Barbican theatre, London Thomas Ostermeier’s masterful staging has tremendous performances from a cast including Tom Burke, Emma Corrin and Kodi Smit-McPhee Chekhov described his country-house drama as a comedy, creating its serious yet silly characters “not without pleasure”. Still, it is a test of tone and performance to render, with humour, a story that scales so much thwarted life. Director Thomas Ostermeier and Duncan Macmillan’s new version rather magically balances lightness, wit and melancholy from the off, as characters gather at a country estate in hipsterish modern dress. There is the imperious actor Arkadina (Cate Blanchett) and her lover, Trigorin (Tom Burke), a famous writer who arrives from the city; her brother Sorin (Jason Watkins), whose health is failing, and her overshadowed son, Konstantin (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who aspires to be a writer and, in protest perhaps, disapproves of the middlebrow appeal of his mother’s art. Love’s arrows shoot in all the wrong directio...
Zapping World Eleven Cristiano Ronaldo: Record numbers Definitely, Jim Ratcliffe is a jack of all trades when it comes to European heavyweights and seems determined to extend his influence in the world of sport! While the American businessman, already at the head of OGC Nice, is in the running to buy Manchester United, the Dailymail reports that he would have been interested in taking over… FC Barcelona! The Blaugranas under the US flag? The deal never saw the light of day due to the club’s financial management, deemed disastrous by the INEOS boss. At the microphone of Dailymail, the latter explains: “We talked about it but, in the end, they didn’t think they could go to the fans with it. The path they’re going down is a disaster. We tried to point it out and they said, “We know, but…”. These are all short term diets [de Barcelone]because the president comes along, does the job for five years and hands over the mess to someone else. “They’ve now sold a lot of TV rights and...