Author Archives

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.

Portrait of the cat with shooting stars

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 […]

Itchy foot, generous flukes

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 […]

Nothing to be frightened of

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 […]

Ode to all the Poppies in our midst

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 […]

Just me and some smashed lasagna

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 […]

Three chords and the truth

THE INCENTIVE TO follow the wild road that your dreams may offer you, regardless of your commitments or bank balance, is the stuff that ignites the passion of many a youngster. It’s also the stuff that makes the hero myth such a compelling one, for everyone. Tom Harper’s […]

The boy with a snake tattoo

LUCK CAN BE a double-edged sword: it can give and take in batches and in ways that may make your self-belief feel as though it is falling through the floor. Debut theatre work by 21-year-old Stellenbosch University student, Adriaan Havenga, Hulle noem hom Mamba is a tale of […]

Rebel with a blind date

THE PLEA TO the universe to allow you to “fuck up” your own life, is a provocative and tearful one, in the words of ‘Claire’, played by Siobhan Athwal in the twelfth episode of the Ink Jockey podcast series The End of the Line, directed by Mark Heywood. […]