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      Joshua Bell’s London

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      “The first time I came to London, I was 17,” the violinist Joshua Bell, now 54, told me. We were at dinner together following a recent performance of his at Wigmore Hall, a small but renowned concert hall. “I came with my parents to make my first album,” he continued. “This was in the ’80s, and I remember thinking there wasn’t a lot of variety in food. Now, of course, it’s great.”Mr. Bell estimates he’s been to London around 70 times since then.“One of the problems with classical music is that it’s developed a reputation of formality,” Mr. Bell said. “In fact, classical music can be the most exciting thing to watch.”So no, the virtuoso and onetime child prodigy doesn’t live in London. But you could say he’s a professional visitor. His London is one of exquisite taste, uncommonly good food and a handful of tiny places you’d breeze right by if you didn’t know they were there — with, of course, a measure of music.Mr. Bell tends to favor lesser-known places, with one very notable exception: the Royal Albert Hall. “The Royal Albert Hall has this thing called the Proms. They take out the seats on the lower level, and people line up down the street to get in,” he said. “All these people are standing up like it’s a rock concert, and it’s Beethoven symphonies. It’s incredible.”Here are five of his favorite places to visit in London.1. J.&A. BeareA technician works on a violin at J.&A. Beare in central London. The shop has a collection of precious violins that can be viewed. “In August 2001, I walked into Charles Beare’s shop to pick up a set of strings, and Charles Beare said to me, ‘You have to take a look at the Huberman violin, it’s on its way to Germany.’” The instrument, made by Antonio Stradivari in 1713 and known as the Gibson ex Huberman, was legendary. “I knew the famous story of the violin,” Mr. Bell said, recounting its theft from a dressing room at Carnegie Hall in 1936.J.&A. Beare sells more modest violins as well as world-class ones like the one Mr. Bell uses.At the shop in 2001, Mr. Bell fell in love with a violin made by Antonio Stradivari in 1713.“Charles Beare put me in a room with the violin and after a few notes, I was shaking with excitement. I was in love with it. I had a concert at the Royal Albert Hall — at the Proms — and used that violin that very night.”Even if you’re not in the market for a multimillion-euro violin, J.&A. Beare is worth a visit. The shop is open to the public — but if you want to see the collection of nearly priceless violins, book ahead.2. TrishnaThe tasting menu at Trishna, in Marylebone, is partly what draws Mr. Bell.“I did an event in New York with Salman Rushdie,” Mr. Bell said. “At one point, we were talking about London and he recommended Trishna. I love Indian food, but Trishna is not your typical Indian restaurant. The problem with Indian food for me is that I want to try a lot of things. I don’t just want to have one lamb curry as my dinner.” Instead, Mr. Bell likes to get the five-course tasting menu — “and a crab dish that’s really great,” he said.Trishna’s cozy interior.The Michelin-starred restaurant, with its private nooks, mirrored walls, delicately gilded surfaces, feels a like special occasion kind of place. It’s also best to come hungry. “I like places where they just get the tasting menu because I eat everything,” says Mr. Bell. “I like the person cooking it to choose what he wants to present.”3. Wigmore HallThe exterior of Wigmore Hall, a 552-seat concert venue in Marylebone.“Wigmore Hall doesn’t have name recognition to the general public,” said Mr. Bell of the 552-seat concert hall in Marylebone. With its small stage and red velvet seating, Wigmore Hall has a hushed, intimate appeal. “One of the problems with classical music is that it’s developed a reputation of formality. I’ve actually seen classical musicians admonish the audience for clapping at the wrong time. In fact, classical music can be the most exciting thing to watch.”With its small stage and red velvet seating, Wigmore Hall has a hushed, intimate appeal.“Having said that, it’s nice that there are places like Wigmore Hall where you know everyone understands. It’s like for an actor to do theater in a place where people really get it. And Wigmore Hall has history for me personally. The first concert there — I think it was 1901 — was played by the teacher of my teacher, Ysaÿe, the greatest violinist at the end of the 19th century in Europe. I feel the history when I walk on the stage.”4. Baglioni HotelThe Baglioni Hotel is a favorite of Bell’s when he’s performing at the Proms, an annual series of classical music concerts.When days are packed with rehearsals and evenings are given to performing, proximity to one’s bed is important — as is a nice hotel around that bed. And so when Mr. Bell plays at the Royal Albert Hall, he always stays at Hotel Baglioni, a stone’s throw away. “It’s an Italian boutique hotel and has a very intimate feel,” he said. “It feels like people know you there, and the rooms have this sort of very sexy vibe — they’re just very boudoir-like and dark. I sleep better in those kinds of rooms.”Its location also means he can “walk to the rehearsals and back — you can also walk right across the street to Hyde Park. It’s my home when I’m at the Proms.”5. Fidelio Cafe“It’s clearly a passion project for the owner,” Mr. Bell said of Fidelio Cafe, “who loves classical music and food and puts them together.” (Mr. Bell is seated at a table on the left.)Gabriel Isserlis“Very few places like this exist — or dare to offer this,” said Mr. Bell of Fidelio Cafe. The “this” in question is the intersection of a sweet little bistro and live, world-class classical music.Imagine a small cafe where the walls are papered in actual sheet music, a grand piano greets you at the front door and the menu — with its home-roasted granola, slow-cooked aubergine and roasted cherry tomato bruschetta — seems crafted from the morning’s farmer’s market.It’s also “about the uniqueness of having a meal in an intimate space while hearing chamber music,” Mr. Bell said. “It’s clearly a passion project for the owner, who loves classical music and food and puts them together.”“One of my dreams is to open a food-slash-music venue,” he added. “When I see places like Fidelio, I love that people are thinking outside the box and celebrating classic music in such an usual way.”Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2023. More

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      ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ Wins Big at the BAFTAs

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      The German-language antiwar movie won best film, best director and five other awards at Britain’s equivalent of the Academy Awards.Felix Kammerer starred in the antiwar movie “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which won best film at the BAFTAs.Reiner Bajo/Netflix, via Associated PressIn a shock to this year’s awards season, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” a German-language movie set in the trenches of World War I, was the big winner at the EE British Academy Film and Television Arts Awards in London on Sunday night.The Netflix movie was named best picture at the awards, commonly known as the BAFTAs. The antiwar film beat four higher-profile titles, including “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the sci-fi adventure starring Michelle Yeoh, and “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy about the ending of a friendship on a small island.“All Quiet” also beat Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” biopic and “Tár,” Todd Field’s drama about a conductor accused of sexual harassment. Based on Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel of the same title, “All Quiet on the Western Front” won six other awards, including best director for Edward Berger, best adapted screenplay and best film not in the English language.During the ceremony, Berger seemed overcome by the wins. While accepting the award for best adapted screenplay, he mentioned the movie’s antiwar message and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.‘Tár’: A Timely Backstage DramaCate Blanchett plays a world-famous conductor who is embroiled in a #MeToo drama in the latest film by the director Todd Field.Review: “We don’t care about Lydia Tár because she’s an artist; we care about her because she’s art,” our critic writes about the film’s protagonist.An Elusive Subject: Blanchett has stayed one step ahead of audiences by constantly staying in motion. In “Tár,” she is as inscrutable as ever.Back Into the Limelight: The film marks Field’s return to directing, 16 years after “In the Bedroom” and “Little Children” made waves.One Indelible Scene: An episode of generational and ideological strife involving Lydia and an earnest student is more complicated, and simpler, than it might seem.“There are no heroes in any war,” he said.Edward Berger won best director for “All Quiet on the Western Front” at the BAFTAs. He mentioned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in his acceptance speech for best adapted screenplay.Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“All Quiet” was expected to do well at the awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars. When the BAFTA nominations were announced last month, it secured 14 nods and tied with Ang Lee’s 2000 action film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” for the highest number of nominations for a movie not in the English language.British critics raved about the movie upon its release. Danny Leigh wrote in The Financial Times that Berger “expertly handled” the challenge facing any antiwar film: how to stop war from looking glamorous. “Here, dawn quagmires lit by dots of orange flame and troops mad-eyed with animal fear register both as fine cinema and potent fury,” Leigh said.Peter Bradshaw said in The Guardian that “All Quiet” was “a powerful, eloquent, conscientiously impassioned film.”American critics were less effusive. Ben Kenigsberg, writing in The New York Times, said the film “aims to pummel you with ceaseless brutality.”The BAFTAs have long been seen as a bellwether for the Oscars, scheduled for March 12, because of an overlap between their voting bodies. “All Quiet” is nominated for nine categories at those awards, including for best film.Steven Spielberg’s award favorite “The Fabelmans” wasn’t nominated for best movie or best director at the BAFTAs; it received one nomination, for best original screenplay.Before “All Quiet” swept the main prizes, this year’s BAFTAs, held at the Royal Festival Hall in London, had a variety of winners, with the major acting gongs being shared by three different films.Cate Blanchett won best actress for playing a conductor in crisis in “Tár.” She beat nominees that included Viola Davis for her performance in “The Woman King,” Danielle Deadwyler for her role as Emmett Till’s mother in “Till,” and Yeoh for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”Accepting the prize, a tearful Blanchett thanked her fellow nominees for “breaking the myth that women’s experience is monolithic.”Cate Blanchett won best actress for playing a conductor in crisis in “Tár.” Henry Nicholls/ReutersAustin Butler won the best actor award for his title role in “Elvis.” Butler last month took the same prize at the Golden Globes and was nominated for best actor at the Oscars.“The Banshees of Inisherin,” one of this award season’s most highly touted movies, did not leave the BAFTAs empty-handed, taking four awards, including best original screenplay, best supporting actor for Barry Keoghan and best supporting actress for Kerry Condon.The ceremony, hosted by Richard E. Grant, was short on drama, though Carey Mulligan, nominated for “She Said,” was accidentally announced as the best supporting actress instead of Condon.The incident occurred when Troy Kotsur, the deaf star of “CODA,” was announcing the category’s winner with an interpreter. The mistake was edited out of the show’s television broadcast in Britain. More

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      Where Culture Flows Along London’s River Thames

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      The Southbank Center, the host of this year’s British Academy Film Awards, has become a focal point of the city’s arts and culture scene.LONDON — As Lisa Vine looked out over the River Thames from the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Southbank Center’s Royal Festival Hall main foyer, she recalled first coming here as an 11-year-old girl in 1957 to attend a concert.Over the decades, Ms. Vine, a retired teacher and native Londoner, who had stopped in for coffee on the way back from a nearby errand, has seen a lot of change here. She has not only watched the Southbank Center develop — with the Queen Elizabeth Hall opening in 1967 and the Hayward Gallery the next year — she has also seen the area around it grow and change, with the addition of artistic and performance spaces including the National Theater, the British Film Institute, the Tate Modern and Shakespeare’s Globe.“I remember when the river was dull,” she said, looking out at a panorama that includes the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Now, she noted, “there is so much going in terms of concerts and events, but I don’t get out here as often as I should.”That’s the sentiment of Londoners and visitors alike. With so much going on at the Southbank Center, from classical music concerts, dance premieres and D.J. sets to poetry, film and literature festivals, it would be impossible to attend every event. And all of those happenings — at a venue that’s open five nights a week, where about 3,500 annual events take place — have made the Southbank Center one of the focal points of London’s arts and culture scene.Hosting the British Academy Film Awards, commonly known as the BAFTAs, for the first time on Sunday is yet another big moment in the storied history of the space, which has had everyone from Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and Jacqueline du Pré to David Bowie, Michelle Obama and Greta Thunberg grace its stages.The Royal Festival Hall, as seen from the Hungerford Bridge. The venue opened in 1951, kicking off the development of what would become the Southbank Center. Bjanka Kadic/Alamy“We’re so thrilled about the central location of the Royal Festival Hall and accessibility of the space, enabling us to program our most ambitious and inclusive night for attendees yet,” Emma Baehr, the BAFTAs’ executive director of awards and content, wrote in an email. (The awards have previously been hosted in various locations, most recently the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington.) “Southbank is the largest arts center in the U.K., home to the London Film Festival and in the heart of London on the River Thames — having staged our television awards there for several years, it felt a natural move for us.”The Royal Festival Hall — which seats 2,700 — was opened in 1951 by King George VI, along with his daughter Princess Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, during the Festival of Britain, which was centered on the south bank of the Thames. The area had been devastated during World War II and its derelict buildings and factories were razed to build a number of temporary structures for the festival.During the next few decades, not only did the Southbank Center develop — both the 900-seat Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Hayward Gallery, which holds contemporary art exhibitions, are fantastic examples of 1960s Brutalist architecture — but the area around it did, too.The British Film Institute, which hosts film festivals and has helped fund a number of films including the BAFTA-nominated movies “Aftersun” and “Triangle of Sadness,” opened its first theater in 1957 under the Waterloo Bridge. And the National Theater, under the direction of Laurence Olivier, opened its doors next to the institute in 1976.Members of the royal family, including Princess Elizabeth, center, opened the Southbank Center’s Royal Festival Hall in 1951 during the Festival of Britain.Associated PressThat festival centered on the redeveloped south bank of the Thames, where the Royal Festival Hall, right, sat alongside a typical British pub.Frank Harrison/Topical Press Agency, via Getty ImagesAbout a mile east is Shakespeare’s Globe, which first opened in 1599 and then burned down in 1613 during a performance of “Henry VIII” (a second theater was later built but was eventually closed by parliamentary decree in 1642). The newest version of the theater opened in 1997 and now houses two stages including the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, where plays and concerts are performed by candlelight. A stone’s throw from the Globe is the Tate Modern, the world-class modern and contemporary art museum housed in a former power station that opened its doors to the public in 2000.“I spend my life in a constant state of FOMO because there is always something happening,” said Stuart Brown, B.F.I.’s head of program and acquisitions, adding that the area is quite magical because of its location by the river and the architecture of the buildings. “You’ve got these incredible world-class artistic offerings to people through music, theater, visual arts, film, and all those experiences can inspire us, move us, make us think about the world differently.”The American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, backstage at the Royal Festival Hall circa 1963. Ms. Fitzgerald is among the luminaries who have appeared at the London venue. David Redfern/Redferns/Getty ImagesMusic has always been a highlight of the programming at the Southbank Center and with six resident orchestras — including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Aurora Orchestra — almost every evening there is some kind of concert.“Music is absolutely central to everything we do,” said Elaine Bedell, the chief executive of the Southbank Center. However, she added that classical music audiences globally had not returned to full pre-Covid strength and that that was something she and her colleagues wanted to address. “We have a very dynamic new head of classical music, Toks Dada, who has a very clear strategy and has very ambitious plans for bringing new audiences to classical music.”The Purcell Sessions have been part of that overall strategy to bring in younger audiences to various genres, including classical music. Housed in the same building as the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Purcell Room is an intimate stage with just 295 seats. The series based there is a chance for up-and-coming musicians, some of whom work across different art forms, to showcase their talents. “It has always had this legacy of experimentation,” Ms. Bedell said. “The idea is, it’s a real space for collaboration, innovation and invention.”The Purcell Room, of course, is not the only space for collaboration and experimentation. For 40 years the Southbank Center has had an “open foyer” policy in the building that houses the Royal Festival Hall, which connects to the other Southbank buildings through a series of outdoor concrete walkways. Like the year-round free exhibitions, and the concerts outside during the summer Meltdown festival, the foyer is open to the public seven days a week as a civic space. Weekly music jams, dance groups and language clubs meet up there to practice.“That sense of openness and inclusiveness is the unique thing about the Southbank Center,” Ms. Bedell said, adding that there are cafes and restaurants scattered across the cultural campus that help add to the center’s revenue. “I like the idea that people kind of feel their way to use the space.”Over the years, the various cultural institutions along the river’s south bank have cross-pollinated on projects. For a number of years, the British Film Institute has used the Royal Festival Hall for premiere screenings during the London Film Festival. Last year during the Hayward Gallery’s exhibition “In the Black Fantastic,” which focused on Afrofuturism, the institute hosted a talk with Ekow Eshun, the show’s curator.“We have a warm and collaborative relationship with other organizations on the south bank, meeting regularly as leaders to learn from each other and share best practice,” Kate Varah, the executive director of the National Theater, wrote in an email. “We’re all asking similar questions as we navigate through the permacrisis, and it’s more important than ever that we share our experiences and have a forum for collective ideas.”During the lying-in-state of Queen Elizabeth in September, a number of the spaces worked together to entertain — through poignant music and archival film of the royal family — the thousands of mourners who stood in the queue that snaked past the cultural institutions before heading across the river to Westminster Hall.The interaction between the venues is just one of the reasons fans of the area like Ms. Vine say they love it so much.“It is a wonderful place, one of my favorites in London,” she said. 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      Annie Mac’s Before Midnight: A Dance Party With an Early Bedtime

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      The Before Midnight parties promise all the thrills of a hedonistic night out, but with a respectable finish time for older dance music fans.It was Friday night, in a 2,000-person capacity nightclub in London, and the dance floor was packed. A heavy-duty sound system pounded out house music and a huge disco ball turned overhead. Only one thing was off: It was 9.30 p.m.A woman in the crowd gleefully yelled to the throng of people around her: “I’m 15 weeks postpartum and I’m in the club!”The party, called Before Midnight, is organized by the Irish D.J. Annie Macmanus, who plays under the name Annie Mac: It promises all the thrills of a club — just with an early bedtime. Starting at 7 p.m. and wrapped up by 12, Before Midnight is one of several recent variations on the hedonistic all-night sessions in which dance music is usually enjoyed, aimed at older fans juggling children and careers.“There’s an inherent belief that clubbing is for young people,” Macmanus said recently by phone. “There’s now a generation of people who experienced clubbing in its most popular guise, and still want to do that, but don’t feel like they belong there anymore.”Macmanus explained that Before Midnight was born out of her desire to fit a music career around her duties as a mother of two children, ages 6 and 9. Late-night D.J. sets didn’t mix well with their weekend activities, she said.“It felt like I had jet lag,” Macmanus said. “It just wasn’t accommodating for where I’m at in my life right now.”Annie Macmanus, who D.J.s as Annie Mac. Before setting up Before Midnight, she fronted BBC radio’s flagship dance music show.Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesMacmanus said this reckoning coincided with her decision, in 2021, to stand down as the presenter of the BBC’s flagship dance music show, on BBC Radio 1 — a gig she had held for 17 years and which cemented her name as a musical tastemaker in Britain.Before Midnight was her next act, she said, a fresh project to restore some work-life balance. The premise was simple, she added: “a definitive club night that’s just like a normal one, only earlier.”The first night, held last year at the Islington Assembly Hall, a London music venue, was a one-off experiment. It sold out, and, at the end of last year, Macmanus announced a 10-date Before Midnight tour of Britain and Ireland. The tour’s two remaining London dates are also taking place at Outernet, a new, subterranean nightclub in the city’s West End that is the largest live events space built in central London since the 1940s.Before Midnight is particularly popular with women, who Macmanus estimated make up about 75 percent of the crowd. Jodie Brooks, 44, who has attended every Before Midnight party in London to date, was in the crowd this past Friday. “I just didn’t want the night to start at 1 a.m. anymore,” Brooks, who works in advertising and like Macmanus has two children age 6 and 9, said later by phone. “I never wanted parenthood to change me in that way, but, inevitably, it just does. You have to get up and do the Saturday-morning football practice at 9 a.m.,” she said.The coronavirus lockdowns of 2022 and 2021, which took clubbing temporarily out of the mix, made many people in their 30s and 40s re-evaluate how they wanted to spend their weekends. Some, like Brooks, emerged determined to get back on the dance floor, but on new, more wholesome terms. With Before Midnight, she said, “You can go for a really lush dinner at six. By eight you’re in the club,” and “by 12 you’re out.”Before Midnight is particularly popular with women, who Macmanus estimated make up about 75 percent of the crowd.Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesOthers realized that they liked dance music, but not nightclubs. Adem Holness, who leads the contemporary music program at the Southbank Center, a central London arts venue, said that many of the venue’s offerings suited electronic music enthusiasts at a more mature life stage: Performances are seated, and finish in time to catch the last Tube home.“We have a menu of different options for people,” he said. “It’s about making the model work for all kinds of people.”In the last year, D.J.s and dance music performers including Fabio & Grooverider, Erykah Badu and Peaches have all played gigs at the Royal Festival Hall, a concert hall managed by the Southbank. “I’m seeing people wanting to experience really great music that you might think or assume belongs in a club, somewhere else, or in a different way,” Holness said.Before Midnight’s London dates are at Outernet, a new, subterranean nightclub in the city’s West End.Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesUpcoming parties are scheduled for Manchester in northern England, Glasgow and Dublin, among other cities.Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesBefore Midnight was also influenced by the experience of bringing club culture into a more rarefied space, Macmanus said. In 2019, she recalled, she played in New York at MoMa PS1’s Warm Up, the art museum’s summer series that sets experimental and electronic music alongside contemporary art and design. There, she saw a multigenerational audience dancing together, she said. “It had a big effect on me as a D.J.,” she added. “I’m always going to try and reach that type of a dance floor.”The Before Midnight concept was simple, Macmanus said: “a definitive club night that’s just like a normal one, only earlier.”Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesMacmanus added that an early-starting dance party wasn’t a totally original idea. Tim Lawrence, a professor of cultural studies at the University of East London who researches nightlife has been running a monthly London dance party that starts at 5 p.m. since 2018; in an interview, he said that events like Before Midnight were a way to “pluralize the culture.” During a 2017 tour of the United States to promote his book “Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor,” Lawrence recalled, he attended an invite-only party in New York called Joy that started around dinnertime.Lawrence brought the concept back to London with him and co-founded his monthly dance party called All Our Friends. “It’s about confounding certain ideas that come with the all-night or late-night thing,” Lawrence said. The earlier timetable allows for a different approach to dancing, he said, which can “potentially be more expressive, more interactive and go a bit deeper on a social level.”But for Brooks, the advertising worker, the appeal of Before Midnight was much simpler: It was an opportunity to dance to the music that she loves, in a club like any other, and be home in time for bed.“You get all the joy and the love,” she said. “You get to be a part of something again. And you don’t feel out of place.”Confetti released just before midnight signaled the party was almost over.Lauren Fleishman for The New York Times More

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      ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ Leads BAFTA Nominees

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      The German-language movie received 14 nods and will compete for best film against the likes of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “The Banshees of Inisherin.”“All Quiet on the Western Front,” a German-language movie set on the battlefields of World War I, emerged on Thursday as the surprise front-runner for this year’s British Academy Film Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars.“All Quiet,” a Netflix-backed movie about the futility of war, secured 14 nominations for the awards, commonly known as the BAFTAs. Those included best film, where it is up against four higher-profile titles including “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” a sci-fi adventure starring Michelle Yeoh as a laundromat owner who traverses universes; and “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy about two friends who fall out while living on a small island, both of which received a total of 10 nominations.Also competing for the main BAFTA prize is Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” biopic and “Tár,” Todd Field’s drama starring Cate Blanchett as a conductor accused of sexual harassment.On its release in Britain, critics gave the Edward Berger-directed “All Quiet” rave reviews. Kevin Maher, writing in The Times of London, said that the movie was “more visceral, more spectacular and certainly more harrowing” than any previous adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel of the same title. “See it on the biggest screen possible. Then watch it again on Netflix,” Mr. Maher added.American critics were less effusive. Ben Kenigsberg, reviewing the movie for The New York Times, said that it “aims to pummel you with ceaseless brutality, and it’s hard not to be rattled by that.”Steven Spielberg Gets Personal in ‘The Fabelmans’The director’s latest movie, starring Michelle Williams, focuses on Sammy Fabelman, a budding filmmaker who is a lot like Spielberg himself.Review: “The Fabelmans” is “wonderful in both large and small ways, even if Spielberg can’t help but soften the rougher, potentially lacerating edges,” our critic writes.Michelle Williams: With her portrayal of Mitzi, Sammy’s mother, the actress moves from minor-key naturalism to more stylized performances.Judd Hirsch: The actor has been singled out for his rousing performance in the film. It’s the latest chapter in a career full of anecdotes.Making ‘The Fabelmans’: In working on this semi-autobiographical movie, Spielberg confronted painful family secrets and what it means to be Jewish in America today.The 14 nods for “All Quiet” is the highest number of BAFTA nominations for a movie not in the English language, tied with Ang Lee’s 2000 action film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” according to BAFTA officials.Michelle Yeoh, left, and Jing Li in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.Allyson Riggs/A24Most of the nominations for “All Quiet” are in technical categories. But Berger also secured a best director nomination. He will compete for that award against the directors of “Banshees of Inisherin” (McDonagh), “Tár”(Field) and “Everything Everywhere All At Once” (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert). Park Chan-wook, the director of “Decision to Leave,” about a policeman who falls in love with a suspect, also secured a best director nod, as did Gina Prince-Bythewood for “The Woman King,” about the women soldiers of the precolonial Kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa. Prince-Bythewood is the only female director among the nominees.There was one upset among the best director nominees: Steven Spielberg didn’t get a nod for “The Fabelmans,” his semi-autobiographical tale of a budding filmmaker coping with a fractious home life, which won him best director at last week’s Golden Globes.The BAFTA nominations, which were announced in a YouTube broadcast, have long been seen as a bellwether for the Oscars because there is overlap between their voting bodies. Nominations for this year’s Academy Awards are scheduled to be unveiled on Tuesday and “All Quiet on the Western Front” has been tipped as a potential nominee in the best picture category.In recent years, the BAFTA organizers has made efforts to widen the diversity of nominees, including requiring voters to watch a variety of movies before they can make their selections.Last year, that led to several unexpected nominees in the best acting categories, many from low-budget British movies. But there are fewer upsets this year. The best actress nominees include Blanchett for “Tár,” Viola Davis for “The Woman King,” Yeoh for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and Emma Thompson for her role in “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” in which she plays a widow who hires a prostitute.They will compete for that prize against Danielle Deadwyler for her role as Emmett Till’s mother in “Till” and Ana de Armas for “Blonde,” in which she plays Marilyn Monroe.The best actor category sees Austin Butler, the Golden Globe-winning star of “Elvis,” up against Colin Farrell, for his role in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” and Brendan Fraser, for his transformation into an obese, grief-stricken writing instructor in “The Whale.” Also nominated are the rising Irish star Paul Mescal, for his role as a young father taking his daughter on holiday in “Aftersun,” Daryl McCormack, for playing the prostitute in “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” and Bill Nighy, for “Living,” about a bureaucrat given a life-changing medical diagnosis.Whether the nominations for “All Quiet” translate into trophies will be revealed on Feb. 19, when the BAFTA winners are scheduled to be announced in a ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall in London. 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      ‘Die Hard’ Comes to the Christmas Stage in London

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      The poet Richard Marsh is winning praise in London for a one-man theatrical version of the action movie.LONDON — Every year in the run-up to Christmas, Richard Marsh wraps presents while watching “Die Hard,” the 1980s action movie in which Bruce Willis, playing the cop John McClane, single-handedly takes down a terrorist group in a Los Angeles tower block on Christmas Eve.But this year, Marsh said, he might have to give the ritual a miss. Since the end of November, the poet and playwright has been the star of “Yippee Ki Yay,” a one-man retelling of “Die Hard” at the King’s Head Theater in London.Over 75 minutes, Marsh recreates the film, with the help of just a few props. Speaking mainly in verse, he embodies all the movie’s major characters including McClane and the evil Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). He has had to rewatch the movie to perfect his accents, he said, and so watching it in his free time might be a little much.“But who knows,” Marsh said in a recent interview: “I haven’t started wrapping my presents yet.”“Die Hard” has been a contentious holiday movie ever since it was released in July 1988. Early reviewers focused on its action credentials, and made little reference to the film’s Christmas Eve setting, or McClane’s desire to reunite with his children and partner for the holidays. In 2018, Willis declared that “Die Hard” wasn’t a Christmas movie, it was a “Bruce Willis movie!”Yet, on both sides of the Atlantic, “Die Hard” regularly appears on polls of the greatest holiday movies. And theater has started to embrace this popularity, too.In the show, Marsh recreates specific scenes, including dramatic moments starring, top left, Bruce Willis and, bottom right, Alan Rickman.20th Century Fox; Rod PennMarsh, 48, is not the first performer to adapt the hit, with “Die Hard” having long been staged as a comedic Christmas musical in Chicago and Minneapolis, and as a comedy in Seattle. Jeff Schell, part of the team behind “A Very Die Hard Christmas,” which ran at the Seattle Public Theater through Dec. 20, said in a telephone interview that he felt these theatrical versions were appearing because people “who remember seeing it in junior high” were getting to an age where they could stage shows.Michael Shepherd Jordan, who wrote the book for “Yippee Ki-Yay Merry Christmas: A Die Hard Musical Parody,” which debuted in Chicago in 2014, said in a telephone interview that “Die Hard” worked so well onstage because of the absurdity of trying to act out a “big, bloody action movie” with a tiny budget. In his show, a police car that is central to the movie has to be recreated with a remote-controlled toy. Explosions are similarly silly.That absurdity is fun to watch, Marsh said, but he felt the movie was also relatable in ways that worked well onstage. “Die Hard” is ultimately about a couple, McClane and his wife Holly, arguing under the pressure of Christmas Eve and struggling to apologize to each other, Marsh said. That was a scenario that anyone could identify with, he added, even if “unusually, John and Holly cannot apologize to each other because of terrorist action.”Over the past decade, Marsh has had several fringe hits in Britain with stories told through poetry, including “Dirty Great Love Story,” written with Katie Bonna, which started at the Edinburgh festivals before heading to the West End. Marsh said he got the idea for “Yippee Ki Yay” — named after one of Willis’s most memorable lines in the movie — so long ago that he couldn’t remember the date. “My plays often start as jokes,” he said, “and the idea of doing ‘Die Hard’ as an epic poem was this delightful contrast.”Last year, as British theaters were reopening following the coronavirus pandemic, Marsh said the idea popped back into his head. He had been working on a play about grief but decided audiences would prefer to see “something that is joyful and hilarious and warm and enlivening.” Soon, he had written a draft, and then was working with the director Hal Chambers and the movement director Emma Webb to turn the movie’s main scenes into low-budget reality.“For all the Hans Gruber-ish terrorist action,” Marsh said, “there’s an emotional truth at the center of ‘Die Hard.’”Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesOnstage, Marsh recreates “Die Hard” often just using sound effects and the audience’s imagination. Early on, he stages a fight with a teddy bear that is meant to be a gun-toting terrorist. Afterward, he dabs himself with fake blood to give the impression of injuries. Later, Marsh, using a stool, recreates a scene in which McClane throws a chair loaded with explosives down an elevator shaft. He then covers himself with cocoa powder to look like soot.The only thing Marsh doesn’t do is take off his shoes. Early in the movie, Willis removes his own and is left to chase terrorists barefoot, cutting his feet on broken glass. In the play, Marsh tells his audience there’s a simple reason he’ll be keeping his on: “Have you seen this floor?” he says.The experience of developing “Yippee Ki Yay” — which is running in London until Dec. 30 before going on a British tour — wasn’t entirely easy, Marsh said. After he performed its first preview, a friend said the show was really funny but didn’t have much emotional impact.“It was a brutal note, but extremely useful,” Marsh said. Afterward, he changed the play so it didn’t just tell the story of “Die Hard,” but also interlaced it with the tale of a romance between two “Die Hard” fanatics who meet on an internet forum.That emotional arc has won praise from reviewers. Dominic Maxwell, writing in The Times of London, said that it was “one thing” to have the idea of turning “Die Hard” into an epic poem. “It’s quite another to deliver on it with this level of panache, wit, insight and — unexpectedly — tenderness,” he wrote.Marsh said the final play drew out what “Die Hard” meant to him today. When he first watched it as a teenager, he simply enjoyed it as a full-throttle action film in which a wisecracking hero overcomes preposterous odds to beat up bad guys, Marsh said. “But it’s different watching it now. I’m a dad, I’m in midlife.”Today, he sees the movie as much about how children can be a “colossal hand grenade” in any relationship, he said, and how families try to connect — a message at the heart of most successful Christmas movies including “Home Alone” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.”“For all the Hans Gruber-ish terrorist action,” Marsh said, “there’s an emotional truth at the center of ‘Die Hard.’”That, he added, “is probably the reason why it’s lasted as long as it has.” More

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      in Music

      Suspected Crush at London Concert Leaves 3 Critically Injured

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      The police responded to reports that a large crowd had tried to force its way into the O2 Academy Brixton, one of Britain’s most popular music venues.A large crowd tried to force its way into the O2 Academy Brixton, a popular concert venue in London, to attend a sold-out performance by Asake, a Nigerian Afrobeats singer.Kirsty O’Connor/Press Association, via Associated PressThree people remained in critical condition on Friday after suffering injuries believed to have been caused by a crush the night before during a packed London concert at one of Britain’s leading music venues, the capital’s police force said.A large crowd tried to force its way into the concert, a sold-out performance on Thursday evening by Asake, a Nigerian Afrobeats singer and songwriter, at the venue, the O2 Academy Brixton, prompting the emergency services to respond and forcing the concert to end early.Video from the scene showed crowds surging through the venue’s main entrance as cheers and screams rang out through the throng of fans stretched out into the main road, as well as the police struggling to maintain control even as they wielded batons.“This is so dangerous,” one person can be heard saying.Ade Adelekan, a commander for the Metropolitan Police, the force that serves London, said that the authorities had opened an investigation and that it would be “as thorough and as forensic as necessary.”A total of eight people were taken to the hospital, with four originally considered to be in critical condition. It was unclear on Friday whether the injuries had occurred inside or outside the venue.Speaking outside the Brixton police station on Friday afternoon, Chief Superintendent Colin Wingrove of the Metropolitan Police said that more than 4,000 people had “attended last night.”The show was advertised as sold out, and the venue has a capacity of nearly 5,000, according to its website. It was not clear whether the chief superintendent was referring to just people with tickets or also including those who tried to enter venue without them, and the police did not respond to questions about the matter.Video footage and testimonies from people who said that they were at the venue on Thursday evening showed chaotic scenes.Akin Oluwaleimu, 53, went to the concert with his 14-year-old daughter, where they encountered a “rowdy” atmosphere outside, according to the BBC, adding that he saw two women who had fainted and were carried away. “We didn’t get inside,” he said. “When we were leaving we were told the show had been stopped.”The episode led to the abandonment of the concert, the last of three sold-out shows at the venue by the 27-year-old Asake, whose much-anticipated debut album this year was well received in both Britain and the United States.“My heart is with those who were injured last night,” Asake said in a statement posted on Instagram, noting that he had not heard from the O2 Academy Brixton about what had caused the disruption. He said he was sorry that the concert had been cut short. “I pray you get well soonest,” he added.The O2 Academy Brixton did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Mayor Sadiq Khan of London said in a Twitter post that he was “heartbroken that this could happen to young Londoners enjoying a night out in our city.”“I won’t rest until we have the answers their loved ones and the local community need and deserve,” he added.During his statement outside Brixton police station on Friday, Chief Superintendent Wingrove confirmed that an incident captured on video in which a police officer was “apparently seen to push a member of the public” was under internal review. He also said that another member of the public had been arrested in connection with an assault on a police officer. The police station in Brixton, South London, lies only about 100 yards from the venue, and a cordon was in place Friday, with the normally bustling road alongside closed to traffic.Above the building’s entrance, a “sold out” sign was still visible, and garbage lay strewn across the street outside.London is home to a large African community, and the Afrobeats genre has grown increasingly popular in the capital in recent years, with artists frequently selling out packed shows. More

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      in Television

      In ‘Litvinenko,’ a Former Russian Spy Investigates His Own Murder

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      A new dramatization of the 2006 poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko shows the former spy, played by David Tennant, helping the police in his final hours.LONDON — In the middle of AMC+’s new dramatization of the poisoning of the intelligence agent Alexander V. Litvinenko, a police officer asks a pathologist about the state of the man’s organs when he died. The doctor thinks for a moment, as though considering how graphic to be, and then replies, “Sludge.”It’s a visceral moment in “Litvinenko,” a limited series written by the “Lupin” creator George Kay that depicts Litvinenko’s 2006 poisoning in London via a cup of tea laced with the radioactive element polonium 210, and its aftermath.While many viewers will remember the photo of Litvinenko on his deathbed, gaunt and newly bald, that appeared on front pages around the world, fewer will know the details of his final days, and how — convinced he was poisoned by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — he aided the investigation into the attack, even as his internal organs were failing.The story of a former K.G.B. agent assassinated in broad daylight in the dining room of a British hotel could have made for a sensationalized show about international intrigue. But “Litvinenko,” which comes to AMC+ and Sundance Now on Friday, instead focuses on the human cost behind the headlines.Most of the running time of the series’s four episodes is spent with the police investigating the murder and the Litvinenkos themselves — Alexander (played by David Tennant), but also his widow Marina (Margarita Levieva), who for years agitated for the British government to hold an inquiry into her husband’s death.The police officers investigating the poisoning are featured heavily in the show, including Clive Timmons (Mark Bonnar), center left, and Peter Clarke (Daniel Ryan), second from the left. ITVX/Sundance NowKay’s research for the program involved close collaboration with Marina, as well as the investigating officers, including Brent Hyatt, the London police officer who took 18 hours of statements from Litvinenko in the hospital.That was one way the murder investigation started before anyone had “actually died,” as one of the show’s police officers notes. Litvinenko used the hours it took for the poison to wreck his body “to tell the police what he knew, so he was not just a witness to his own murder, he was a detective in it,” Kay said in a video interview.The first episode covers this time immediately following the poisoning, when every minute was precious. The second shows the weeks following Litvinenko’s death, when the police scrambled to put the pieces together and contain the threat of radiation poisoning to the British public.The subsequent episodes cover the months, and eventually years, that Marina spent fighting for an inquest, and then a public inquiry, into her husband’s death.“We wanted to give a sense of the perseverance of Marina Litvinenko,” Kay said. “She’s the one person who didn’t retire or give up or look the other way, or try and get in the way of the justice. She kept going, and it took her a decade in the end.”“I want people to understand not only what happened to me, to my family, but why it’s happened now to many families,” said Marina Litvinenko, played in the show by Margarita Levieva.ITVX/Sundance NowIn many ways, Marina is the show’s lead character. The widow said she saw cooperating with the show’s creators as her duty.“I want people to understand not only what happened to me, to my family, but why it’s happened now to many families,” she said. Putin’s actions since 2006, including the war in Ukraine, have cost “millions” of people their loved ones, she added.A 2019 play about Litvinenko’s murder, “A Very Expensive Poison,” was written by Lucy Prebble with input from Marina, and there was also a 2021 opera. But this television show arrives after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and so in a changed political landscape.Tennant said that the brutal war had been “the moment that the world woke up to Putin, and what he was.” He added: “I think either people didn’t really understand that until now, or they understood it, but it was inconvenient to acknowledge.”In 2006, Britain saw Russia as a supposedly friendly power. At the time the British government condemned Russia’s refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi to face trial for the murder in Britain, but in 2013, Home Secretary Theresa May admitted that successive British governments had blocked a public inquiry into the poisoning out of concern for “international relations.”Andrei Lugovoi, whom the British government sought to prosecute for the poisoning, is depicted by Radoslaw Kaim.ITVX/Sundance NowMay eventually agreed to Maria’s long-fought-for public inquiry, which in 2016 found that the poisoning was “probably approved” by Putin.While “Litvinenko” is a show with big political concerns, the persistence of ordinary people is what ultimately motivates it. Tennant said the time he spent with Marina preparing for the role drove that home for him.“The experience of being with her changes it from a story about politics to a story about a family,” he said.Kay also wanted to emphasize Litvinenko’s home life in the show. He “worked in Russian intelligence, but also he loved football and swimming, he was a dad, he got the tube home,” Kay said. “He lives a normal life in all but some aspects of his previous work. And it’s the same with Brent Hyatt.”Hyatt’s home life during the investigation, particularly his struggle to conceive a child with his wife, is brought to the forefront in “Litvinenko.” The show depicts both Hyatt (Neil Maskell) and Litvinenko trying to provide for their families in extraordinary circumstances. In the first episode, before Litvinenko is poisoned, we see his family having dinner and discussing his son’s school homework.“It’s very important to look at the human side of any event,” Marina said. The episodes highlight the work of all the ordinary people who helped her in her pursuit for justice, which was not just motivated by the political import of her husband’s work, but also by her devotion to him as a wife.“I think for some people, it will be a love story,” she said. “When, if you have a real love, you never give up.” More