Norman Jewison, the Canadian movie director who died last week aged 97, was not Jewish. But he did film the musical Fiddler on the Roof, based on a story by the Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem. And with that surname…. How could we not celebrate his life and work? In school…
I was saddened at the recent death of Barry Humphries, a consummate, warm and witty performer. Born in Melbourne in 1934, it was always evident that Humphries – who would dress up as various characters at a young age to entertain his parents and their friends – would grow…
Israeli author Meir Shalev was born on 29 July 1948, just after the foundation of the State of Israel. He was part of the generation that includes historian Benny Morris, fellow writer David Grossman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He was born to a family of wordsmiths…
Sir Antony Sher was one of the great actors of our time, perhaps best known for his outstanding performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company from the 1980s to his trilogy as Falstaff (2014), Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (2015) and Lear (2016, 2018), all…
It was in 1972 that Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company arrived in London. With apparently no storyline, save for the efforts of his friends to change the marital status of Bobby, the bachelor guy around whom these couples and girlfriend hopefuls revolve, it may have puzzled some…
March 1993, we had tickets to see Jackie Mason at the Dominion Theatre in London’s Tottenham Court Road. We knew what shtick to expect having experienced him on the radio and TV, including his own sarcastic opinion that he was “too Jewish”, especially for a nice middle-class…
To see the lighted candles in their huge chandeliers is truly magical. Upstairs in the ladies’ gallery lurk the spirits of donnas and señoritas in their designated seats behind the wooden lattices. As they look down on their menfolk, they modestly wave their fans, revealing dark, discriminating…
We were saddened to hear that one of our long-time readers, Norman Bright, passed away on the morning of Sunday 6 June. He was a man of many words – all of which had the power to induce fits of laughter – and had a disposition as sunny as his name suggests. We were lucky…
