Shutdown: The Virus That Changed Our World, Sky Documentaries review - a chaotic response and an uncertain future

★★★ SHUTDOWN: THE VIRUS THAT CHANGED OUR WORLD, SKY DOCUMENTARIES A chaotic response and an uncertain future

The Covid-19 story so far through the eyes of Sky News correspondents

It’s too early for a definitive account of the Covid-19 pandemic, and this was very much a Sky News version of what we’ve been through so far. Although it seems the virus has peaked and we’re entering a tentative stage of partial de-lockdown, the message was relentlessly grim.

Nathalie Léger: The White Dress review – masterfully introverted

★★★★ NATHALIE LEGER: THE WHITE DRESS Masterfully introverted

A novel where personal and public histories are tightly knit

Nathalie Léger’s The White Dress brings personal and public tragedy together in a narrative as absorbingly melancholic as its subject is shocking. The story described by Léger’s narrator – a scarcely fictional version of herself – is of the performance artist Pippa Bacca who, in 2008, set out on a symbolic journey from Milan to Jerusalem clad in a white wedding dress, hitchhiking her way through cities and countryside. Bacca was never to reach her destination.

The Revenger's Tragedy, Piccolo Teatro di Milano/Cheek by Jowl, Barbican review - fun, but not enough

★★★ THE REVENGER'S TRAGEDY, PICCOLO TEATRO/CHEEK BY JOWL Fun, but not enough

Middleton's decimation of an Italian court needs more satirical thrust

Vendetta, morte: what a lark to find those tools of 19th century Italian opera taken back to their mother tongue in a Milanese take on Jacobean so-called tragedy, where the overriding obsession is on mortalità. It would take a composer of savage wit like Gerald Barry to set Middleton's satirical bloody-mindedness to music today. With Declan Donnellan directing, though, La tragedia del vendicatore remains too prosaic and half-literal a play.

Blu-ray: 8 ½

Fellini's masterpiece of cinema tackles filmmaker's block

8 ½ is one of the classic films about the art of cinema. There is something about the make-believe of movies, and our buying into the dreams they foster, which suggests reflection and self-referencing, as if films offered a mirror to our inner lives and the stories we tell on the big screen. 

Les vêpres siciliennes, Welsh National Opera review - spectacular, silly, but some great music

★★★ LES VÊPRES SICILIENNES, WELSH NATIONAL OPERA Spectacular, silly, but some great music

Verdi's reluctant grand opera colourfully staged, brilliantly played, unevenly sung

It’s not hard to see why The Sicilian Vespers has struggled since its surprisingly successful opening run at the Paris Opéra in 1855. Verdi had composed it reluctantly, despised the librettist, Eugène Scribe, who he regarded as a well-named cynical scribbler, and tried unsuccessfully to get a release from his contract. The result is undeniably patchy, narratively implausible to the point of silliness, and though tight by the standards of French grand opera, nevertheless at least one scene too long.

Beatrice Rana, Wigmore Hall review - fantasy and sonority writ large

★★★★ BEATRICE RANA, WIGMORE HALL Supremely imaginative pianism, though you sometimes wanted to turn the volume down

Supremely imaginative pianism, though you sometimes wanted to turn the volume down

Not even the unengaged or terminally weary could have dozed through this. Pianists have often commented how the Wigmore Steinway is too big for the hall, and most adjust accordingly. Not 27-year-old Italian Beatrice Rana, but not in the bad way of interpreters who simply bash (there was a young Ukrainian here recently who did just that).

Shock of the Nude with Mary Beard, BBC Two review - when does art become erotica?

★★★ SHOCK OF THE NUDE WITH MARY BEARD, BBC TWO When does art become erotica?

Strangely bland survey of the naked body in Western art

Are you a fan of oysters or Marmite? Mary Beard is not to everybody’s taste, but love her or loathe her she is not only a distinguished academic but a ubiquitous writer and presenter of classical histories, connected travels, and ruminations on societal problems. She is enthusiastic, staggeringly energetic, erudite, profoundly knowledgable, the antithesis of fashionable in both opinion and appearance.

Blu-ray: A Fistful of Dynamite

★★★★★ A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE Sergio Leone's glorious Mexican revolution epic

Sergio Leone's glorious Mexican revolution epic receives a suitably opulent new release

A Fistful of Dynamite and Once Upon a Time in America are Sergio Leone’s films with the most explicit political underpinning. Indeed, given recent events, A Fistful of Dynamite is a thoroughly pertinent film, asking how we might achieve social change when the only human resource to hand is venal and self-serving.

Caroline Moorehead: A House in the Mountains review – the women's war against Fascism

★★★★★ CAROLINE MOOREHEAD: A HOUSE IN THE MOUNTAINS Uplifting and horrifying stories of the Italian Resistance and its heroines

Uplifting, and horrifying, stories of the Italian Resistance and its heroines

In September 1944, a heavily pregnant Resistance activist in the north of German-occupied Italy was arrested on a visit to Milan. Lisetta Giua, a law student and fiancée of the Jewish anti-Fascist chief Vittorio Foa, worked as one of hundreds of women staffette: vital underground operatives whose roles might stretch from courier and spy to liaison officer and saboteur.