional mould (in fact, the whole performance piece does). All…
Have you ever wanted to be an actor or voice over talent? Well, here’s your chance, although Daniel Kitson would hate me for saying so because he makes his view of actors clear in the show (or is it really his view?). The British comedian has written an off the wall script, in which he argues with…
“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education”: Albert Einstein In Matamoros, Mexico, an idealistic teacher by the name of Sergio Jaurez Correa arrives at Jose Urbina Lopez Elementary School. It’s 2012 in a neighbourhood where poverty is entrenched, crime is rampant and corruption omnipotent. In many cases, due to basic survival…
I can still recall imagery in my mind’s eye after reading Joseph Conrad’s vivid stories about the power of the sea. The fear, the vulnerability, the mystery and the delights of the ocean are apparent in the latest creative endeavour by Theatre Works. Set inside a makeshift, red, wooden phone booth, surrounded by colourful lights, in…
