Reviews

,

Ida Rubinstein: The Final Act ★★★

,
Ida Rubinstein: The Final Act ★★★

Ida Rubinstein – dancer, actor, commissioner, passionate lover and beloved of both sexes, including composer Maurice Ravel (Rubinstein commissioned his Bolero, so Torvill and Dean have much to thank her for) – led “a life crowded with incident” as Oscar Wilde would say. Now…

,

Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied Tunisia ★★★★

,
Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied Tunisia ★★★★

A schematic pitiless sun glares down on levels of woodblocks, standing in for sand as designed by Max Johns, on an unfortunate man apparently buried up to his neck. The figure standing over him explains that he has been…

,

Jews Don’t Count ★★★★

,
Jews Don’t Count ★★★★

Since my schooldays, I’ve had a thing for TS Eliot – despite overtly antisemitic lines in his poetry. “Rachel née Rabinovitch tears at the grapes with murderous paws” (Sweeney Among the Nightingales, 1920) gave me pause for thought all right. Our English teacher called him out…

,

The Last Cyclist ★★★★

,
The Last Cyclist ★★★★

Conditions in the concentration camp Terezin (German Theresienstadt), near Prague, designed by the Nazis to hold Jews en route to the death camps, were harsh enough to ensure many died right there. Yet its name also evokes the extraordinary flowering of artistic life the prisoners…

,

Never a Native ★★★★★

,
Never a Native ★★★★★

Never a Native is for every woman who has ever yearned, aspired or been driven to activism against unethical attitudes and behaviours to women. It is also for every woman who, like the author Alice Shalvi, has the courage to face her failures, doubts and guilt resulting from her…