On my radar: Paul Nurse’s cultural highlights
The geneticist on the joys of Alexander Calder and Nordic noir, plus virtuoso performances from Simon McBurney and András SchiffThe new Francis Crick Institute in London’s King’s Cross opens this...
View ArticleSimon McBurney: British theatrical alchemist ready to dazzle Broadway
His hallucinogenic new show takes the audience up the Amazon and to the centre of their own consciousnesses – the latest work from an auteur who has constantly redefined theatreBroadway has seen many...
View ArticleThe Encounter review – Simon McBurney's revolution in the head
Golden Theatre, New YorkEquipping the audience with headphones offering 3D sound, McBurney embarks on a mind-expanding journey into the Amazon jungle – and storytelling itselfThe director, playwright,...
View ArticleJohn Berger remembered – by Geoff Dyer, Olivia Laing, Ali Smith and Simon...
The friend, the radical, the inspiration – four writers remember the art critic, essayist and novelist who died this weekI heard John Berger speaking at the end of 2015 in London at the British...
View ArticleDanny Huston to star in Royal Court adaptation of Robert Evans' memoir
Hollywood star will make his London theatre debut in The Kid Stays in the Picture, directed by Simon McBurney Danny Huston is to make his UK theatre debut in The Kid Stays in the Picture at the Royal...
View ArticleSimon McBurney: Beware of Pity is chillingly resonant in the Trump era
The director describes the gruesome appeal of staging Stefan Zweig’s novel about the faultlines running through a society on the brink of destruction“Why Zweig? Eeeuwww …”No. That doesn’t quite do it....
View ArticleBeware of Pity review – Simon McBurney astonishes with vision of a world on edge
Barbican, LondonWith dazzling virtuosity, this Complicite/Schaubühne staging of Stefan Zweig’s novel brilliantly evokes a doomed romance and the imminent horror of warBalzac, about whom Stefan Zweig...
View ArticleBeware of Pity review – found in translation
Barbican, London Simon McBurney’s fizzing take on Stefan Zweig’s 1939 novel transcends language barriers… and can still be seen onlineBefore I was a theatre critic I used to be enraged by certain...
View ArticleHow Robert Evans changed movies for ever – and for the better
With The Godfather and Chinatown, Robert Evans revolutionised the movie industry. Now, Simon McBurney is staging the mogul’s scandalous memoir, The Kid Stays in the Picture. They talk about art, life...
View ArticleThe Kid Stays in the Picture review – Robert Evans gets the Citizen Kane...
Royal Court, LondonSimon McBurney’s adaptation of the Hollywood tycoon’s memoir is technically brilliant and often breathtaking but it adds little to his familiar storyRobert Evans’s Hollywood memoir,...
View ArticleThe Kid Stays in the Picture review – from mogul to minor player
Royal Court, LondonRobert Evans all but disappears in Simon McBurney’s adaptation of the Hollywood producer’s rollercoaster memoirRobert Evans, the Hollywood producer, maintains that what matters most...
View ArticleOpera's Faustian pact: is a cinema director's vision what the genre needs?
Sofia Coppola’s La Traviata was slated on its Rome premiere. But will a cinema audience have an entirely different perspective? Stuart Jeffries wonders whether an outsider’s eye is an advantage for an...
View ArticleCate Blanchett joins stars urging Russia to drop 'flimsy' charges against...
Leading arts figures sign petition calling on Moscow’s public prosecutor to end investigation into Kirill SerebrennikovHigh-profile figures in the arts world have called on Russian authorities to drop...
View ArticleThe week in classical: András Schiff, OAE; The Magic Flute – review
Royal Festival Hall; Coliseum, LondonOver two evenings, András Schiff and the OAE made Brahms and Schumann sound like newBrahms the radical, Schumann the assured and joyful. This was the dazzling...
View ArticleSimon McBurney: 'Germany understand that in a crisis you need bonds between...
As Complicité’s The Encounter goes online, its creator discusses the need to rebuild British culture ‘from the ground up’The best arts and entertainment during self-isolationThe best theatre and dance...
View ArticleWolfwalkers review – wolves take on Cromwell in bold Irish history tale
Seventeenth-century Kilkenny is the setting for this beautifully made animation about history, heritage and familyCartoon Saloon is the Kilkenny-based studio that has quietly engineered an upsurge in...
View ArticleCan I Live? review – privilege, protest and the climate crisis
Available onlineFehinti Balogun’s show uses hip-hop and spoken word to explore the ways people of colour have been excluded from environmental activismThere is a moment in Fehinti Balogun’s one-hour...
View ArticleSiberia review – Willem Dafoe and Abel Ferrara on fine freaky form
Dafoe has gravitas as a barkeep on a journey of delusion and epiphany in Ferrara’s glacial, woozy dream-odysseyThe WTF factor is always high in the work of Abel Ferrara and this movie is no exception:...
View ArticleMud, murder and homemade schnapps: eco-thriller Drive Your Plow Over the...
As Complicité’s Simon McBurney brings Olga Tokarczuk’s feminist detective story to the stage, the pair discuss its eccentric sleuth, isolated landscape and climate alarmTime feels out of joint, in a...
View ArticleThe Pale Blue Eye review – baffled, beardy Christian Bale in gruesome murder...
Set in 1830, a mildly ridiculous plot sends a haunted Bale to investigate the gothic killing of a military cadetAs a director, Scott Cooper has achieved a reputation for handling the tough textures of...
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