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Stella actors Oscar Batterham and Richard Cant © Matthew Hargraves

Neil Bartlett's Stella: so perfect it's a bit irritating #HF16

The smallest details speak for themselves. For the second time during this edition of the Holland Festival, the legendary BBC series This Life comes along. Richard Cant, who plays a flawless lead role in Neil Bartlett's play Stella, was previously seen in This Life, the series that set the standard for the modern docusoap in 1996. So now live, up close, in De Brakke Grond's Red Hall, the man who also played a solid role in Midsomer Murders.

Holland Festival goes Nuclear: Atomic by Mark Cousins

Anyone who can remember the fall of the wall has grown up with the threat of nuclear attack. And with that comes the idiotic government advice to get under the table in case of a nuclear explosion, preferably with a colander on your head. And to keep plenty of canned food and water on hand.

Stop-Acting-Now-©-Wunderbaum

Wunderbaum sows beautiful doubt in Mijke de Jong's 'Stop Acting Now' (HF16)

Wunderbaum. Among lovers of fresh and young theatre, this collective of creators stirred something up at the beginning of this century. They were born and bred under Johan Simons, where they formed the youth team of his legendary theatre group Hollandia. And because back then, every young maker really had to do something with the world, JongHollandia, later Wunderbaum, wanted the same. But because they lived in the post-ideological era and saw every day how the ideals of their teachers, parents and mentors came to nothing, it mainly became a club of doubters. And they were very good at that.

Conductor Han-Na Chang: 'Music never offers just one answer'

'She is the embodiment of the incredible lightness of existence, agile, alert and precise on the beat.' So says one critic about Korean-American conductor Han-Na Chang (Suwon, 1982), who led just about every major orchestra after her debut in 2007. In 2014, she scored highly at the renowned BBC Proms with her fresh interpretation of the Fifth Symphony.... 

'TV has lost touch with reality'

"Let's have a Magna Carta of British Broadcasting." With those words, celebrated actor Idris Elba (Luther, The Wire) began his closing remarks in the British Parliament. For the past half hour, he has been speaking to the Lords and Ladies kindly yet persuasively about the need and opportunities for diversity in British television. The timing of this speech was perfect because... 

IDFA viewing tip 24 November: Tablas take over New York

Today's IDFA viewing tip is the kind of film I normally stay away from: a feel-good film that is stylistically neat, but nowhere innovative. And yet I went flat and with me the whole audience. Why? For the same reason that a group of men with tablas and sitar gets the Jazz at Lincoln Center flat. The combination of western... 

De Doelen concert hall opts for content and sells 23 per cent more

Concert & Congress hall De Doelen in Rotterdam will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year. That is, 50 years ago, the current venue was festively opened. The building by architects Kraaijvanger and Fledderus was the first major public building of the reconstruction after German bombs destroyed the city on 10 May 1940. However, its name goes back much longer. The at... 

Arnhem decides: who takes decisive lead in the battle of the orchestras?

Tonight, the Arnhem city council will take an important decision on the renovation of Musis Sacrum, the monumental concert hall located at a prominent point in the city. But the real news is not in what will be decided tonight, but in the far-reaching consequences. Musis Sacrum dates back to 1847 and is part of the cultural heritage. The venue complex is in dire need of refurbishment and with... 

Find the 'uncanny valley' at the Imagine Festival

With so many robots and even a robot design master class (Mark Setrakian, 16 April) at the Imagine Festival, it can't hurt to delve into the 'uncanny valley' again. How was that again? A robot needs to look absolutely nothing like a human to still be cute and evoke real emotions. See, for instance, Pixar's rubbish robot Wall-E. And... 

Cocker's secret: booze and total absence of irony

'With a little help form my friends' may be his biggest hit. My eternal favourite Joe Cocker song is and remains The Letter. Not Cocker's vocal acrobatics here, turning the rather side-splitting Beatles song into a screaming victim's plea. In The Letter, the man who did mostly brilliant covers actually changes bitterly little to... 

Ruth Mackenzie takes on the future. The Holland Festival gets a more exciting boss than you thought.

The Holland Festival got a completely unknown new director in the person of Britain's Ruth Mackenzie. At least, to us. The flamboyant, artistically exceptional opera director Pierre Audi makes way for a woman who has presented herself mainly as a manager of festivals and cultural institutions, but whose ideas are anyone's guess. When she was presented, none of the... 

Newspapers kick in massive 'research' into more expensive cultural outings.

This is startling. On Friday, De Volkskrant reported that prices for cultural activities in Amsterdam have risen by a whopping 37.3% since 2009. Nu.nl picks it up immediately, soon followed by TROS Radar. Then it must be true. The news taken over unquestioningly by everyone refers to a report on the BBC site. That post... 

Hamlet more in demand than Jay Z and Beyoncé. That can only happen in the UK

We are talking about the summer of 2015. Then Benedict Cumberbatch will play the title role in Hamlet, to be seen at the Barbican Centre in London. For the show, which plays for 12 weeks, 214% more tickets have already been sold in the first few hours after ticket sales opened yesterday than for Jay Z and Beyoncé's tour, which is on the same... 

Isabella Rosselini is endearing with her animal stuff. 4 missed opportunities in Bestiaire d'amour at @hollandfestival

Every Holland Festival there is at least 1 performance which a lot of people wonder why it is programmed. This year, that honour falls to 'Bestiaire d'Amour' by and starring Isabella Rosselini. We take a moment to look for answers.

Twelve-tone horror at KCO

Tonight and tomorrow night, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra kicks off the fourth season of its AAA series, with film music entitled 'Suspense'. But not everyone will immediately associate composers like Bartók, Lutyens and Schoenberg with cinema. Their works stand alongside film scores by Bernard Herrmann to Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo and Psycho and world premieres by Joey Roukens, Vincent van Warmerdam and Fons Merkies, who wrote music to a film clip of their own choosing. The most...

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Wagner in Düsseldorf: opera jewel or publicity stunt?

When both nu.co.uk, BBC news and virtually every German newspaper simultaneously cover an opera, something must be going on. And there is: Nazis! Wagner! Outraged spectators! More than that: doctors had to be called in!

The occasion: the new staging of Wagner's Tannhäuser in Düsseldorf for Opera am Rhein. Director Burkhard Kosminski moved the action from the Middle Ages to the 1940s. Not earth-shattering, but what he too...

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Theatre on demand offers British quality

Lots of bobbing on boards. That's what drama on television is mostly. And actors with weird reverberations in intimate scenes. That too. It is easy to shoot at attempts to bring successful performances to the TV or cinema screen. They almost always make viewers feel that their medium is shooting back 80 years in development. This is also why every attempt by the Dutch Public Broadcasting Service to make our fairly highly regarded stage art attractive to a wider audience via TV fails....

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'Ajax states' in sudden war between Netherlands Symphony Orchestra and National Travel Opera

This week, the National Travel Opera begins rehearsals of Mozart's Le nozze di figaro. In the bin, the brand-new Netherlands Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jan Willem de Vriend. Business as usual, as both companies have been working closely together for years and are united in the National Music Quarter Enschede. Only: orchestra and opera company have not been talking to each other since last week.

Science shows: the story accompanying a work of art is more important than the art itself

It has finally been scientifically proven: a work of art does not stand alone. A work of art is only truly appreciated when the viewer is told that it is real art. British professor Martin Kemp conducted research with brain scans at Oxford University and provided proof that the way we look at art is "completely irrational". The research... 

Museums, Boxmeer theatre, IKON, ANP, regional broadcasters, impoverished library

MuseumgoudA not expelled MuseumgoudA may still remain a member of the Dutch Museum Association (NMV). A majority of the members were still of the opinion in September that the museum should be expelled because it had auctioned Marlene Dumas' The Schoolboys at the end of June without consulting other museums. That is against the NMV's rules. It did, however, decide to change the rules for the... 

'Conceptual thundering won't get you far in London': guest column Teunkie v.d. Sluijs

"I can fire anyone here. Except the actors." Sam Walters, artistic director of London production house the Orange Tree Theatre does not mince words. "Everyone in the office could leave. The directors too. But without actors no performance." The actor is unequivocally central to this theatre. As a director, you only prove yourself here when you get top performances out of your... 

Teleac course on muezzin singing delivers little deeper insight #hf10

 Above, fun audio from the Holland Festival. We went to watch and listen at this performance. Afterwards, we talked to actor Sabri Saad el Hamus and reviewer Martin Schouten. They had their own views on this play, which was announced as follows: Cairo is the city with thirty thousand minarets. Here you can hear five times a day above the... 

Despite Dillane's splendid role, soporific Tempest shows failure of Sam Mendes' Bridge Project #hf10

 By Wijbrand Schaap (photo by Joan Marcus) You can have Bach's St Matthew Passion performed by 15 canaries, an electric guitar, a drum kit, a ukulele and a accordion, and it will still be beautiful, because it is Bach. Similarly, you can have Shakespeare's up-and-coming British plays performed by a group of Americans, and it will... 

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