Robyn Sassen
A freelance arts writer since 1998, I fell in love with the theatre as a toddler, proved rubbish as a ballerina: my starring role was as Mrs Pussy in Noddy as a seven-year-old, and earned my stripes as an academic in Fine Arts and Art History, in subsequent years. I write for a range of online and print publications, including the Sunday Times, the Mail & Guardian and artslink.co.za and was formerly the arts editor of the SA Jewish Report, a weekly newspaper with which I was associated for 16 years. I am currently a Research Associate at Wits University. This blog promises you new stories every week, be they reviews, profiles, news stories or features.
WHEN YOU ENCOUNTER the crisp freshness in John Crowley’s Brooklyn, a filmic interpretation of Colm Toibin’s novel of the same name, you will realise that it is all pervading. From the use of dress to the understanding of light, colour, narrative and performance, this 2015 film is nothing […]
THERE IS A new story boiling under the pen of Afrikaans playwright Martyn le Roux, and it seems like it will be something which will get you bingeing in a radio format. Die Soutwaterheks is a series le Roux has written and worked into the magical medium of […]
MURDER MOST FOUL is a very well trodden field in storytelling. But under Adelle van Wyk’s pen, with Makkie Onthou, the story is a lot richer with heart, the texture of society and love, than most whodunnits. You can hear this beautiful work tonight, 29 April on Radio […]
WELCOME TO THE Oasis, where bad feelings lie in everyone’s heart, and money is too tight to mention. No whores, no drugs, no gambling, this club is a ‘rite of passage’ jazz venue for many young people, and it values its squeaky clean reputation, but everyone, it seems, […]
FURKIDS. IT’S A strange and saccharine construct that has crept into common discourse almost surreptitiously, giving your pet that leap into the intimacies of your family. But what if he really took that leap himself and offered you something more to being in the world? This is one […]
YOU’RE NEVER TOO small for great big adventures, is one of the empowering messages in Max Lang and Daniel Snaddon’s completely gorgeous animation, The Snail and the Whale, recently released on Showmax. But more than just a lovely story with a lump-in-the-throat truism as its moral, it’s a […]
WHERE WERE YOU when Nelson Mandela was released from prison? Who were you when human faeces were plied on one of South Africa’s most prominent public sculptures? Why aren’t you vegan? How did you react to news of the Marikana massacre in August 2017? One of the classic […]
ENGLISH WRITER, JULIAN Barnes did it. As did American film director Nora Ephron. Now, as close as your wireless, is a yarn cast by Philip Nolte about the biggest mystery of all: death. Morgenster is a delightful work with a twist of truisms that will give you courage […]
CLEMENTINA MOSIMANE SHIMMERS with magnetism in Poppie Nongena, Christiaan Olwagen’s beautiful and rich translation of arguably one of South African literature’s more important novels. Die Swerfjare van Poppie Nongena was crafted by Elsa Joubert in 1978, and in bringing to life a character who becomes an evergreen black […]
THE DEEP VALUE of The End of the Line, a series of fictional monologues on podcast, focused on women’s decisions to have — or not to have — children, comes to its fulsome self with this, its 14th episode. Here, you are privileged to hear Dame Harriet Walter […]
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