Danielle Goldstein

March 10, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

Not Quite Jerusalem ★★★★

Danielle Goldstein

March 10, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

Working on a kibbutz can be a culture shock even for Jewish youngsters – and I speak from experience. So the quartet of ill-assorted volunteers in playwright Paul Kember’s Not Quite Jerusalem – revived for the first time since 1982 as part of the Finborough's 40th anniversary…

Danielle Goldstein

March 4, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

The Mikvah Project ★★★★

Danielle Goldstein

March 4, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

The mikvah, the Jewish ritual bath, is usually imagined as an intimate female space, where immersion is mandatory for observant prospective brides and women cleansing themselves after menstruation. Men share mikva’ot too though and the two young men who face up to…

Danielle Goldstein

March 2, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

The Prince of Egypt ★★★★

Danielle Goldstein

March 2, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

For those brought up on the Exodus story, sharing it every year at the Passover Seder table, and for fans of the hit film, there are no spoilers in The Prince of Egypt, but there are surprises in this full-blooded reimagining of the musical. For starters, in Philip LaZebnik’s book, the bromance…

Danielle Goldstein

February 26, 2020

Reviews

The Painted Bird ★★★

Danielle Goldstein

February 26, 2020

Reviews

At the 2019 Venice Film Festival, 12 members of the audience attempted to escape The Painted Bird screening, lashing out and falling up the stairs in the process. Why? Because this horrifying drama exposes the absolute worst of mankind, as collected from survivor testimony, shown…

Danielle Goldstein

February 19, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

Blitz! ★★★★

Danielle Goldstein

February 19, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

Lionel Bart’s follow up to Oliver! may share an exclamation mark and a London setting but this time it’s personal. His community of East Enders living through the Blitz, both Jewish and non-Jewish, are based on folk he might have met, rather than the stereotype represented by Dickens…

Danielle Goldstein

February 18, 2020

Reviews, Music

Yallah: Morocco’s anti-Nazi song of resistance

Danielle Goldstein

February 18, 2020

Reviews, Music

Yallah: Morocco’s anti-Nazi song of resistance

The Holocaust is usually thought of as a European story, but at a fascinating talk at JMI’s Yallah conference on Sunday 9 February, Dr Vanessa Paloma Elbaz brought to light a little-known story of Moroccan resistance to…

Danielle Goldstein

February 18, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

Leopoldstadt ★★★★

Danielle Goldstein

February 18, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

My Stoppard journey began more than 40 years ago with the heady cocktail of verbal fireworks, erudition and wit that is his 1966 play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Now it seems it is to end, with what the great playwright suggests is his last play, as he navigates his own…

Danielle Goldstein

February 12, 2020

Reviews, Music

Yallah: Haim Botbol

Danielle Goldstein

February 12, 2020

Reviews, Music

The concert was opened by the warm-up act 3yin (pronounced ‘eye-in’), a sextet of London-based musicians playing Iraqi, Egyptian and other Arabic or Judeo-Arabic music on Western and Arab instruments. Did I say warm-up? More like ‘heat-up’, as this enthusiastic group of…

Danielle Goldstein

February 9, 2020

Reviews, Music

Yallah: Day One

Danielle Goldstein

February 9, 2020

Reviews, Music

“In Morocco, in Islam, Jews and Muslims are, in their thousands, enjoying being together. This may not be on the front page of any newspaper or what you watch on the TV, and of course it is not so black and white, but it’s something that should be shared.” Dr Andre Azoulay, counsellor…

Danielle Goldstein

January 29, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

Rendezvous in Bratislava ★★★★

Danielle Goldstein

January 29, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

“We had the biggest party in the darkest time,” declares one of the gloriously evocative numbers in Miriam Sherwood's self-styled ‘grandad cabaret’. Rendezvous in Bratislava is a love letter to her late grandfather Jan ‘Laco’ Kalina, a Slovakian Jewish satirist, joke collector, cabaret creator…

Danielle Goldstein

January 22, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

Falling in Love Again ★★★

Danielle Goldstein

January 22, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

There’s a pleasing synchronicity to Ron Elisha’s take on the abdication of Edward VIII and how no less a femme fatale than Marlene Dietrich might have tried to change history by getting him to ‘fall in love' again. The play arrives onstage just as royals seeking to abdicate their duties…

Danielle Goldstein

January 15, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

Rags the Musical ★★★★

Danielle Goldstein

January 15, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

With book by Fiddler librettist Joseph Stein (sympathetically revised by David Thompson), it’s clear that Rags might represent the future of Anatevka’s plucky emigrants. Designer Gregor Donnelly loads piles of battered suitcases around the action as another boatload of…

Danielle Goldstein

January 9, 2020

Festivals, Reviews

Limmud Festival 2019

Danielle Goldstein

January 9, 2020

Festivals, Reviews

According to the website, "Limmud is a place for community, learning, empowerment, diversity, debate, laughing, dancing, families and volunteering” and that's no exaggeration. Before the 2019 festival, which ran 27-31 December, I’d been to Limmud just twice: a day session…

Danielle Goldstein

January 8, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

Mame ★★★★

Danielle Goldstein

January 8, 2020

Reviews, Theatre

This superb revival of Jerry Herman’s musical is the first in this country since 1969. Following the story of big-hearted, impulsive Mame, her protegés and reversals of fortune as the roaring 20s give way to the Great Depression and the war-torn 40s, it’s hard to see why the wait has been so…

Danielle Goldstein

December 30, 2019

Reviews, Art

Refuge and Renewal

Danielle Goldstein

December 30, 2019

Reviews, Art

I was first made aware of Wales-based curator Peter Wakelin’s plans for this ambitious exhibition in early 2018. When, having heard about my own plans for the Insiders/Outsiders festival, he contacted me in the hope that we might collaborate. Since there seemed an evident…