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Posts Tagged ‘Andy Warhol’

The Collaboration

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 24, 2022| Leave a Comment »

It’s not often that you leave the theatre feeling privileged to have been in the audience, having witnessed something captivating, stimulating and entertaining. A fascinating story, brilliantly told, evocative design and performances you won’t stop talking about for some time. Something that can only happen live. You may have gathered already that this is a superb evening of theatre.

Andy Warhol’s career is flat-lining, stuck in one style, prices in decline. Jean-Michel Basquiat is the new kid on the block, a street artist who’s become the contemporary art world’s new poster boy. They are thrown together by Bruno Bischofberger, the art dealer they share, to create an exhibition that will hopefully add value to both their careers and become the talking point of the art community.

At the outset, Warhol is less than enthusiastic about the wildness of Basquiat and his work, whilst Basquiat is contemptuous of the decline of Warhol’s work from art to product, copying corporate logos and making silkscreen prints of celebrities. Though the collaboration happened the detail we see is of course somewhat speculative, but it seems both plausible and very real. Warhol is deeply conservative and Basquiat seemingly out of control. Over the three years they work together, the relationship evolves into a strong bond, but this is a multi-layered piece which looks at their respective personalities, backgrounds and inspiration as well as their relationship, but also covers the impact of business on art and how this can promote or derail it, or both. It held me in its grip throughout.

Anna Fleischle’s design takes us right into the warehouse and loft spaces of New York City’s artists, with superb projections by Duncan McLean. Paul Bettany is uncannily like Warhol in appearance and goes on to inhabit the character in a stunning performance. Jeremy Pope, in his UK debut, is mesmerising as Basquiat, a live wire pacing around his studio. There were moments in the second half when the magnetic presence of both resulted in an extraordinary silence. There’s fine support too from Alec Newman as the art dealer and Sophia Barclay as Basquiat’s sometime girlfriend; well, one of them!

Though he’s written 12 or so plays, most in his early career, Anthony McCarten is better known for some superb screenplays in recent years (The Theory of Everything, Darkest Hour, Bohemian Rhapsody & Two Popes) which has clearly made him a master at characterisation and storytelling. The Young Vic’s AD Kwame Kwei-Armah has marshalled his actors and creative team to produce something very special, one of the best new plays I’ve seen in some time.

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The Rest of March….before the lockdown

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 2, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Opera

I managed to catch an opera during a visit to Brno in the Czech Republic, a rarely performed Dvorak work called The Devil & Kate. They consider it a children’s show there, so it was an early start and was full of (well behaved) kids. I liked the music, but the story was a bit weak and the performers didn’t seem to have their heart in it. Still, £11 for the best seat in the house!

The Royal Academy of Music’s production of Massenet’s Cherubin was terrific, with sky high musical standards – some stunning soloists and a great chorus and orchestra. Any opera house would be proud to have a production this good in their repertoire, yet here it was at a conservatoire!.

Classical Music

The LSO invited American conductor Andre Thomas and his pianist, soprano & baritone to lead a Gospel evening which included a Mass he composed, with traditional spirituals on either side. With 450 singers, 90% of them in community choirs, overflowing into the front third of the Barbican Hall stalls, it was rousing, but it had its gentle moments too, notably a beautiful unaccompanied soprano solo of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Great to see one of the world’s top orchestras extending itself in this way.

Another lunchtime concert at RAM, this time their Chamber Orchestra conducted by Trevor Pinnock in a lovely combination of Ravel and Mozart. I so love these little gems.

Trying to rescue an afternoon after a cancelled theatre matinee, we decided on a wander along the south bank of the Thames, starting by popping in to Southwark Cathedral where we caught the last half of a delightful concert by Wake Forest University Concert Choir. Our half seemed to be the more interesting selection, five secular works. Lovely.

The LSO were on fine form at the Barbican yet again, with a pairing of Britten’s Violin Concerto, superbly played by Norwegian Vilde Frang, which I was hearing for the first time, and Vaughan Williams uncharacteristically dark 6th Symphony, which I have heard before but it felt like the first time. The curtain-raiser of VW’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis completed a superb programme brilliantly played. Antonio Pappano thanked us for coming to support them, acknowledging the many seats clearly vacant due to Coronavirus fears. This had somehow added an air of foreboding and melancholy. It turned out to be my last dose of culture, excluding art, before lockdown.

Dance

We’ve been inundated with juke box musicals, but the dancical, which followed at the beginning of this century with Contact and Moving Out, never really took off. Well, Message in a Bottle, hip hop dance to the music of Sting at the Peacock Theatre certainly did. The twenty-six songs, many re-recorded by him with the help of Hamilton’s Alex Lacamoire, sounded great. The refugee narrative worked well, thanks to playwright Lolita Chakrabarti’s dramaturgy. Kate Prince’s choreography was thrilling, often taking your breath away. Now to see the man again in six months’ time…..hopefully.

Film

I enjoyed Military Wives, even though I blubbed through a lot of it! I was however puzzled and a bit upset by the fact they wiped Gareth Malone and The Choir documentary series out of the story altogether. It felt like changing history to me.

I like and admire films that expose injustice and Dark Water was a fine one, though embarrassingly close to home for someone who once worked in the chemical industry. A lack of law suits against the film suggest its story is true, so shame on you DuPont.

Art

Masculinities: liberation through photography at the Barbican Art Gallery had some interesting photos, but I’m not sure what the point of it was. It was vast and varied, but it was one of those exhibitions you go to because it’s free for members; if you’d paid, you’d be even less satisfied.

At Borough Market, I popped in to see Picturing Britain, an exhibition of photographs about the poor and those working with them. It was a bit small and the space didn’t really do them justice, I’m afraid.

On a visit to Oxford I went to the Ashmolean Museum to see Young Rembrandt, which focused mostly on pictures from his late teens / early twenties, much of it drawings. It was a stunning body of work and a way more satisfying exhibition than the recent Rembrandt’s Light at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

On the day before the lockdown, I decided to do an art binge of exhibitions I didn’t want to miss, starting with Aubrey Beardsley at Tate Britain which was brilliant, and an astonishing body of work by a man who only lived until he was 25. It was easier to get social distance in the gallery than any shop, workplace or school so I continued by travelling on the Tate to Tate boat (at one point the only passenger) to see Andy Warhol at Tate Modern. I’ve seen a lot of his work, including visiting his museum in Pittsburgh, but there were still things new to me. Next stop was the Royal Academy of Arts to be introduced to a new artist once again, Belgian Leon Spilliaert, whose exhibition was particularly diverse and well worth catching. The final stop was a double-dip at the NPG, staring with David Hockney’s Portraits. Again, I’m glad I caught them, but there were only really three or four subjects in addition to a lot of self-portraits which made it a touch monotonous, though his diverse styles were indeed fascinating. Finally, a retro treat in Cecil Beaton’s photographs, most from the golden age of the mid-20th century, mostly black and white. I was exhausted but satisfied. It’ll be a long time before I see a fraction of what I saw on that day.

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The Rest of March

Posted in Art, Classical Music, Contemporary Music, Opera, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 1, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Opera

A bumper month, with no less than five operas (well, six if you count a double-bill as 2!).

First up, another excellent double-bill at GSMD, this time an unusual pairing of Donizetti’s one-act operatic farce I Pazzi per Progetto, set in a psychiatric institute (!) and a rare and underrated but less manic Malcolm Arnold comic one-acter The Dancing Master. Production and performance standards were, as always, sky high with a stunning performance from Alison Langer and great contributions from Alison Rose, Szymon Wach and Lawrence Thackeray.

Korean composer Unsuk Chin’s opera of Alice in Wonderland was a real treat. Brilliantly staged by Netia jones behind and around the BBC SO on the Barbican Hall stage, with terrific projections, including Ralph Steadman’s caricatures, and excellent costumes, the adaptation darkened and deepened the work and the music was very imaginative and surprisingly accessible (for modern opera!). Rachele Gilmore was a magnificent Alice with outstanding support from Andrew Watts, Marie Arnet and Jane Henschel amongst others.

The Indian Queen is an unfinished semi-opera by Purcell set in pre-colonial and colonial Central America which director Peter Sellers has played with by adding music, dancing and dialogue to make it a rather overlong 3.5 hours. It has its moments (mostly musical) but he pushed it too far, particularly adding five ‘Mayan creation’ dances before it even starts. They’ve programmed eight performances at ENO and judging by the empty seats on the night we went, that’s 3 or 4 too many

Handel’s ‘opera’ Giove in Argo is actually a ‘mash-up’ of stuff from other operas, called a ‘pasticcio’. I didn’t enjoy the first act of the London Handel Festival production at the RCM’s Britten Theatre because the singing seemed tentative and the production dark and dull, but it picked up considerable in the following two acts. Overlong at 3h15m, but with some lovely music and some stunning singing by Galina Averina and Timothy Nelson and a spectacularly good chorus.

The Rise & Fall of the City of Mahagonny at Covent Garden may never have been, or will ever again be, sung and played as well, but somehow Brecht & Weill’s ‘opera’ doesn’t really belong there. The whole enterprise seems at odds with their ethos. It’s a satire that for me didn’t have enough bite in this production, though it’s fair to say that the rest of the audience seemed to be lapping it up. That said, the quality of the singers, chorus and orchestra under Mark Wigglesworth blew me away.

Classical Music

An evening of French music at the Barbican introduced me to two unheard pieces by Debussy and Faure and renewed my acquaintance with Durufle’s beautiful Requiem, which I haven’t heard in ages. Stand-in conductor Dave Hill did a grand job, with the LSO and LSC on fine form.

Contemporary Music

The Unthanks at the Roundhouse was short(ish) but sweet. I liked the line-up, which included string quartet and trumpet. The songs from the new album sounded great, if a bit samey (as they do on record), and a selection of old material responded well to new arrangements. In the end though, it’s the heavenly voices of the sisters which make them so unique. Gorgeous.

Art

Magnificent Obsessions at the Barbican Art Gallery was a fascinating exhibition built around the personal collections of 14 artists. You can see how their collectibles influenced their art, some of which is also showcased. My favourites included Martin Parr’s collection of old postcards and Andy Warhol’s kitsch cookie jars. Fascinating.

I tagged the Paris Pinacotheque Vienna Secession exhibition to a business trip and it was a superb review of the movement, though a bit cramped in their space. Lots of Klimt, but others I was less familiar with. A real treat.

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Chicago to New York City

Posted in Architecture, Art, Contemporary Music, Design, Opera, Theatre, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 18, 2012| 3 Comments »

Well, I thought I’d sign off before I leave NYC today after what as been an epic trip. Here’s a resume of the last leg…..

Two consecutive nights on a train (one with sleeper) so that I could ‘pop into’ the Rock & Roll Museum and Hall of Fame in Cleveland en route from Chicago to Pittsburgh proved somewhat tiring (even with the late addition of a day hotel room in Cleveland) so by the time I got to Pittsburgh (not Phoenix, as the song goes), I was exhausted. Still, I enjoyed the 5 hours I spent in the R&R Museum (R&R in the broadest sense), a combination of memorabilia, video & audio laid out by origin, stye and performer. For a music lover, it was all a bit of a toyshop.

Despite my grouchy start, the Pittsburgh leg proved great. The real reason for stopping here was to take a 150-mile side trip to FLW’s masterpiece Falling Water, an extraordinary home built on a waterfall in the woods in Laurel Heights, a lovely part of Pennsylvania. It was simply breathtaking , way beyond expectations, and might well be the most beautiful home ever built anywhere. Another FLW property nearby, with the unfortunate name Kentuck Knob, was less spectacular but interesting nonetheless. It’s a lot smaller and 20 years later (he designed it, but never saw it) but it was full of owner Lord Palumbo’s photos and nic-nacs, so it had a very lived in feel.

Back in Pittsburgh, the university provided another first – 26 classrooms on the bottom two floors of a tall cathedral-like building (actually called The Cathedral of Learning) each done out in the style of a country (including Wales!); they kindly let you pop into any that weren’t in use. The campus also had a multi-faith chapel with huge blue stained glass windows built by the Heinz family and Carnegie (once the richest man in the world) provided the art at the museum! Andy Warhol came from Pittsburgh and there’s a surprisingly interesting 7-floor museum to prove it. Pittsburgh is transforming itself from its once mighty industrial past and is lucky enough to have a terrific location where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet to form the Ohio river, with a triangular promontory formed by the former two creating a small compact downtown. From a viewpoint looking down on the city I counted 17 bridges!

Next stop New Jersey to visit Steve & Maria. The story of this leg is mostly about food and drink; I was badly led astray. We did go to a quirky sculpture park in Hamilton (where we also had lunch!), where the grounds were beautiful in the spring sunshine and a lot of the sculpture made me smile, and stopped off en route to NYC in Hoboken, with stunning views of NYC across the Hudson and an insight into campus life with Maria’s daughter Briony. Steve & Maria joined me for my first night in NYC, which included the treat of the chef’s table at seafood restaurant Oceana (with food and wine, obviously).

I first came to NYC 31 years ago. It was a 3-day stopover en route to South America which became three weeks! I saw Evita (the only revival of which has just opened on Broadway). I saw a preview of Arthur Miler’s The American Clock (which I see for just the second time back home this Saturday). I saw the frst of many West Side Story’s and, somewhat more of a one-off, David Bowie as The Elephant Man (he had no prosthetics and was brilliant). I hired two helicopters to fly my generous Bolivian hosts over Manhattan and took them to the top of the World Trade Centre where a photo of me was made into a Christmas card and mailed back home from Peru.

I’ve been back 4 times before now, two since 9/11, but only this time did I decide to head south, now that the memorial is open. The two pools, each an exact footprint of a former tower, have water flowing into them from all sides into a seemingly bottomless hole, whist new skyscrapers rise all around. I found it very moving and dignified and couldn’t help reflecting on my good luck, with all that has happened to me in the 31 years since I’d stood atop one of those towers.

However many times you visit NYC, you never tire of it. It has a unique buzz. You’re always looking up, and at night the lights of Broadway are like nowhere else. I was determined to take in some new things and started with the High Line, an 18-block elevated walkway which re-uses a disused freight line; it’s a terrific regeneration project. My other new experience was to have been a food themed Harlem walking tour, but it was cancelled due to lack of (others) interest – but not until I’d got there!

Returns to MoMA and the Met museum proved rewarding, though the current exhibitions at the Guggenheim (another FLW building) were dreadful. On Broadway, I caught the current big hit musical, The Book of Mormon, an irreverent (viscous) satire along the lines of Jerry Springer – The Opera (but without the opera) which was great fun, but maybe a bit over-hyped, plus a preview of a new musical with a Gershwin score (like Crazy for You) called Nice Work If You Can Get It, with an excellent Matthew Broderick, which is going to be a huge hit. My first visit to an opera at The Met on my last evening had a real sense of occasion and the singing of Anna Netrebko & Piotr Beczala in Manon was wonderful, though I was less enamoured with the production, the orchestra acoustics and the audience!

So there you have it. 26 days / 15 stops. Planes, trains, cars, buses, trams, trolleys, cable cars, subways and on foot! A play, 2 musicals, an opera, a movie and three music clubs. NASA, Chess studios and the R&R Museum. 4 FLW buildings, 3 State Capitols, 6 other historic buildings and more museums and galleries than I can count. An epic trip. When I’ve selected from the 2500 photos, there will be links to web albums!……but now I have 8 more hours in NYC…….

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The Rest of November

Posted in Art, Classical Music, Contemporary Music, Dance, Design, Film, Opera, World Music, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Contemporary Music

Blind Malian’s Amadou & Mariam staged their concert in complete darkness. The effect was to heighten the listening experience of their uplifting music. I could have done without the life story narrative, which was a bit naff, but otherwise it was an extraordinary experience.

Roy Harper is another of those artists who are part of the soundtrack of my life and Stormcock one of my very favourite albums. I haven’t kept up with his later work and haven’t seen him for some time, but his 70th birthday concert at RFH was irresistible. It proved to be deeply moving – he appeared to be ‘signing off’ and almost cracked up a few times. The 8-piece brass and string ensemble meant he focused mostly on my personal Roy Harper period and I loved it. When Jimmy Page guested for the double-guitar fireworks (on 5th November!) of That Same Old Rock (he played on the album) it was absolutely magical and the hall erupted.

I was amazed when they decided on Hammersmith Apollo for the Gillian Welch concert. It’s a shabby, tacky and dirty place and ever so big for two acoustic musicians. Though I would have much preferred somewhere like the Barbican or the Southbank Centre, she did pull it off. I like the new album and the first set was largely taken from it. The big surprise though was how this was a mere taster for an outstanding second set which ended with superb encores of country classic Jackson and Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit . I’ve waited a long while to see her, but it was well worth the wait – next time, somewhere else though? Please…

Taking eight people to Ronnie Scott’s to see jazz vocalist Ian Shaw was always going to be a risk, but one that paid off. The musicianship shone through and the audience were suitably attentive. His band included a silver-haired bassist who played with Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker. Wow! Astonishingly, it was my first visit to RS, but now that they have shows at civilised times I shall be back!

Opera & Classical Music

The operatic adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness seems to me to be a great success. Set mostly aboard a boat in the Congo, it has great atmosphere and tension thanks to Robert Innes Hopkins superb design and Tarik O’Regan’s music. There was some excellent singing from Alan Oke, Gweneth-Ann Jeffers and Morten Lassenius Kramp with the small ensemble Chroma under Oliver Gooch providing a colourful orchestral background. Just what the Linbury Studio is for.

The Guildhall School of Music & Drama have uncovered a neglected comic gem with Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Nicolai(who?)’s take on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. It’s given a sparkling and fresh modern dress production by Harry Fehr with a brilliant set and costumes from Tom Rogers. For some reason Nicolai changed the names of the Ford’s and Page’s but not Falstaff or Fenton. He’s dumped Mistress Quickly, Bardolph and Shallow, but otherwise it’s true to its source. Barnaby Rea is excellent as Falstaff, Ashley Riches is very good as the second cast Fluth (Ford) and Ellie Laugharne is a sweet-voiced Anna – but its Sky Ingram’s show; her Frau Fluth (Ford) is fabulous; we’ll be hearing a lot more of her for sure.

I’ve wanted to see Vaughan Williams’ Hugh the Drover for a very long time, so Hampstead Garden Opera’s production was very welcome indeed. I have to confess though that I wasn’t expecting it to be such a good opera and for the musical standards of this ‘amateur’ production to be so outstanding. It was beautifully played by The Dionysus Ensemble, a group of music students & recent graduates, under the leadership of Oliver-John Ruthven. The leads were also students & recent graduates and they were also exceptional. David de Winter was terrific as Hugh, with Elaine Tate a lovely sweet-voiced Mary and Ed Ballard fine as baddie butcher John. This ballad opera is so so underrated, but this new chamber version will hopefully lead to more productions. A whole packet of gold stars to HGO for leading the way.

Handel’s Saul is a lovely dramatic oratorio and Harry Christophers & The Sixteen delivered an excellent interpretation at the Barbican, helped by a set of outstanding soloists including Sarah Connelly, Christopher Purves and Robert Murray. The quality of the choir is exceptional with a handful of them stepping forward to sing the smaller solo parts.

Opera North’s Ruddigore is destined to be as classic a G&S production as ENO’s The Mikado still is many years on. It’s a completely preposterous story of course, but it’s given a sparking fresh production by Jo Davies, with sepia design from Richard Hudson, and is an absolute delight. Grant Doyle is an excellent leading man, Hal Cazalet (who trained next door at GSMD) acts and sings superbly well as sailor Dauntless, Heather Shipp is as batty as Mad Margaret should be and there’s superb support from a few old favourites I seem to see too little of these days – Anne-Marie Owens, Richard Angas and Stephen Page. I sincerely hope their visits to the Barbican become regular – it would d be good to have good quality opera at decent prices here in London!

Dance

I loved the Scottish Ballet programme I saw a couple of years ago in Edinburgh, so I booked to see their new double-bill at Sadler’s Wells. The first piece – Kings 2 Ends – was playful, funny and quirky. Choreographed by Jorma Elo to music by Steve Reich and Mozart, this young company excelled. Kenneth MacMillan’s Song of the Earth to Mahler’s song cycle took a short while to settle but soon became spellbinding. More classical than the first piece, I liked the contrast, though the dancers seemed to find it more of a challenge. I liked soprano Karen Cargill but I’m afraid tenor Richard Berkeley-Steele was nowhere near as pleasing on the ear!

I’m new to Ballet Rambert and this second showing didn’t live up to the first. It was certainly a diverse triple bill. RainForest was a somewhat abstract 40-year old piece by Merce Cunningham with an electronic score, danced in Jasper Johns costumes in an Andy Warhol setting. Seven for a secret, never to be told was Mark Baldwin’s exploration of child behaviour to a Ravel score and Javier de Frutos’ Elysian Fields was a steamy and violent homage to Tennessee Williams and A Streetcar Named Desire in particular, danced to that film’s score with unnecessary and intrusive dialogue. A bit of a mixed bag – I admired the dance / movement but didn’t really find anything entirely satisfactory.

Art

The Royal Academy’s Degas & the Ballet – Picturing Movement should have been subtitled ‘A study in obsession (with a touch of pedophilia)’ It pushed the dancer theme just a bit too far for me. There were some exhibits that I felt were padding (animation and panoramas) and I think it would have been a better 5-room exhibition than it was an 8-room exhibition. That said, the penultimate room of 13 paintings was simply glorious and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Also at the RA, Building the Revolution – Soviet Art & Architecture 1915-1935 was a small but fascinating series of pictures and drawings which illustrated the iconic art deco / modernist hybrid that existed there and then. Most of these buildings are now run down (or worse) and I was struck by how many I’d seen on recent trips to the Ukraine & The Caucasus.

The most extraordinary thing about Gerhard Richter’s retrospective at Tate Modern is that it feels like a show by a bunch of artists rather than one. He completely reinvented himself on a regular basis so there is much diversity on show here. It didn’t all work for me, but as a body of work it’s certainly impressive.

Grayson Perry moved from my list of OK-but-overrated-modern-British-artists to the premier league on the strength of his brilliant exhibition at the British Museum. His own work is interspersed with items from the BM collection (few of which I’d ever seen before). It was equal parts learning, fun and beauty and I was bowled over by it.

Another pleasant surprise was the John Martin exhibition at Tate Britain. This early 19th century artist created vast canvases, mostly on dramatic religious themes like Sodom & Gomorrah. They seem to be the precursors of / influence for apocalyptic films like Independence Day and covers for 1970’s progressive rock albums by bands like Yes. In their day they toured the country with sound and light shows to accompany then, seen by millions of people, so it was terrific that they created a modern version for the Judgement Day triptych – a first for an exhibition? How can I have lived this long without ever knowing about this man?! Upstairs, sculptor Barry Flanagan’s early work seemed tame and dull, I’m afraid, but it did mean you get to climb their brilliant and bright newly painted staircase!

I was smitten by the Pipilotti Rist exhibition at the Hayward Gallery last month and almost smitten by George Condo’s Mental States, which is now sharing the venue. His portraits are like a cartoon version of Francis Bacon and his abstracts like Picasso on acid. I’d never heard of him before, so it was good to see such a comprehensive and fascinating collection. Also at the Southbank Centre, the 2011 World Press Photographer exhibition maintains the standards of this superb annual tradition. It’s often hard to look at, but the photography is always outstanding.

Visiting Two Temple Place is a double-dip treat. The former Astor home is a riot of carving, stained glass and OTT decoration and it currently houses a William Morris exhibition with a superb collection of tapestries, fabrics, wallpaper, paintings and drawings. Gorgeous.

Just as gorgeous was the Royal Manuscripts exhibition at the British Library, a stunning collection of richly decorated books from the middle ages. It’s superbly curated and, provided you go at a quiet time, it’s a real treat.

Film

Two excellent British films this month, the first of which was Weekend, about an intense gay relationship which begins and ends in, well, a weekend. Chris New and Tom Cullen were both outstanding and it was beautifully shot. The second, Resistance, is set in Wales after the failure of the D-Day landings resulting in an invasion of German troops, a small group of whom have reached a Welsh valley! It explores the reaction of the locals and their relationships with the invaders. It’s a bit of a slow burn, but eventually draws you in and becomes deeply moving without a touch of sentimentality. There are some lovely performances, most notably from Andrea Risborough.

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