Category: Review

Holy lies, cold truths and black bread

It is 1948 and Lithuania is caught between the tail end of Hitler’s cruelty and the as yet unrevealed horror Stalin’s slippery promises. Unte (Marius Povlias Elijas Martynenko), with his sultry, almost androgynous yet somewhat mongoloid features is the ponderously gentle central protagonist. He’s a son, yet not […]

Bertrams: A love song in academia

PICTURE THE SCENARIO. We’re in the Johannesburg suburb of Bertrams with all its broken dreams, building repair sites and street-based hawkers. It’s Septemberish in 2016. The air is hazy with pollen, but complicated with the excitement of a new entity. And a bunch of people, some of whom […]

A £100 pup

EIGHT MONTHS AGO, you may have called a story with its heart in the cruel grip of an epidemic ‘apocalyptic’. Tomorrow evening, when you listen to the radio drama interpretation of CJ Langenhoven’s novella Mof en Sy Mense, you will recognise all the rawness of loss and the […]

How to dash a “Bond Girl” fantasy

THERE’S A DISARMING pragmatism about “Svetlana”, the seventh episode in the podcast series The End of the Line, which focuses on the stories of contemporary women who have elected not to have children. Svetlana’s narrative is about living in a world that hasn’t been taken care of, and […]