Reviews Archive

2008

May

The decline of Woody Allen
His latest film Cassandra's Dream should never have seen the light of day, says Ed West

Up, up and away with J S Bach
Damian Thompson is lifted up to heaven at St John's, Smith Square

A clash of cultures which down the centuries rumbles
Western and Eastern civilisations represent two different and ultimately incompatible cultures which have never seen eye-to-eye, argues Quentin de la Bédoyère

Romance is painful in Beirut
Ed West on Caramel

Can these (very) short stories rescue the genre?
The American writer Amy Hempel's mordant little stories are widely admired - yet sometimes they read like jokes without a punchline, says Matt Thorne

Good will ethics
These 18 essays represent Catholic theology at its best, says John Greenhalgh

Like looking at a shop window
Michael White on the ENO's Merry Widow and a breathtaking performance from The Sixteen

How a parish played host to Australia's statesmen
A tiny parish in Canberra became a platform for leading Catholic thinkers to grapple with questions of faith, morality and politics, says Ben May

Poor Tommy
John Hinton on Isaac Rosenberg, the most neglected of the First World War poets

Taking on corporate baddies
Ed West on Iron Man

At last - a truly Catholic Passion
James MacMillan's Passion is magnificent, says Damian Thompson

'The war's coming, Kevin, and it's going to be serious'
Kevin Myers became Northern Ireland correspondent at the start of the Troubles - a job no one else wanted. His account of the era is thrilling, says Ed West

Melting into water
Dennis Chang on Taiwan's Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and Sylvie Guillem

April

Memories of an Iranian punk
Freddie Sayers on Persepolis

Lost in an endless labyrinth of an opera
Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur may leave you stranded, says Michael White

Tintin's creator was never a far-Right propagandist
Hergé may have worked for a Nazi-sanctioned newspaper but he did not defend fascism, says Patrick West

Emerging from the shadow of the 'Panzerkardinal'
Many biographers give us two Joseph Ratzingers: the pre-Vatican II liberal and the post-conciliar conservative. Two writers are challenging this myth, says Anna Arco

Finally, Auntie shows she cares about music
By Michael White

Crisp line, dazzling colour
By Elizabeth Lev

Rippling with the anger of an avenging angel
There is a criminal organisation in southern Italy with more power than the Mafia. Jim Butler follows one journalist's attempts to get to the heart of this conspiracy

Hanging out with the Stones
Mark Greaves on Shine A Light

Dutilleux, with extra wildness and dazzle
By Damian Thompson

Bashing lefties as a way of life
By David Shariatmadari

Shrugging off the worst terrorist attack since 9/11
The bloody school siege in Beslan provoked horror and outrage in the West. But the reaction in Russia was strangely muted, discovers John Hinton

Renoir's masterpiece, flogged for a pittance
Milo Andreas Wagner on Renoir At The Theatre: Looking at La Loge

Entirely wrong
The roots of liberalism are not nearly so simple as this book claims, argues Jonathan Wright

March

Dancers with zinc in their shins
By Dennis Chang

Rewriting history
The apocryphal Gospel of Judas tells us nothing new about Jesus, says David V Barrett

'I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds'
The man behind America's pursuit of the atom bomb spent the rest of his life tormented by the destructive forces he had unleashed, discovers John Hinton

Viewing with a 'Cranach eye'
By Alan Caine

Looming fear
Author Julian Barnes doesn't believe in God but admits to missing Him, says Peter Stanford

Norman Mailer: 'God told me not to pay for coffee'
The great American novelist was a wildly eccentric believer who claimed that God personally instructed him to ignore society's petty injunctions, says Matt Thorne

A BBC antidote to Mel Gibson
Ed West on The Passion

Cosmic accident
Peter Mullen discovers why a radical atheist became convinced of the existence of God

How the Church learned to accept modern science
The discoveries of science and Catholic teaching are not incompatible, argues Quentin de la Bédoyère

Cheap puff that leaves you empty
Freddie Sayers on The Other Boleyn Girl

Masochism makes for a glum evening
Dennis Chang finds that Pina Bausch is not as light-hearted as he remembered

A nation where lives were destroyed with a whisper
There was no such thing as a private life in Stalin's Russia, discovers Jack Carrigan