Tuesday, April 21

Tag: Peter Salem

Northern Ballet: Gentleman Jack – Sheffield Lyceum
Yorkshire & Humber

Northern Ballet: Gentleman Jack – Sheffield Lyceum

Anne Lister. Born 1791, died 1840. Yorkshirewoman. Diarist. Businesswoman. Landowner. A woman who lived life on her own terms, and who loved how and who she wanted. For anyone who hadn’t already heard of her, she was made famous in the 2010s by the BBC, which cemented her status as the ‘first modern lesbian’, but there is so much more to her than just her sexuality. In this brand new, 100-minute ballet (with interval) we get to know Anne as a woman who forged her own path in society. From the moment the curtain rises to reveal Anne (danced at this performance by Gemma Coutts) in a striking tailored jacket surrounded by a homogeneous group of male contemporaries, she demands your complete attention. The ballet follows the story of her life as she falls in love, gets her heart broken, fac...
Scottish Ballet: The Crucible – Sadler’s Wells
London

Scottish Ballet: The Crucible – Sadler’s Wells

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible has a rare quality of being ubiquitous, but consistently relevant, provocative and timely. There’s always a witch hunt somewhere. Medieval villagers with pitchforks have evolved into middle aged idiots on Facebook. Or mob-giddy kids on TikTok. Theocracies continue to thrive, and the oppression in those places can make The Crucible seem tame. I’m looking at you; Yemen, Afghanistan, The Vatican, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Arthur Miller was famously a victim of McCarthy era ‘Reds under the Bed’ paranoia. The playwright was questioned by the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956 and convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to identify others present at meetings he had attended. His play is more than just an allegorical spin on A...