ANGUS REID urges us to understand the persecution of Jason Arday from a political and historical perspective, and to see the victim in human terms
Opera review: Carmen, King’s Head theatre, London
Bizet's classic gets an engaging contemporary updating
Fateful encounter: Jose (Roger Paterson) and Carmen (Ellie Edmonds) meet up
[Nick Rutter]
Re-releases of the classics Gypsy Rhumba and Buena Vista Social Club, and a stunning album by Palestinian artist Faris Ishaq
Nothing, says ANDY HEDGECOCK, can rescue this undistinguished amalgam of ponderous melodrama and shallow philosophical speculation
JAMIE BRITTON invites readers to visit 3,500 locals as part of a marathon artistic pub crawl
JOHN GREEN welcomes a valuable and incisive analysis of a world become hyperpolitical but without the mass movement institutions to represent it
Carmen
King’s Head Theatre, London
BIZET’S Carmen – an opera which explores the tribulations of its eponymous heroine and the two men who vie for her affections – has been stripped down to its bare essentials in this contemporary retelling by Mary Franklin and Ashley Pearson.
In their version, we first meet Carmen (Ellie Edmonds), a low-paid hospital cleaner on a fag break and Jose (Roger Paterson), also toiling on a zero-hours contract. Swiftly becoming interested in each other, after an altercation with their employer they escape from a life of tedium and hit the road.
Then arrives Escamillio (Dan D’Souza), a strapping Arsenal player who falls for Carmen and sets the proverbial cat among the operatic pigeons.
Similar stories
Before Greek myths reached the multiplex, they were weapons of political satire. CALLUM SMITH explores the evidence
In the final part of LAYTH YOUSIF'S series on the history of the NY Cosmos, he traces their experiences which have made them the team that always has success in their sights
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review The Six Billion Dollar Man, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Goodbye June, and Super Elfkins
DAVID NICHOLSON is thrilled – and shocked – by an opera that seethes and sizzles with passion and the depraved use of power