Category: Review

Ties which bind us all

PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION REVIEW: IKHAYA LIKAYMOYA. A WOMAN’S FACE is drenched with baptismal fluid. Her expression is serene. Her eyes closed. Another woman holds her peer from behind, a call of fierceness on her lips, fervency in her posture. A child peeks solemnly through the fabric and drapery surrounding […]

Haunted by Maluna

RADIO DRAMA REVIEW: DIE NAG VAN LEGIO. WHEN YOU GET so immersed into a radio play that you feel at once transfixed and terrified to your very core, you know that you are in the presence of real greatness — from the perspectives of writing, directing and performing. […]

Of rude vessels, mediocrity and gods

FILM REVIEW: AMADEUS AT THE NATIONAL THEATRE. THE CURIOUS FLAW in this almost mythic tale of maverick talent, jealousy and the celebration of mediocrity, is how it is hinged on ostensible fact. Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play Amadeus took some fuzzy hearsay around the life and death of 18th […]

Leaps of faith and chicken sandwiches

REVIEW: RADIO DRAMA ‘KRAG’. WHAT ARE THE protocols of an emergency under lockdown? A little old lady, Elsa Venter (Elize Cawood) fiercely alone in her Linden flat encounters a problem big enough for her to call the emergency services, but is it big enough for them to take […]

Oh, the visions you will see!

FILM REVIEW: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM. CAN YOU HAVE too much midsummer madness at the same time? It’s an odd decision for arguably two of the biggest of London’s theatres to be live streaming the same play at virtually the same time. Truth be told, if you watch […]

Don’t mess with Mamela

DANCE REVIEW: PEST CONTROL. YOU DO NOT need to know the dirty politics of the arts in contemporary South Africa in order to access the angry new dance missile which Mamela Nyamza launches at this year’s National Arts Festival. You do not need to know the specifics of […]

Everything about Bottom, as it fell out

FILM REVIEW: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM AT THE GLOBE THEATRE. A miasmic tale of darkness and tomfoolery, which ramps amateurism up to the skies and has a denouement that sees everyone in the arms of their rightful lover, Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream is notorious for its complexity, double- […]

Films that make us tick

TEASER FOR AFRIKAANS RADIO DRAMA: DIE BLIKSLIM. READY FOR A CRUNCHINGLY good bit of Afrikaans-language radio drama this evening? Well, you need to take up the position, next to the wireless. Under the direction of Renske Jacobs and with the penned words of Martyn le Roux, this week’s […]