Inventing Anna, Netflix review - fake heiress saga outstays its welcome

★★ INVENTING ANNA, NETFLIX Fake heiress saga outstays its welcome

Rambling dramatisation of the Anna Delvey story never finds its focus

Con artists in film or TV need to be clever, charming, mysterious or at least entertaining (for instance Leo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can or Michelle Dockery in the much-underrated Good Behaviour). Bafflingly, Anna Delvey, the notorious fake heiress whose story has been fictionalised by Shonda Rhimes’s Shondaland company in Inventing Anna (Netflix), is none of these things.

Kontakthof, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch review - struggling to make contact

KONTAKTHOF, TANZTHEATER WUPPERTAL PINA BAUSCH Struggling to make contact

Emotional connection is not guaranteed in this latest revival from the Pina back catalogue

Twelve years may have passed since her earthly demise, but you still hear people say they saw Pina Bausch the other night. Bausch remains synonymous with the company she founded, Tanztheater Wuppertal, and with a style of dance theatre that launched an entire new category.

Munich: The Edge of War review - Jeremy Irons excels in a revisionist portrait of Neville Chamberlain

Persuasive screen treatment of Robert Harris's historical novel

The name of Neville Chamberlain and the term “appeasement” have become indelibly linked, thanks to his efforts to accommodate Adolf Hitler’s bellicose ambitions in the run-up to what became World War Two.

Spring Awakening, Almeida Theatre review - must-see revival for Tony-winning musical

★★★★ SPRING AWAKENING, ALMEIDA THEATRE Must-see revival for Tony-winning musical

A triumphant musical about teenage angst

When Berliners sat down to watch Franz Wedekind’s debut play Fruhlings ErwachenSpring Awakening – in 1906, they had little inkling of the kind of drama he had written, or how it would change theatre for the century to come, despite being banned for long periods.

Blu-ray: The Love of Jeanne Ney

★★★ BLU-RAY: THE LOVE OF JEANNE NEY The cluttered German silent film is a classic by default

The cluttered German silent film is a classic by default

GW Pabst’s The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927), adapted from the novel by the Russian revolutionary author Ilya Ehrenburg, is a fascinating example of a major movie, vividly rendered by a filmmaker at his peak, that was compromised by its producers’ commercial agenda.

Final Account review - documentary confronting the last survivors of the Nazi era

★★★★★ FINAL ACCOUNT Luke Holland's swan song is a powerful legacy left on film

Luke Holland's swan song is a powerful legacy left on film

Do we need another documentary about Nazi Germany? Yes when it is as cogent and subtle as Luke Holland’s Final Account. Made over eight years while the veteran film-maker was battling with the cancer that killed him in 2020, it’s a tapestry of interviews with the ageing generation who lived under Hitler, a last chance to put them on camera.

'The din is loud these days': playwright Cordelia Lynn on her imminent premiere at the Donmar Warehouse

PLAYWRIGHT CORDELIA LYNN On bringing together 'Love and Other Acts of Violence', her premiere at the Donmar Warehouse

The author of 'Love and Other Acts of Violence' sets out her stall

As I write this, we've just had our final day in the rehearsal room and are going into tech onstage next week with my new play, which is also reopening the Donmar not only to live performance but follows major renovations at their home address.

theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Marco Kreuzpaintner

FILMMAKER MARCO KREUZPAINTNER On Germany, the Nazis, justice and the law

What his new film 'The Collini Case' says about Germany, the Nazis, justice and the law

In 2011, Ferdinand von Schirach’s novel Der Fall Collini (The Collini Case) was published, its narrative of crime and punishment inspired by a law passed in Germany in 1968. Promoted by Dr Eduard Dreher, a former Nazi-era prosecutor who served in the post-1945 West German justice ministry along with many fellow ex-Nazis, this law was in effect an amnesty for murders committed during the Third Reich era.