Jonathan Romney THE word “epic” has been rather devalued in cinema ever since they revved up the chariots in the original silent Ben-Hur. This week, however, epic cinema returns to its classical roots, with the release of Ulysses’ Gaze, the latest film by Greek director Theo Angelopoulos. Over three hours, Harvey Keitel’s modern Homeric hero […]

LIVE MUSIC: Maria McCloy IT must have been a record – a local concert featuring some of South Africa’s hottest acts actually started and finished on time. But then again, maybe the Benson & Hedges Golden Tones bash last Saturday could have waited a little longer to get going: when I walked in at 6pm, […]

GWEN ANSELL profiles Brice Wassy, `king of makossa’ and one of the performers in the Afrika Oye! concert performers CAMEROONIAN music found its international fame with Manu Dibangu and Soul Makossa. So, initially, did the imported star of tonight’s city hall rhythmfest, drummer Brice Wassy. But there’s rather more to Cameroonian music than makossa, and […]

If the South African Football Association was a soccer team, it would be facing relegation, but new CEO Danny Jordaan is hoping to make some changes SOCCER:Julian Drew AFTER the revelations of the Pickard Commission of Inquiry and the subsequent removal of South African Football Association (Safa) president Stix Morewa, public confidence in the administration […]

A clash between Soweto giants Chiefs and Pirates is always a heated affair, but with both teams desperate for maximum points Saturday’s match is bound to be a sizzler SOCCER: Andrew Muchineripi ONE does not require an advanced football coaching certificate to realise that Orlando Pirates striker Jerry Sikhosana is going to receive careful attention […]

WEDNESDAY, 6.30PM FORMER defence minister Magnus Malan told the Truth Commission today that murdered Swapo lawyer Anton Lubowski was a paid agent of South African Military Intelligence, which therefore had no reason to kill him. Malan first made the allegations soon after Lubowski’s murder. “What I said in Parliament then I stick to. Check the […]

SOUTH AFRICAN publisher Gecko Books is offering a prize of R1 000 for the best short story on the theme of a future South Africa. What will life be like in this country in the next century? That’s the question that has to be addressed – whether seriously or humorously. The publishers hope to compile […]

BONGANI NDODANA on a local composer who left the country to pursue his craft THE grass is certainly much greener in Europe, where a generation of classical composers from Southern Africa have been exiled by their craft and formed what seems to be a musical diaspora. Unlike their predecessors Priaulx Rainier and John Joubert, who […]

John Sturrock HOW PROUST CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE by Alain de Botton (Picador, R126) THE montage on the jacket of this slim volume is ominous: why should the gloomy Marcel Proust pictured there have a lurid bird clawing at his shoulder? Is it perhaps a parrot, echoing the unfortunate claim in the blurb that How […]

Chris Dunton FOUR PLAYS compiled and introduced by Zakes Mda (Vivlia, R49,99) THE earliest play here is Maishe Maponya’s Umongikazi/The Nurse, dating from 1983. The premire production toured Europe, though deprived of its two leading performers who were refused travel documents “for security reasons”. That was then – and indeed the play’s subject-matter was itself […]