TOMORROW’S REDOLENT DATE, February 24^th, marks one year since Russia’s Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale war on Ukraine, and our media are falling over themselves to observe the anniversary.   Continue reading “War and Perceptions of War” »

Dateline: London, England – IN ITS BRAND-NEW INCARNATION at the UK’s National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Othello is preceded by a centuries-long litany of previous interpretations, ever since the Bard’s own debut of the play in 1604.   Continue reading “Wiping Away Legacy of Blackface” »

Dateline: DUBLIN, Ireland – THERE’S WONDERFUL PLEASURE to be had in seeing a cultural institution doing effectively exactly what it should be doing.

Ireland’s national theater, The Abbey, founded in 1904 by the poet W.B. Yeats along with dramatist and cultural campaigner, Lady (Isabella Augusta) Gregory, whom George Bernard Shaw called “the greatest living Irishwoman,” is currently breathing fresh and confident life into an Irish modern classic: Conor McPherson’s The Weir.   Continue reading “Oral Tradition At Its Best” »

IT IS EXTRAORDINARY to have seen citizens of the world’s second biggest economy, crippled though it is by crude and brutal methods to stamp out Covid, rise up in mass protest.

The methods adopted by these astonishingly brave protestors have displayed a subtlety and inventiveness that must stir our awe and admiration, even as the ruling Chinese Communist Party cracks down hard.      Continue reading “Blank Paper: Strong Message Against Oppression” »

I HAPPEN TO BE WRITING this on my birthday, but it’s to celebrate another, much bigger and more important birthday. The British Broadcasting Corporation, to use its rarely-spoken unabbreviated name, is about to turn one hundred years old.    Continue reading “A Century of Auntie Beeb” »