The latest film by Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha is Blinded by the Light, the story of a teenager in Thatcher-era northern England whose life is changed by the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen. The coming-of-age story is based on the real-life experiences of Safraz Manzoor, growing up a first generation Pakistani-Briton and trying … Continue reading “Bend it Like Bruce”
Keith Haring grew up in small town Pennsylvania reading, watching and drawing cartoons. When the 20-year-old arrived in New York City to study art in 1978, his fast, cartoonish style was soon recognisable all over the city. A retrospective at Tate Liverpool, then going onto Brussels, shows the astonishing output of his short life. Haring … Continue reading “Keith Haring: Fast Art”
A new biopic, Vita and Virginia, tells the story of author Virginia Woolf’s relationship with aristocrat Vita Sackville-West, which resulted in one of the most innovative novels of the early twentieth century, Orlando. Apart from an interest in literature and writing, nothing destined Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West to meet, never mind form a relationship. … Continue reading “Virginia Woolf Love Story”
Caroline Criado Perez’s thought-provoking book Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men does exactly what it says: shows the hundreds of ways in which the needs of women (and anyone who isn’t a 1.77m tall, 76kg white male) are ignored in all aspects of our society. The author will be giving a … Continue reading “Visible Woman”
Forty-six years after it was filmed, an extraordinary documentary has been released of Aretha Franklin recording her most popular album, and the biggest selling gospel album of all time. The “Queen of Soul” was at the height of her career in 1972, having recorded 11 consecutive Number 1 singles in the pop and R&B charts. … Continue reading “Amazing Grace”
Photographer André Kertész, considered one of the major 2oth-century proponents of the photographic art, is currently the subject of a retrospective at the Château de Tours. Kertész was born in Hungary in 1894 and died in New York 101 years later, having spent a decade in Paris along the way. Much of his work explores … Continue reading “Outsider’s Eye”
It’s always great to have an excuse to play Beatles songs in class and the latest one is this summer’s feel-good movie, Yesterday. In it a wannabe pop star from England wakes up from a bike accident caused by a global power cut to discover that he is the only person left on Earth who … Continue reading “Yesterday”
Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë were wonderful storytellers, but their lives have fascinated generations of audiences almost as much as their books. The play Brontë by Polly Teale combines their biographies and their fiction. We talked to Barry Purves, who directed a recent production. Brontë by Polly Teale (2005), intertwines the biography of the Brontë … Continue reading “Staging the Brontë Sisters”
JRR Tolkien’s stories of Middle Earth, hobbits, wizards and dragons have captured the imagination of generations. A new film looks at his experiences of friendship, love and war as a young man, and how they may have influenced the man and work. Tolkien the film opens with a young officer, Tolkien, ill with a fever, … Continue reading “Tolkien the Storyteller”
While it may be the last film of the current X-Men movie franchise, Dark Phoenix is also shaping up to be the absolute darkest chapter of the series yet. What’s the Dark Phoenix story? The Dark Phoenix story is based on Chris Claremont’s iconic 1980s X-Men comic book (specifically The Dark Phoenix Saga). … Continue reading “Dark Phoenix: back to black”