The Champion of Auschwitz review - Polish movie based on a boxer's memoir

★★★ THE CHAMPION OF AUSCHWITZ Polish movie based on a boxer's memoir

Classically filmed feature focuses on the experience of non-Jewish prisoners

It’s a little hard to tell if this film was really intended for an international release, given that its heart is so set on making Polish movie-goers proud of their countrymen. The Champion of Auschwitz recounts the true story of Tadeusz "Teddy" Pietrzykowski, a young bantamweight boxing champion from Warsaw who in 1940 was captured by the occupying Nazis as he tried to join the Polish army in France.

Misha and the Wolves review - tricksy documentary about a child survivor

★★★ MISHA AND THE WOLVES Holocaust film plays fast and loose in its story-telling

Holocaust film plays fast and loose in its story-telling

It has become so hard to find funding for non-fiction films that many documentary makers now feel compelled to sell their stories as racy detective yarns, larded with dramatic scores and sneakily obfuscating narratives. There’s a piece of deception at the heart of Sam Hobkinson’s Misha and the Wolves which in this age of Holocaust denial, is distressingly slippery.

Blu-ray: The Pawnbroker

Much more than a Holocaust movie, this is Rod Steiger's best film

The shadow of the Holocaust and the horror of the camps haunts literature and the cinema: from The Reader to The Night Porter, from Schindler’s List to Son of Saul. For some, the subject was beyond authentic representation – and perhaps only a poetic masterpiece such as Paul Celan’s “Death Fugue”, with its sombre and recurring images could come close to making the violence and tragedy in some way true.

Psappha, Phillips, Hallé St Peter’s, Manchester online review - Turnage world premiere

★★★★ PSAPPHA, PHILLIPS, HALLÉ ST PETER'S, MANCHESTER Turnage world premiere

New music specialists mark 30 years of enterprise and dedication

Manchester’s Psappha have been proudly flying the flag of new and radical music right through the year of lockdown, and last night’s livestream, with two-and-a-half world premieres, one of them by Mark-Anthony Turnage, showed they haven’t given up making waves.

Persian Lessons review - confusing Holocaust drama

★★ PERSIAN LESSONS Confusing Holocaust drama

Ukrainian film doesn't add much to the genre

This is an odd film, made even odder by a caption near the beginning, which claims it is "inspired by true events" but doesn’t elaborate. Produced in Belarus, it’s a Holocaust drama based on a novella by the veteran East German screenwriter/director Wolfgang Kohlhaase but made by the Ukrainian director Vadim Perelman.

The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, Bristol Old Vic/Kneehigh/Wise Children online review – ravishing vision of Chagall's early life

★★★★ THE FLYING LOVERS OF VITEBSK, WISE CHILDREN Ravishing vision of Chagall's early life

An ingenious depiction of the artist's gravity-defying love

One of Marc Chagall’s last commissions was for a stained-glass window in Chichester Cathedral, which channelled his characteristically exuberant spirituality into a response to the verse from Psalm 150, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord”.

Rose, Hope Mill Theatre online review - a performer at her peak

★★★ ROSE, HOPE MILL THEATRE Maureen Lipman in fearless form

Maureen Lipman in fearless form in Martin Sherman's discursive solo play

Solo plays and performances are, of necessity, the theatrical currency of the moment, whether across an entire season at the Bridge Theatre or last week at the Old Vic in the too briefly glimpsed Three Kings, starring a rarely-better Andrew Scott.