Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are very much alive in my memories of unforgettable theatre, says Judi Herman, as she reflects on the first production by Tom Stoppard, who died last month…
The German-British Jewish painter has died at the age of 93. Art historian Monica Bohm-Duchen looks back at his life and vital contribution to European art…
Richard Rampton was hailed as the leading defamation barrister of his generation. His knowledge of the detail of the law, his razor-sharp mind and prodigious debating skills were unequalled. He made headlines when he won the McLibel case for McDonalds against two young climate…
Norman Jewison, the Canadian movie director who died last week aged 97, was not Jewish. But he did film the musical Fiddler on the Roof, based on a story by the Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem. And with that surname…. How could we not celebrate his life and work? In school…
I was saddened at the recent death of Barry Humphries, a consummate, warm and witty performer. Born in Melbourne in 1934, it was always evident that Humphries – who would dress up as various characters at a young age to entertain his parents and their friends – would grow…
Israeli author Meir Shalev was born on 29 July 1948, just after the foundation of the State of Israel. He was part of the generation that includes historian Benny Morris, fellow writer David Grossman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He was born to a family of wordsmiths…
Chaim Topol was born in Tel Aviv. His father was a Russian immigrant and worked as a plasterer. His mother was a seamstress. His first film appearances came in the early 1960s and he made his breakthrough in the 1964 Israeli film Sallah Shabati, alongside George Segal, for which he…
Sir Antony Sher was one of the great actors of our time, perhaps best known for his outstanding performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company from the 1980s to his trilogy as Falstaff (2014), Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (2015) and Lear (2016, 2018), all…
It was in 1972 that Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company arrived in London. With apparently no storyline, save for the efforts of his friends to change the marital status of Bobby, the bachelor guy around whom these couples and girlfriend hopefuls revolve, it may have puzzled some…
March 1993, we had tickets to see Jackie Mason at the Dominion Theatre in London’s Tottenham Court Road. We knew what shtick to expect having experienced him on the radio and TV, including his own sarcastic opinion that he was “too Jewish”, especially for a nice middle-class…
