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DARK SECRETS: Bertolt brecht | Vintage Vibes

German Proverb of the Day: “First comes the food, then comes morality.” A lesson on basic needs and ethics

German Proverb of the Day: “First comes the food, then comes morality” highlights how basic human needs can influence priorities, choices and moral expectations. The proverb places immediate necessities such as food before broader ethical concerns, encouraging a more careful understanding of human behaviour. Its message suggests that circumstances matter…

The Economic Times

Four Walls and a Roof review – fascinating tale of Brecht, the red scare and today’s émigrés

Rabih Mroué and Lina Majdalanie explore the playwright’s life, and their journey from Beirut to Berlin, in an absorbing show at the Edinburgh international festival

The Guardian - UK

The experience that coloured everything Britten went on to write

Three months after Bergen-Belsen was liberated, Britten and Yehudi Menuhin performed there. Survivor and cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was ‘transfixed’ – as she told the composer when they played together decades later

The Guardian - UK

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Mother Courage and Her Children: Big, bold populist political theatre

4/5 Michelle Terry gives a bravura performance in this first staging of Brecht at Shakespeare’s Globe

Evening Standard

Mother Courage and her Children review – moving, funny and savage portrait of life during wartime

Forgoing Brecht’s usual distanciation, Anna Jordan’s new translation and Michelle Terry’s lovable performance bring out the humanity of a woman doing what’s necessary to keep herself and her family alive

The Guardian - UK

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui review – Mark Gatiss terrifies as Brecht’s fascistic cauliflower racketeer

Gatiss is part Hitler, part Scrooge, part Trump in Seán Linnen’s circus-like production for the RSC

The Guardian - UK

Mark Gatiss: ‘There’s a narrative telling us that Nigel Farage will be PM – but look at the people opposed to him’

INTERVIEW: The writer and actor of ‘Sherlock’ and ‘Doctor Who’ fame is playing a character modelled on Adolf Hitler in a Bertolt Brecht revival at the RSC. He speaks to Louis Chilton about politics, television, fascism, and the future

The Independent UK

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‘It’s the same rhetoric today – really frightening’: Mark Gatiss and Placebo on reviving Brecht’s brutal Hitler satire

In these turbulent times, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui has never been more vital, and returns to the stage starring the Sherlock star and with music by the alt-rockers. But, they say, they don’t just want to preach to the choir

The Guardian - UK

Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny: A Trumpian 'hellhole' opera

4/5 The ENO bring Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s opera to the Coliseum as a dystopia for our times

Evening Standard

I wrote a BBC drama about hope in a ‘left-behind’ town – but Britain changed faster than I could script it

The aspiration to write a “state-of-the-nation” drama is the great white whale of political writing. Take the work of legendary German playwright Bertolt Brecht. Exiled by Hitler to Scandinavia in 1933, he attempted to capture life in his homeland from anecdotes and verbatim accounts. The result, his state-of-the-nation play Fear…

The Conversation

‘That make-or-break feeling? I love it’: can André de Ridder put ENO back on its feet?

Budgets have been slashed, morale is through the floor and the company has been forced to find a second base in Manchester. But the new musical director is up for a challenge. We meet the man with the hardest job in music

The Guardian - UK

Placebo make theatre debut with score for Brecht production by Royal Shakespeare Company

Alt-rockers will score Hitler allegory The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, with Mark Gatiss in the title role

The Guardian - UK

Lovers and fighters: how Les Liaisons Dangereuses reveals the passions of Christopher Hampton

As the writer turns 80, his masterful adaptation of the French novel is being revived at the National Theatre. It highlights his lifelong interest in political power play

The Guardian - UK

Sandi’s Great Riviera Rail Trip review – Toksvig’s wonder-filled travelogue is a bibliophile’s fantasy

The QI presenter’s visit to the French south coast sees her boggling with delight at tales of writers’ past visits, and marvelling at the homes of authors. At points it feels like a literary tour by stealth

The Guardian - UK

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The Independent UK

Rufus Wainwright on music, politics and life: ‘Creativity helps to fend off the darker angels’

INTERVIEW: Next month, the musician releases a cover album of songs by his hero Kurt Weill. He talks to Jude Rogers about life under Trump, hanging out with Marianne Faithfull, and why he’ll never criticise Britain over Brexit again

The Guardian - UK

Made in Ancient Egypt review: a two-day Pyramid bender and the BC Leonardo

Revealing tantalising new details about the real lives of artists and craftspeople, this show takes you beyond the death mythology and into the realm of magic

Evening Standard

Sir Kenneth Branagh: We have to work harder to earn the audience’s attention

The Oppenheimer star made his first appearance with the Royal Shakespeare Company aged 23 in the 1984 production of Henry V.

The Guardian - UK

Kenneth Branagh returns to the RSC for The Tempest and The Cherry Orchard

Next summer, the star will appear in Stratford-upon-Avon first as Prospero and then alongside Helen Hunt in Chekhov’s classic

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Evening Standard

Kenneth Branagh returns to Royal Shakespeare Company for first time in 30 years

Sir Kenneth, best known for Belfast and Hamlet, made his first appearance with the theatre company aged 23 in the 1984 production of Henry V.

The Guardian - UK

Don’t cry for me, all you boozers! The trouble with shifting Evita’s big balcony number from stage to street

In the new Evita at the London Palladium, Rachel Zegler sings from the theatre’s actual balcony – meaning the big-paying audience doesn’t experience what passersby get for free. Could this gimmick catch on?

The Guardian - UK

Brecht’s answer to Beckett’s question

Letters: The Solution | Thames Water bonuses | Ofwat fines | Football shirts

The Guardian - UK

Renee Goddard obituary

Actor and script editor who oversaw programmes at ATV and introduced foreign drama to Channel 4

The Conversation

Guide to the classics: Aristotle’s Poetics is a bible for screenwriters – but it’s often misread

Aristotle’s Poetics has arguably influenced modern culture more than any other ancient text. The Greek philosopher’s 4th century BCE treatise on what constitutes the best form of poetry is our earliest surviving piece of standalone literary criticism. It has had a profound influence on storytelling ever since.

The Independent UK

Why you should swap the crowded French Riviera for Marseille’s lesser-known shores

Nice local Chloe Braithwaite finds respite from the summer crowds of the Cote d'Azur in the sleepy towns that surround France’s oldest city

The Conversation

Eddie Redmayne’s Emcee performance has caused uproar – but there is more to this Cabaret than meets the eye

Eddie Redmayne’s performance at the 2024 Tony Awards in June has been a hot topic among theatre fans. British director Rebecca Frecknall’s imaginative revival of Cabaret (1966) opened in London in 2021 and on Broadway in April 2024. Broadway critics have not been as overwhelmingly positive as London’s – and…

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