Arts

A new interactive film has been launched to counter the growing threat of far-right radicalisation. ‘Choices’ is a first-of-its-kind UK film which sets out to highlight the dishonesty of far-right organisations and encourage people to think critically about what they’re being told online and in social situations. Inspired by real life events, the film encourages the viewer to make decisions in real-time in an interactive journey into the world of the far-right. The plot runs on two parallel lines as the...

Greatness Ogholi’s voice rings out, as deep and clear as a Brita filtered volcanic river. It is a voice at once melodious and dramatic, serious, yet light with rogueish charm. I’m already game to join his political party, and all he’s done is the opening monologue. This is New Nigerians, a revolutionary play by Oladipo Agboluaje at the start of its debut run at the Arcola Theatre. I could listen to Greatness, as played by Patrice Naiambana, all damn day....

A tall narrow bookcase dominates Iona McLeish’s set design on director Mehmet Ergen’s stage. It’s never ending length, reaching to the stars, and with a cherry tree exploding up and ripping through its belly, is a metaphor for Mme Ranevsky’s pipe dream that somehow her family estate will be saved and that life will continue for her and her entourage as much as it has done in spite of the social, political and economic turmoil that will soon hit Russia....

As the lights go down at the end of See Me Now’s press night the audience rise collectively to their feet in outright admiration. This display of elation is not born out of left liberal values, but out of respect for the performers, for the gutsy real life stories they as an audience have just been witness to and the realisation of the emotional cost that telling such stories has for the ensemble. The show is about the sex industry...

Have I read A Clockwork Orange? Have I fuck. I haven’t even seen the film. Which naturally makes me a perfect fit to review Action To The Word’s all-male stage version, which opened at the Park Theatre on February 16th to many a gasp, giggle and gurn from the audience. I have tried to read Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange. I tried a bunch of times in the early noughties, fuelled predominantly by a desire to impress boys. Note: not...

“One of the most striking questions about flamenco performances is the apparent rigidity with which both men and women perform and recreate their own stereotypes”, Joaquina Labajo wrote in an essay exploring the construction of gender in the Spanish art form. You can certainly see how it has become a focal issue. The “dancing is for women” stereotype is one that many forms grapple with, particularly within the classics, where “gender roles” are still as pronounced today as they have...

Who loves the cello? Everyone. Everyone loves the cello. Everyone loves the cello because the cello is amazing. It’s the violin’s sexy, bigger brother, without all those horrible screechy scratchy noises that make you want to tear off ears with your bare hands and mail them to Peru. Or so we all thought! If you’re reading this in hope of a charming appraisal of a beautiful cello recital that you could take your significant other to as a touching Valentines...

“Gender enlightenment has not exactly reached the world of Tango Fire,” Lyndsey Winship wrote in the Evening Standard ahead of German Cornejo’s latest work, currently playing at the Peacock Theatre. From the outset you can see why that may be the prevailing opinion. “Knicker-revealing slits in the dancers' glamorous dresses” hark back to a time when pimps and prostitutes would practice this seductive art form on the sordid streets of Buenos Aires. But put your 21st century goggles on and...

I love surprises. The anticipation of a million possibilities is often just as exhilarating as the performance itself. It is with a head-in-a-bucket methodology that I choose the shows I’m going to see at the London International Mime Festival each year – basing my selection not on titles or posters or research, but only on which evenings I have free. I leave the rest to chance. This year the two completely random tickets I ended up with were firstly to...