theartsdesk in Warsaw: A New Jewish Museum

THEARTSDESK IN WARSAW: A NEW JEWISH MUSEUM Although only 7,500 Jews live in Poland, a space dedicated to their history has opened in the old Ghetto

Although only 7,500 Jews live in Poland, a space dedicated to their history has opened in the old Ghetto

The Ghetto Heroes Square in the Muranow district of Warsaw is a bleak place surrounded by drab apartment blocks. But at its centre there’s now a new building that attracted over 15,000 visitors in the first two days of its opening on 20 and 21 April, the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. It’s particularly remarkable as the building doesn’t yet have any exhibits on show.

CD: Pat Metheny - Tap: The Book of Angels, Vol 20

Brilliant first meeting between the jazz guitarist and the avant-gardist

Born just a year apart in the 1950s and having both clocked up almost 40 years' work in their respective scenes, it's surprising that it's taken quite so long for fellow trailblazers Pat Metheny and John Zorn to work together. It's certainly been worth the wait, as this collection is a real barn-burner.

The Metamorphosis, Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House

THE METAMORPHOSIS, LINBURY STUDIO THEATRE, ROYAL OPERA HOUSE Edward Watson is a tour de force in Royal Ballet's Kafka fantasia, but check your sensitivities at the door

Edward Watson is a tour de force in Royal Ballet's Kafka fantasia, but check your sensitivities at the door

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from a troubled dream, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect.” In one of the most famous opening lines in literature, Franz Kafka gives birth to a startling hallucinogenic premise. And Arthur Pita’s very clever dance drama produces something of a similar jolt in its precision and strangeness.

Dead Europe

A search for family secrets in the dark heart of Europe is undermined by incoherence

“Why do you want to go to Greece?” After watching the numbing Dead Europe and the journey of its protagonist Isaac the question asked might, more pertinently, have been “do you know the Greece you’re going to visit?” This relentlessly dark film paints Greece – in common with the other countries seen – as a place of barely hidden agonies, characterised by shadows. No wonder Isaac’s mother gives him a talisman to ward off the evil eye before he sets off from Australia.

Extract: In Two Minds - Jonathan Miller

IN TWO MINDS: JONATHAN MILLER Read an excerpt from Kate Bassett's acclaimed biography

To mark the death of Jonathan Miller - an excerpt from Kate Bassett's biography

When I first mentioned to a colleague that I was embarking on a biography of the doctor/director Jonathan Miller, he instantly yelped, “My God, your work’s cut out! The man must have met half the famous names in the twentieth century!"

Epstein: The Man Who Made The Beatles, Epstein Theatre, Liverpool

EPSTEIN: THE MAN WHO MADE THE BEATLES, EPSTEIN THEATRE, LIVERPOOL New play about The Beatles' troubled Svengali opens the refurbished theatre that bears his name

New play about The Beatles' troubled Svengali opens the refurbished theatre that bears his name

Those of us growing up in the heady days of 1960s Liverpool knew that four local lads were taking the world by storm. Some really grown-up people might even have been to The Cavern and seen the phenomenon in their early days. And yet there was always an enigma in the background: the figure who made it happen but about whom we knew almost nothing.

Jephtha, Welsh National Opera

JEPHTHA, WELSH NATIONAL OPERA Handel oratorio staged, finely sung, but with too much palaver

Handel oratorio staged, finely sung, but with too much palaver

Reviewing the Buxton Festival production of Handel’s Jephtha on theartsdesk a couple of months ago, Philip Radcliffe complained that the director, Frederic Wake-Walker, had done too little to justify the staging of this, the composer’s last oratorio: had made it, that is, too static and unstagey. I wonder what Radcliffe would say about Katie Mitchell’s production for Welsh National Opera, revived this weekend by Robin Tebbutt, and a classic case of a director’s reluctance to allow an essentially statuesque, slow-moving work its natural space and pace.

Yael Bartana: And Europe Will Be Stunned, Artangel at Hornsey Town Hall

Flabby film triptych follows the course of a fictional Jewish Resistance Movement in Poland

In the cool, dim, municipal modernist interior of Hornsey Town Hall you’re confronted with a neon sign: And Europe Will be Stunned. It's the title of the trilogy of films at the heart of this Artangel-commissioned show by Israel-born Yael Bartana. The films are split in location around the building in an exhibition which includes neon slogans and posters which can be taken away, bearing manifestos in different languages.

How God Made the English, BBC Two

Why do the English think they're better than everyone else? Perhaps God has the answer

This programme wants to challenge certain stereotypes around English identity. It wants to challenge the notion that to be English is to be “tolerant, white and Anglo-Saxon”. But before it does any of that, it wants to address just one question, and that is this: just why are the English so damned full of themselves? That’s right. Just where does their sense of superiority and entitlement come from? And what makes them think they can strut around the world with missionary zeal interfering in other people’s affairs all the time? OK, that’s several questions, but you see the theme.