India v England: time to dismantle some of the rules?
Daniel Nelson Daniel Nelson

India v England: time to dismantle some of the rules?

Swearing, sex talk, insults, epithets, rivalry: a group of World Cup players row, spill secrets and get on each others’ nerves. These women are all Indian and English cricketers, and their shared impatience make for a lively first act of Testmatch at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond.

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Family and sorcery in D R Congo
Daniel Nelson Daniel Nelson

Family and sorcery in D R Congo

‘Nominative determinism’ is the idea that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work that fit their names. So perhaps it’s not surprising that Congolese rapper Baloji’s first film is Omen.

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Goodbye gentle craft, hello subversive stitch
Daniel Nelson Daniel Nelson

Goodbye gentle craft, hello subversive stitch

An exhibition of textiles? Nah - too boring. Where’s the drama and danger in sewing and thread? If that’s your reaction, and you don’t bother to see Unravel, The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, you are making a big mistake.

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The Yard confronts the Door Of No Return
Daniel Nelson Daniel Nelson

The Yard confronts the Door Of No Return

The ever-provocative Yard Theatre’s latest production was such an instant success that after a few performances its run was extended by a fortnight. Those early audiences were right: Rhianna Ilube’s 90-minute play is hugely entertaining.

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A world of argument and conflict, disagreement and adoration
Daniel Nelson Daniel Nelson

A world of argument and conflict, disagreement and adoration

A caption in the Royal Academy’s new blockbuster exhibition, Entangled Pasts, 1768 - Now: Art, Colonialism and Change, reveals what the institution is trying to escape from: “The Royal Academy’s President from 1924 to 1926 [Frank] Dicksee insisted “our ideal of beauty must be the white man’s.”

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Getting justice from the grave
Daniel Nelson Daniel Nelson

Getting justice from the grave

Rewind is a disturbingly powerful and moving one-hour production that makes disinterred bones speak.

No, it makes disinterred bones cry out for justice.

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From misogyny to mansplaining
Daniel Nelson Daniel Nelson

From misogyny to mansplaining

Hidden Letters sets the context for its examination of Nushu -- a secret text among women in China’s Human province – by images of foot-binding: breaking and tightly binding the feet of young girls.

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Burma to Myanmar: rubies and repression
Daniel Nelson Daniel Nelson

Burma to Myanmar: rubies and repression

Myanmar is among the also-rans in the UN’s international development rankings, but as the new British Museum exhibition, Burma to Myanmar, reminds us it once had an empire and was wealthy.

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The fire next time
Daniel Nelson Daniel Nelson

The fire next time

Talking About The Fire is the latest in a newish genre: one-person shows about serious topics, such as global population, worldwide animal extinction,  and climate change. Now we have a show about nuclear bombs.

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Ms Singh in the living room with a rapier
Daniel Nelson Daniel Nelson

Ms Singh in the living room with a rapier

The drama mounts to a crescendo as rules are broken and the arguments between the characters become increasingly heated. Suddenly the confusion climaxes in a moment of family violence: mum flips the Cluedo board over, sending the pieces flying.

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The sink or swim life of Sara Mardini
Daniel Nelson Daniel Nelson

The sink or swim life of Sara Mardini

First came The Swimmers - a flashy dramatisation of the adventures of the Syrian sisters who risked their already endangered lives by jumping from an overcrowded refugee boat and pulling and pushing it for three-and-a-half hours to safety in Lesbos.

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