Theatre: David Le Page A NAKED queen scrabbles in the dirt of a filthy dungeon, fighting off rats with a crucifix and babbling her way almost deliriously through the Lord’s Prayer. This is the opening of French Gray (at the Market in Johannesburg), a story not only of Marie Antoinette’s last hours, but of her […]

Anti-conglomerate measures are still possible, argues Reg Rumney Anglo American executive director Michael Spicer has arguably made it harder for Trade and Industry Minister Trevor Manuel to avoid taking steps against South Africa’s big conglomerates. Spicer, who has gone to ground now, perhaps fearing further personalisation of the conglomerate debate, went on the offensive after […]

South Africa’s craft industry could be a gold mine, but its potential remains untapped, reports HAZEL FRIEDMAN IN a recently released document dealing with the future of the arts in South Africa, Dr Ben Ngubane, Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, paid tribute to the positive contribution made by the crafts industry to the […]

The draft of the Bill of Rights is a victory for South Africa’s poor, writes Gaye Davis THE first complete draft of a new Bill of Rights, laid before a Constitutional Assembly committee this week, represents a major victory – not for any one party, but for the country’s poor and powerless. The draft includes […]

The sad loss of Fanie de Villiers through injury has been tempered by the return of Brett Schultz to once again form a deadly bowling double with Allan Donald CRICKET: Jon Swift OVER the next nine days, we will be able to gauge the preparedness or otherwise of Hansie Cronje’s team to fulfil the expectations […]

Charles Nupen, ace labour mediator, in The Mark Gevisser Profile When Lili Nupen, a Standard Six pupil at Roedean, had to do a research project into her relatives, she chose two lawyers. The first was her great-uncle, Buster Nupen, a Springbok cricket captain in the 1930s and an illustrious attorney. The second was her father, […]

Rehana Rossouw Human rights groups are furious at delays of more than two years in bringing child-abusers to justice. A former principal of a children’s home in Cape Town, Mike Viveros, has had his trial on charges of sexually abusing seven children postponed 15 times since he first appeared in court in October 1993. Welfare […]

Cinema: Stanley Peskin RUTH PRAWER JHABVALA’S sharp, engrossing screenplay for Merchant Ivory’s Jefferson in Paris provides a richly complex experience. The film begins in Pike County, Ohio, where the history of Thomas Jefferson (a very accomplished Nick Nolte), the third president of the United States (1801- 1809), is probed by a journalist. Interviewing a black […]

Television: Hazel Friedman IT was punted as the show that would transform the face of television, the first magazine programme conceived and created for an all-African audience. But now that the curtain of hype has been lifted, Front Row, M-Net’s bright new brainchild, appears to be little more than a familiar tune played in a […]

Eddie Koch Documents which suggest that a bus-making company used a private security firm — headed by a former Special Branch policeman — to plan a third-force campaign of “deliberately and openly hostile terrorism” against selected targets of the National Union of Metalworkers have been handed to police for investigation. Documents on letterheads of the […]