John Nathan

Latest from John Nathan

Meet Gidi Dar, the secular Israeli film director whose movies opened the door for Shtisel and other Charedi dramas

The film-makers’s latest film The Wedding Entertainer is set in the Chasidic community of Jerusalem. It makes its UK premiere at next month’s UK Jewish Film Festival

6 min read

Funny angles: Shuli Rand, Iris Bahr and Tzufit Grant in The Wedding Entertainer. Inset: Gidi Dar

The small movies with big ideas at the UK Jewish Film Festival

6 min read

Subtlety of a baseball bat: Sacha Baron Cohen as Ali G (Credit: MGM Amazon Studios)

Ali G: Who Iz I? review: ‘No greater display of chutzpah than Baron Cohen in full anarchic sail’ ★★★★

3 min read

Travis Ross (Roger) and Alexa Lopez (Mimi) in Rent (Credit: Danny Kaan)

Rent review: ‘Brimful of New York’s life-affirming and, through its composer, Jewish energy’★★★★★

1 min read

The Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt, France, 1940 review: ‘her brilliant mind and humiliated body’ ★★★

Julia Pascal’s new play highlights a harrowing period in the life of one of the most acclaimed intellectuals of the last century

1 min read

October 19, 2026 18:36

Performed with intensity: Anna Eckhard, Mai Weisz, Helen Goldwyn, Pat Dynowska, Ariella Barnett, and Anja Fahlenkamp (Credit: Alex Brenner)

NAZA review: ‘This is what happens when artists and activists do the work of objective journalists’ ★★

Documentaries need not always tell two sides of a story, but this one devalues and debases itself by equating the Holocaust to Gaza

3 min read

October 19, 2026 11:21

Under a dark sky: an evening scene in Tel Aviv in Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor's documentary NAZA

This show tells my father’s musical story better than Polanksi’s The Pianist

Wladyslaw Szpilman’s famous Shoah memoir has been adapted for the stage and his exacting son approves

6 min read

October 15, 2026 19:14

Self-possession: Daniel Krikler as Wladyslaw Szpilman in The Pianist on stage at Park Theatre, in London (Credit: Anthony Leary-White)

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Soho Place, review: Billy Crudup delivers one of the performances of the year ★★★★★

With Gillian Anderson as Martha, this production directed by Marianne Elliott is up there with the best of Edward Albee’s 1962 classic

1 min read

October 6, 2026 21:02

Gillian Anderson and Billy Crudup in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Photo: Johan Persson)

Digger review: Tom Cruise’s latest is much more interesting than the usual disaster movie ★★★★★

The twist in director Alejandro G Iñárritu’s film allows a nuanced side to the Hollywood star’s performance to emerge

1 min read

October 6, 2026 20:56

Tom Cruise in Digger (Photo: Warner Bros)

The Standard of Living review: Rory Kinnear and Natalia Osipova are a class act ★★★

The principal Royal Ballet ballerina and Russian-Jewish superstar makes her West End debut

2 min read

October 1, 2026 10:38

Bloomsbury ballerina: Natalia Osipova (Photo: Manuel Harlan)

Heart of the Beast review: ‘Brad Pitt stays in his comfort zone’ ★★

Does the actor have a capacity for complexity? Certainly not here where he plays a one-dimensional man and his dog

2 min read

September 28, 2026 16:18

Top dog: James Belmont (Brad Pitt) and Odin

Golden Boy review: Josh O’Connor packs a punch in his return to the stage after 11 years

The actor has a sensitive face and the torso of a fighter – and conveys the human equivalent of a knife edge as he switches between sweetness and raw rage in this rarely staged Broadway hit

1 min read

September 22, 2026 18:25

Golden Boy review: Josh O’Connor packs a punch in his return to the stage after 11 years

De Gaulle: Résistance/Liberté review: ‘Invites France to think about its collaboration with the Nazis’ ★★★★

In this film, as in Antonin Baudry’s others, Jews are the litmus test as to what kind of French person you are

1 min read

September 22, 2026 11:06

Monumental confrontation: French forces from the Battle of Bir Hakeim sequences depicted in director Antonin Baudry's provocative two-parter De Gaulle

Man to Man review: Tilda Swinton leads dangerous double life to survive the Nazis ★★★★

The actor is ironic, mischievous and has the presence of a loose canon

2 min read

September 16, 2026 13:21

Challenging: Tilda Swinton (Photo: Ruediger Glatz)

Just an Illusion review: ‘Are we French, Jewish or African?’★★★★

This story about growing up in a Sephardi family in the suburbs of Paris during the 1980s will speak to Jews everywhere

2 min read

September 11, 2026 09:25

Family in Paris: Simon Boublil, Louis Garrel, Alexi Rosenstiehl and Camille Cottin as the Dayans in Just an Illusion

A Month in the Country review: Who cares about the fate of these privileged Russians? ★★★

Even Sophie Okonedo’s Natalya comes across as more high maintenance than tragically unhappy

1 min read

September 9, 2026 10:01

Weary impatience: Sophie Okonedo's Natalya in Brian Friel's version of Turgenev's A Month in the Country

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John Nathan

Latest from John Nathan

Meet Gidi Dar, the secular Israeli film director whose movies opened the door for Shtisel and other Charedi dramas

The small movies with big ideas at the UK Jewish Film Festival

Ali G: Who Iz I? review: ‘No greater display of chutzpah than Baron Cohen in full anarchic sail’ ★★★★

Rent review: ‘Brimful of New York’s life-affirming and, through its composer, Jewish energy’★★★★★

More from John Nathan

The Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt, France, 1940 review: ‘her brilliant mind and humiliated body’ ★★★

NAZA review: ‘This is what happens when artists and activists do the work of objective journalists’ ★★

This show tells my father’s musical story better than Polanksi’s The Pianist

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Soho Place, review: Billy Crudup delivers one of the performances of the year ★★★★★

Digger review: Tom Cruise’s latest is much more interesting than the usual disaster movie ★★★★★

The Standard of Living review: Rory Kinnear and Natalia Osipova are a class act ★★★

Heart of the Beast review: ‘Brad Pitt stays in his comfort zone’ ★★

Golden Boy review: Josh O’Connor packs a punch in his return to the stage after 11 years

De Gaulle: Résistance/Liberté review: ‘Invites France to think about its collaboration with the Nazis’ ★★★★

Man to Man review: Tilda Swinton leads dangerous double life to survive the Nazis ★★★★

Just an Illusion review: ‘Are we French, Jewish or African?’★★★★

A Month in the Country review: Who cares about the fate of these privileged Russians? ★★★