"I am dead," declares Okot before recounting the horrors he survived to reach Calais. Each time, he says, "I died." How many times can you die before you are truly dead?
Many of us recognise that rather striking modernist building in Cromwell Gardens near South Kensington tube, having seen it on the way to the V&A or perhaps a Prom at the Albert Hall but not been sure what it is exactly. I hadn't actually been inside until last week when I was given a guided tour. The space was discussed at one point as a potential site for the National Theatre.
In the most unlikely of places, there is one of the world’s most prolific directors. He has produced over 110 films, he’s mobbed wherever he goes, and he inspired people through the darkest of civil wars; yet outside of Afghanistan, no-one knows the name of Salim Shaheen, the self-proclaimed "Prince of Nothingwood".
Soaring over an expanse of blue sea, a white bird traverses the screen diagonally. Gliding unhindered through the air, it is the embodiment of freedom; by contrast, the movement of people down below is constrained by border crossings and passport controls. The perfect tranquility of this opening shot is the calm before the storm; prepare to spend the next two hours witnessing extremes of human misery and, by turns, feeling horrified, angry and deeply depressed.
The Imperial War Museum’s Age of Terror: Art since 9/11 brings together art made in response to the immediate events and long-term consequences of the events of 11 September.
In the mindset of Nigel Farage and his biddable followers, the route from Asia into Europe throngs with undesirables. Their threatening faces can be plastered on a vote-winning poster. In this calamitous failure of empathy, young men – hordes of them, to use our former Prime Minister’s lexical choice - are seen to be bent on kettling Western women and hoovering up benefits. Leave.eu’s dehumanising propaganda was a degrading moment of national shame which found its twin in the US’s decision to close its borders to travellers from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
Khaled Hosseini's 2003 bestseller ticks all the boxes as an A-level text. A personal story with epic sweep, it interweaves the bloody recent history of Afghanistan with a gripping family saga.
They keep on coming, these crime dramas, from every direction. The Viking invasion continues, the co-productions with France, the ongoing American global takeover. Meanwhile back in Blighty, Red Productions have been a reliable source of quality drama since the 1990s. Their most recent forays into crime have both involved Sally Wainwright: Happy Valley was theirs, and so was Scott & Bailey.
The premise driving A War – lead character Claus Pedersen’s war – is the decision he makes as Company Commander while leading an army patrol in Afghanistan: whether or not to say he and his Danish unit are under attack from a specific house in a village.
Terracotta warriors, Bactrian two-humped camels, Heavenly Horses, Buddhist caves, sand dunes, the world’s first printed book, a silk factory and temples galore including one that was the great mosque in Xi’an, were but some of the ingredients in a breathless first hour in a trilogy of programmes about the world’s oldest trading routes. They were opened up by the explorer and trader Zhang Qian of the Western Han dynasty, about 2,300 years ago.