By BRUCE DENNILL Green Day: Revolutionary Radio 6 Rocketeers: Something Else 7 Sia: 1000 Forms Of Fear ...
By BRUCE DENNILL In Her Shoes / Directed by Luyanda Sidiya / John Kani Theatre, Market Theatre, Newtown, Johannesburg It’s an awful indictment of society in general and South African society in particular that it comes as no surprise that the anchor production for a ...
By BRUCE DENNILL The Jesus Storybook Bible Vol. 1-4 (A) 7 Ghostbusters: Answer The Call / Directed by ...
By BRUCE DENNILL Mamba Republic / Directed by Dr Mervyn McMurtry / Auto & General Theatre On The Square, Sandton, Johannesburg John van de Ruit and Ben Voss have been busy since creating a platform for themselves with satirical sketch shows Green Mamba and Black ...
By BEN WRIGHT I promise that if you keep reading, we’ll get to Let Me Be Frank, an amazing new documentary that exposes the American Religious Right as fraudulent and cynical. But first, indulge me in a preface. In August 2003 I moved from London, ...
2By BRUCE DENNILL Glen Phillips, once and occasionally present Toad The Wet Sprocket frontman, has released a poetic, honest new solo album called Swallowed By The New, on which he examines heartbreak, depression, grief and, ultimately, hope. You’ve talked ...
0By BRUCE DENNILL Blogger. It’s a term that’s almost spat out, like a condition you might catch if you discuss it for too long. As media platforms go, blogs are often classed somewhere between penis enlargement flyers pasted ...
0CHAPTER ONE It was a foul night to hang a man. The rain swept across the Irish Sea, throwing itself against the grey stone walls of Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison. Behind its unyielding façade two prison guards stood ...
0Unesco’s World Heritage Committee recently inscribed eight new sites on their List: one transnational site (in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan), and others in Canada, Chad, China, Iraq, Iran, Mexico and Sudan. The newly inscribed natural sites are: Hubei Shennongjia (China)—Located in Hubei ...
0By STEFAN VOS I initially toyed with the idea of doing this review as a sip-by-sip commentary, the enjoyment of a bottle of Scotch whisky (sticklers note: no ‘e’) in real time. As I envisioned how this ...
0Art therapy takes place when individuals are encouraged to express themselves through art as part of a healing process from emotional trauma. For children who experience violence or domestic abuse, drawing or painting provides a way to say what they cannot say with words. For the
0The winners of the Naledi Theatre Awards were announced on 19 April at the Lyric Theatre, Gold Reef City. For the first time in the awards’ 12-year
0Among the six legends presented with Lifetime Achievement Awards at the 19th Arts & Culture Trust (ACT) Awards was constitutional and creative crusader, Albie Sachs, who was honoured for
7 By BRUCE DENNILL Canadian singer, songwriter and guitarist Ian Thornley’s journey with his band Big Wreck has been multi-monikered: Big Wreck, then Ian Thornley (solo), then Ian Thornley & Big Wreck and now back under the single banner again. Whatever the finer details, that ...
6 By BRUCE DENNILL I had two interactions with Chris Cornell. The first was after his set at the My Coke Fest music festival in Johannesburg in 2008, perhaps the most exciting reason ever to go to a racetrack in Alberton. I was covering the ...
4 By BRUCE DENNILL West Side Story / Directed by Matthew Wild / Mandela, Joburg Theatre, Braamfontein, Johannesburg There’s a good deal of nostalgia involved in watching West Side Story. It’s unavoidable. It’s a 60-year-old stage musical based on a 420-year-old story (Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet) ...
4 What is Christian music? How is it different from music made by Christians? Is it different from church music? And why is it usually quite bad? As a worship leader, these are the sorts of questions I like to bore people to death ...
3 Ben Trovato’s the hilarious misguided misogynist whose Sunday Times column thrilled and amused readers for years. Mark Verbaan is the man behind the persona, and his new book, The Memoirs Of Ben Trovato, suggests there was more to the man in the hat’s ...
2 Airport angst. It’s a thing. Anyone who’s felt annoyed when they’ve had to arrive at a placed composed primarily of tiles and x-ray machines four hours before they’ll be able to leave it ahead of an international flight has suffered from this condition. The bulk of ...
2 BY BRUCE DENNILL Blonde Poison / Directed by Janna Ramos-Violante / Auto & General Theatre On The Square, Sandton, Johannesburg This moving one-hander by Gail Louw stars Fiona Ramsay as Stella Goldschlag, a septuagenarian German Jew who, while awaiting the arrival of a journalist interested ...
2 By BRUCE DENNILL Changing your personal brand from the relative edginess of being in an alternative rock or punk band to joining the ranks of the (again – relatively speaking) “elder statesmen” of rock – Madam G even sounds a little like Leonard Cohen: ...
2 By BRUCE DENNILL Marlene Wasserman, akaDr Eve, has, it appears, been seduced (intellectually, anyway) by the data in her latest book, Cyber Infidelity. She was able to put the book – which is really more of an academic work including saucy case studies – ...
2 There were several moments on the Otter Trail where I looked up and thought: “This is tougher than I thought it would be.” When the pack I was carrying bit into my shoulders and my trail runners just wouldn’t grip on the wet ...
2 By BRUCE DENNILL Morecambe / Studio Theatre, Montecasino / Starring Craig Urbani / Directed by Alan Swerdlow The obvious challenge to mounting a show about British comedian and variety star Eric Morcambe is the source material’s vintage (Morecambe and Wise began their partnership in 1941 ...
2 By BRUCE DENNILL “Tells” – in the poker sense – is an interesting word to use as a title for an artist whose utterances are often misunderstood or wilfully misconstrued. And what’s even more curious is that much of this music was written a ...
2 By ROB HOFMEYR The Road To En-Dor by EH Jones 6 The Texture Of Shadows by Mandla Langa 8 What About Meera by ZP Dala 6 What Will People Say? by Rehana Rossouw ...
2 Barry Ronge was recently recognised for his work as a writer, critic, columnist and commentator at the Sunday Times Literary Awards. He was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award further honoured by the renaming of the Sunday Times Fiction Prize, now the Barry ...
2 By BRUCE DENNILL Phillip Phillips 8 The Script 6.5 The Dome / Johannesburg / 4 February The Script returned to South Africa after a four-year break in which they went from radio-friendly pop lady-pleasers, to really successful radio-friendly pop lady-pleasers with a large fanbase of very dedicated ...
2 By BRUCE DENNILL Other than a cup of what is presumably coffee, Josh Groban makes no concessions to fatigue after a full day’s travel from Los Angeles, via Heathrow, to Johannesburg. His chatty, friendly stage persona is shown to be an extension of his ...
2 By BRUCE DENNILL A song is worth a thousand words. Or something. Below is a song I wrote about 2014 – not an easy period – with a demo for free download at the bottom of the page. Enjoy. Comments welcome/hoped for/useful. Centre Stage © Bruce Dennill, ...
2 By BRUCE DENNILL Impact No. 1 / Tshwane Dance Theatre, Cape Dance Company and Moving Into Dance Mophatong / Joburg Theatre, Braamfontein, Johannesburg When it is possible to see a full-scale contemporary dance programme on one of South Africa’s major stages, it becomes clearer than ...
2 By BRUCE DENNILL JT Lawrence’s latest book Why You Were Taken paints the South Africa of 2021 as a difficult place for a person who knows his or her own mind. It’s an invigorating, bracing vision by a very talented storyteller. The creation of a new ...
2 Jeremiah Goldswain Most people have little knowledge about an ancestor four generations removed but Ralph Goldswain has come to know his great, great grandfather very well. His edition of Jeremiah’s memoirs – The Chronicle of Jeremiah Goldswain, 1820 Settler – has just been published. “It’s thrilling, especially as ...
2 By BRUCE DENNILL Glen Phillips, once and occasionally present Toad The Wet Sprocket frontman, has released a poetic, honest new solo album called Swallowed By The New, on which he examines heartbreak, depression, grief and, ultimately, hope. You’ve talked about – as part of the processing ...
2 By JM SHORNEY Until today, in my sheltered writer’s existence, I had not encountered any reference to the group who call themselves Anonymous. The members don Guy Fawkes masks, which I suppose lends an eerie but historic message, as Guy and his co-conspirators were ...
2 Arriving at a studio to record your own original music is mostly incredibly exciting, but also a little nerve-wracking. Are you properly rehearsed? Will your voice last? Will the sound of a nearby electric gate opening and closing drive you to distraction? Time ...
2 By BRUCE DENNILL Bohemian Rhapsody / Directed by Alan Swerdlow / Studio, Pieter Torien’s Montecasino Theatre, Fourways, Johannesburg Queen’s greatest single musical legacy, Bohemian Rhapsody – the song – remains at or near the top of annual “Best Songs Of All Time, Ever!” lists. This ...
2 Liz de Jager is a South African author who moved to the UK with her husband in 2000. She now lives in Kent, with her dog Sparrow. Liz ran the My Favourite Books blog until the end of 2012, when she shut it ...
2 There are two things that annoy me about audiences in South Africa. The first thing is that they consider a local cast to be inferior to an international one. Nowhere close to true! The second is that they don’t support student productions. They need convincing them ...
2 The photographs are taken from the book South African Artists At Home by Paul Duncan (Struik Lifestyle) and used with the permission of the publisher.
1 There’s a new opera company in Gauteng: Big Wig Opera. Founded by tenor Stéfan Louw, Big Wig Opera’s directors, as well as key volunteers, have an impressive 200 years’ cumulative professional theatre experience. Big Wig Opera will soon be registered as a non-profit company and ...
1 By BRUCE DENNILL La La Land / Directed by Damien Chazelle / PG13 La La Land. There’s a clue in the name – this is a fairy tale, not to be taken seriously. It’s incredibly simplistic because it’s a dream placed on a screen, not ...
1 By BRUCE DENNILL Dieter Daehnke: Journey Of A Stickman All books are about journeys, one way or another. Dieter Daehnke’s recollections of his experiences on the Camino – the pilgrim’s trek from various points in Europe to the giant cathedral in Santiago de Compostela that supposedly ...
