CULTURE
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Alan Yentob 1947-2025 — Jewish Renaissance
The BBC broadcaster has died aged 78. David Herman looks back at his influential career in TV Alan Yentob was one of the key figures in the golden age of BBC television in the late 20th century. He joined the organisation as a trainee in 1968. By 1973 he was working on BBC1’s flagship arts documentary series Omnibus. He produced…
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The Frogs ★★★★ — Jewish Renaissance
A fabulous cast finds its funny as gods, mortals and more in Sondheim’s merry musical fable One of many potent reasons for admiring Stephen Sondheim is his eclectic range of subject matter. From Sweeney Todd, the murderous barber of Fleet Street, to the reunion of still sparkling retired chorus girls in Follies, he and his collaborators excel in storytelling onstage…
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The Crucible ★★★★
Seven decades on and Arthur Miller’s thriller based on the Salem Witch Trials still hits a pertinent nerve Arthur Miller’s 1953 drama may be set in late 17th-century Massachusetts, but it’s no secret that he uses the Salem witch trials – which led to the imprisonment and even hanging of innocent men and women – as a metaphor for McCarthyism.…
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Riefenstahl ★★★★ — Jewish Renaissance
This new documentary on the filmmaker is the work of German director Andres Veiel. He was given access to Riefenstahl’s huge but disorganised archive of personal materials. The film is painstakingly constructed from these, alongside footage from Riefenstahl’s films and various broadcast interviews she gave over the years. The result is less a chronological narrative of her life and more…
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House of Games ★★★★ — Jewish Renaissance
We find ourselves witness to two key locations, artfully portrayed via a split-level set concocted by Ashley Martin-Davis: the dimly lit dive bar where gamers gather around a poker table and the classy, daylight-filled office of Dr Margaret Ford. Played self-assuredly by Lisa Dillon, Margaret is a high-profile psychologist and bestselling author. Her devoted PA Kathleen (Joanna Brookes), a sympathetic…
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The Most Precious of Cargoes ★★★★ — Jewish Renaissance
Yet the morose woodcutter, initially just a figure of unreflective, almost brutish physical strength, comes to realise that “The Heartless have a heart”. Much against his will, he begins to love the little girl, turns a knot of wood into a spinning ballerina and even proves willing to die defending her. And the viewer, of course, comes to understand that…
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Exploring the Channel Islands’ complex wartime history — Jewish Renaissance
Take a look back at our tour to Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney, which marked 80 years since the end of World War II Last week, JR Tours set off on a trip to the Channel Islands to mark the end of World War II. Eighty years ago, on 8 May, Germany acquiesced and signed the German Instrument of Surrender, a…
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Here We Are ★★★★ — Jewish Renaissance
Stephen Sondheim bids a dreamlike farewell in this colourful posthumous musical Are the couple sweeping the stage part of the show or management making sure it’s spic and span for performance, I wonder. So convincingly diligent yet laid back were the pair that it took me time to realise they were Tracie Bennett and Denis O’Hare, designated in the programme…
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Faygele ★★★★ — Jewish Renaissance
Playwright Shimmy Braun’s bold title, Faygele, provides apt explanation of the young protagonist’s plight and motivation. Translated from Yiddish, ‘faygele’ is actually ‘little bird’, but it has become a contemptuous term of insult for a gay man, someone whose life chances can be compromised, especially in the Orthodox Jewish community (Brooklyn in this case) as Braun reveals from personal experience.…
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JR debuts a play in Guernsey about the Nazi deportations from the island — Jewish Renaissance
Theresa has previously toured the UK, France and Germany, and it even aired on BBC Radio under the title The Road to Paradise. The play is based on the true story of Viennese Jew Theresa Steiner, who was handed over to the Nazis by the British authorities on the island of Guernsey in 1942. Along with other Jewish women living…
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