3 Winters, National Theatre

REMEMBERING HOWARD DAVIES 3 Winters, National Theatre, 2014: 'powerful'

Love and war in impressive saga of a Croatian family across three generations

The single spacious room that is the central location of Tena Štivičić’s 3 Winters has seen plenty of ghosts. It’s part of an old Zagreb mansion, and through the course of the play witnesses the diverse events of Croatian history of the last 70-odd years played out in miniature. Three overlapping time-schemes chart the full rotations of surrounding society: from the war-end move towards Communism in 1945, through 1990 eve-of-break-up Yugoslavia, and on to 2011, not long before EU accession.

DVD: Diary of a Lost Girl

DVD: DIARY OF A LOST GIRL Louise Brooks lights up Pabst's melodrama of a young girl's road to ruin and redemption

Louise Brooks lights up Pabst's melodrama of a young girl's road to ruin and redemption

It was only six months after rendering the total amorality of ambiguous Lulu in Pandora’s Box, based on Wedekind’s two "earth-spirit" plays, that GW Pabst and Louise Brooks moved on to Diary of a Lost Girl. It revisits many of the same themes, but through a different filter (and a very much inferior literary source).

The Culture Show: Girls Will Be Girls, BBC Two

THE CULTURE SHOW: GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS Exploration of women in punk strikes only a few bum notes

Exploration of women in punk strikes only a few bum notes

In 40 years’ time, when some suit at the BBC is searching the archives for some suitable footage to illustrate women in music in the early 21st century, will he pull out an image of Miley Cyrus or Rihanna wrapped in fishnets and bondage tape?

The Punk Singer

THE PUNK SINGER Unquestioning bio-doc on riot grrrl instigator Kathleen Hanna

Unquestioning bio-doc on riot grrrl instigator Kathleen Hanna

 “Somebody had to be Bikini Kill, otherwise we would have culturally starved to death.” The quote typifies the deferential The Punk Singer, a bio-doc on the driven Kathleen Hanna, the feminist front-person of the American bands Bikini Kill, Le Tigre and, most recently, The Julie Ruin.

Blurred Lines: The New Battle of the Sexes, BBC Two

BLURRED LINES: THE NEW BATTLE OF THE SEXES, BBC TWO Kirsty Wark's tour of the 'new misogyny' is an eloquent and powerful primer

Kirsty Wark's tour of the 'new misogyny' is an eloquent and powerful primer

Almost 45 years after the publication of The Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer - now 75 years old and working on a rainforest conservation project in her native Australia, but still “full of bile” - thinks that it is time for a new analysis; a go-to feminist text as succinct and divisive as the one that she created in 1970.

World Enough and Time, Park Theatre

WORLD ENOUGH AND TIME A play about feminism through the ages is better in concept than in execution

A play about feminism through the ages is better in concept than in execution

Performed by all-female theatre company, Fluff, Sarah Sigal's take on feminism through the ages drops us in and out of three time scenarios: the Royalist household of Lady Anne in 1646, the adventures of fashion journalist Pamela in 1936, and the discourse between corporate manager Celia and her recovering addict friend Lucy in 2014. Sound familiar in both structure and content? Well, if you follow the work of Caryl Churchill, it largely is. 

Rapture, Blister, Burn, Hampstead Theatre

Gina Gionfriddo’s play about women's life choices is a veritable seminar class of ideas

Feminism suddenly seems to be all the rage in London theatre. Yesterday, I reviewed Nick Payne’s Blurred Lines, and tonight I saw this show by American provocateur Gina Gionfriddo, whose Becky Shaw was at the Almeida three years ago. This current show is a light comedy, with some good bright lines, an entertainment that takes several pauses in which ideas are expounded and discussed. It’s a bit like being back in college: a mix of laughs and study.

DVD: Pussy Riot - A Punk Prayer

PUSSY RIOT DUO could be free today! Outstanding documentary tells their story

The mood of contemporary Russia revealed in outstanding documentary on punk protesters

Access and trust are the key issues facing any documentary director, especially when the film concerned touches on questions that arouse controversy in society. It’s a long time since I've seen a work that achieved so much on those two fronts as Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer. The HBO-Storyville documentary by double directors-producers Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin tells the brave story of the Russian conceptual art, feminist punk collective.

Eat Pray Laugh!: Barry Humphries' Farewell Tour, London Palladium

EAT PRAY LAUGH! BARRY HUMPHRIES FAREWELL TOUR Dame Edna is on her last legs at the London Palladium

Shameless Dame Edna, her Svengali manager and seedy intruders hit comic heights as ever

Now here’s a funny thing, possums. Back in 1990 when one great Australian Dame, Joan Sutherland, gave her farewell performance, another, a certain housewife superstar from the Melbourne suburb of Moonee Ponds, seemed closer to  retirement age. Now La Stupenda is no more, Dame Edna is a gigastar and it’s her turn to shrill a gladdie-waving goodbye to her adoring public. She doesn’t look a day older, nary a hair out of place in that immaculate lilac coiffure.

Bryony Kimmings, Soho Theatre

Inventive if uneven show about finding new role models

Internet porn, the sexualisation of childhood and the objectification of women are so commonplace in Western society that they go mostly unmentioned and unchallenged, even in the arts. So thank goodness for performance artist and comic Bryony Kimmings, who not only mentions and challenges these pernicious forces in so-called civilised society, but in Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model, an award-winning show first seen at Edinburgh Fringe, fashions an entertaining show around them.