Latest news with #EastBerliner
South China Morning Post
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Your perfect week: what to do in Hong Kong, May 4-10
See this Rolland Cheung Hong Kong artist Rolland Cheung Wui-hei's solo exhibition, New Natural. Photo: Handout Hong Kong artist Rolland Cheung Wui-hei's solo exhibition 'New Natural' breaks two-dimensional artistic boundaries by integrating resin art with light, motion sensors, sound and mechanical installations in an immersive experience exploring humanity's relationship with nature. Featuring the largest resin artwork in Hong Kong, the show, which runs from May 9 to June 2, presents 10 new pieces that evoke natural forms such as glaciers and sand dunes. L0 Gallery, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei Eat this Mother's Day Cuisine Cuisine's decadent fish maw and conch soup. Photo: Cuisine Cuisine Get ready to celebrate mum this coming week with a host of special menus around town. At Cuisine Cuisine , spoil her with an eight-course Cantonese feast featuring suckling pig layered with foie gras, and marinated pigeon with 15-year-aged chenpi. Alternatively, LucAle is serving a special brunch menu of Italian classics such as green sea bass cappelletti with caviar sauce, and slow-cooked beef cheek with celery-root cream. What's more, mothers are presented with a fresh rose on arrival. Advertisement Cuisine Cuisine, Shop 3101-7, IFC Mall, Central; LucAle, Shop A, 100 Third Street, Sai Ying Pun Book this Hedwig and the Angry Inch Hedwig and the Angry Inch's creative director Ivanhoe Lam and cast member Jordan Cheng in Prince Edward. Photo: Jonathan Wong Iconic Broadway rock 'n' roll musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch will be presented in Hong Kong for the first time from May 10 to 18 at the West Kowloon Cultural District. Premiered in 1998, the play follows Hedwig, an East Berliner whose botched gender-affirming surgery sets her on a path of revenge with her band. It has been adapted into multiple languages, though this is the first time it will be performed in Cantonese. The Box, Freespace, 18 Museum Drive, West Kowloon. For more information, go to their website Drink this COA COA's mescal pairing with chocolate. Photo: COA It's no secret that whisky and chocolate pair well, but what about mescal? Leave it to COA to make a case for the smoky agave spirit in its latest pairing flight created in partnership with Conspiracy Chocolate. Expect pours from producers such as Del Maguey, Montelobos and Los Danzantes, paired with chocolate squares loaded with everything from porcini to sweet paprika and tonka bean caramel. Shop A, LG/F, Wah Shin House, 6-10 Shin Hing Street, Central
South China Morning Post
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Your perfect week: what to do in Hong Kong, May 4-10
See this Rolland Cheung Hong Kong artist Rolland Cheung Wui-hei's solo exhibition, New Natural. Photo: Handout Hong Kong artist Rolland Cheung Wui-hei's solo exhibition 'New Natural' breaks two-dimensional artistic boundaries by integrating resin art with light, motion sensors, sound and mechanical installations in an immersive experience exploring humanity's relationship with nature. Featuring the largest resin artwork in Hong Kong, the show, which runs from May 9 to June 2, presents 10 new pieces that evoke natural forms such as glaciers and sand dunes. L0 Gallery, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei Eat this Mother's Day Cuisine Cuisine's decadent fish maw and conch soup. Photo: Cuisine Cuisine Get ready to celebrate mum this coming week with a host of special menus around town. At Cuisine Cuisine , spoil her with an eight-course Cantonese feast featuring suckling pig layered with foie gras, and marinated pigeon with 15-year-aged chenpi. Alternatively, LucAle is serving a special brunch menu of Italian classics such as green sea bass cappelletti with caviar sauce, and slow-cooked beef cheek with celery-root cream. What's more, mothers are presented with a fresh rose on arrival. Advertisement Cuisine Cuisine, Shop 3101-7, IFC Mall, Central; LucAle, Shop A, 100 Third Street, Sai Ying Pun Book this Hedwig and the Angry Inch Hedwig and the Angry Inch's creative director Ivanhoe Lam and cast member Jordan Cheng in Prince Edward. Photo: Jonathan Wong Iconic Broadway rock 'n' roll musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch will be presented in Hong Kong for the first time from May 10 to 18 at the West Kowloon Cultural District. Premiered in 1998, the play follows Hedwig, an East Berliner whose botched gender-affirming surgery sets her on a path of revenge with her band. It has been adapted into multiple languages, though this is the first time it will be performed in Cantonese. The Box, Freespace, 18 Museum Drive, West Kowloon. For more information, go to their website Drink this COA COA's mescal pairing with chocolate. Photo: COA It's no secret that whisky and chocolate pair well, but what about mescal? Leave it to COA to make a case for the smoky agave spirit in its latest pairing flight created in partnership with Conspiracy Chocolate. Expect pours from producers such as Del Maguey, Montelobos and Los Danzantes, paired with chocolate squares loaded with everything from porcini to sweet paprika and tonka bean caramel. Shop A, LG/F, Wah Shin House, 6-10 Shin Hing Street, Central
The Guardian
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Wizz Jones obituary
When Bruce Springsteen played the Berlin Olympiastadion in May 2012, he began with a powerful song about an East Berliner celebrating freedom. Few, if any, in the crowd would have realised that the original version of When I Leave Berlin was written in 1971 by an English guitarist and singer-songwriter, whom Springsteen failed to mention. Wizz Jones, who has died aged 86, never did enjoy the success of many of his contemporaries, but was a folk scene hero with a dedicated following, particularly among other musicians. In his 2010 autobiography, Life, Keith Richards describes meeting Wizz while he was at art college, before joining the Rolling Stones: 'Wizz Jones used to drop in, with a Jesus haircut and a beard. Great folk picker, great guitar picker … I think I learned Cocaine from him – the song and that crucial fingerpicking lick of the period, not the dope …' He also impressed another guitar hero, the folk singer Martin Carthy, who first met Jones in the late 1950s. 'He was extraordinary,' Carthy said. 'People always talk about Davy Graham, but Wizz was his equal. He could play a blues that swung like mad, and also wrote some very beautiful songs. I played with him a couple of times and he was always different. He was a one-off, a beatnik – he had really long hair even then.' Wizz learned by listening to American heroes such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Big Bill Broonzy and Derroll Adams, as well as Graham and Long John Baldry in the UK, and was the archetypal troubadour; he played in the London coffee houses and folk clubs, then took off to France, Morocco or his beloved Cornwall. When the journalist Alan Whicker visited Newquay in 1960 for a BBC report on the campaign to ban beatniks from the Cornish town's pubs and shops, Jones played a starring role, demonstrating his fine finger-picking guitar work as he sang 'It's hard times in Newquay if you've got long hair.' One of those who played with Wizz in Cornwall was the singer-songwriter Ralph McTell – in the days before he became famous for Streets of London. He said: 'It was like getting a knighthood – I couldn't believe one of my heroes was inviting me down to Cornwall. He had a tent with his wife and boys, I had a little tent, and we played at a pub called the Mermaid in Newquay – until we got fired because the place couldn't cope with the number of people who came.' He went to a launderette with Wizz 'and he realised he hadn't got any money on him. So we went outside with our guitars and busked for 20 minutes until he had the money to do the nappies.' Another regular visitor to Cornwall was the banjo player Pete Stanley, with whom Wizz worked for four years and recorded his first album, Sixteen Tons of Bluegrass (1966). He also played with Clive Palmer, after he left the Incredible String Band. 'Two undisciplined wandering beatnik minstrels – they hit it off,' McTell said. His debut solo album, Wizz Jones (1969), was recorded for a major label, United Artists, and included Dazzling Stranger, one of many songs that he covered that were written by his friend Alan Tunbridge. In the 70s he recorded for other labels including CBS, Village Thing (the folk indie started by the musician and writer Ian A Anderson) and for labels in Germany. He collaborated with now-famous friends, including McTell, John Renbourn and Bert Jansch, and started a band, Lazy Farmer, that included his wife, Sandy. And he began recording his own powerful songs, including When I Leave Berlin and his exquisite, highly personal song to Sandy, Happiness Was Free (1976). In the 80s, a difficult time for many folk artists, he survived by driving a truck delivering furniture, while also playing as a duo, the Cynic Brothers, with his saxophone and harmonica-playing son, Simeon. In the 90s he released his first album in the US, Dazzling Stranger (1995) and toured there for the first time. A major tour with Sonic Youth in 2001 was cancelled because of 9/11; his plane was forced to turn back. In later years, his career took an upturn. In 2013 he made a magnificent contribution to the Jansch memorial concert at the Royal Festival Hall, London, and toured and recorded with Renbourn. Their album Joint Control (2016) was released after Renbourn's death. With his old friend McTell, he recorded About Time (2016) and About Time Too (2017). Come What May (2017) was recorded with yet another guitarist friend, Pete Berryman, and Simeon, with Simeon's son Alfie joining on one track. The three Jones generations also gave shows together. In 2019 Wizz was presented with a lifetime achievement award at the BBC Folk awards. Wizz was born in Croydon, south London, and brought up by his mother, Alice – his given name was Raymond, but his love of magic tricks earned him the nickname Wizzy the Wuzz. His father, Timothy, returned from the second world war in 1945 after being held as a PoW by the Japanese, listed as missing, and found it impossible to settle into any one job. His story is told in Wizz's pained song Burma Star. Wizz attended Oval primary and junior schools and Selhurst grammar, and left school at 16 'with meagre qualifications'. He played in a skiffle group, then started travelling. In 1963 he married Sandy Wedlake, who says they met 'when I was 15, coming up to 16, and he was an old man of 20 or 21'. She survives him, along with their children, Marty, Daniel, Simeon and Bonnie, and four grandchildren. Wizz (Raymond Ronald) Jones, guitarist, singer and songwriter, born 25 April 1939; died 27 April 2025
The Guardian
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Two to One review – East Berlin cash scam capers through ruins of communism
Natja Brunckhorst is the actor-turned-director who first came to prominence as the teen lead of Uli Edel's Christiane F in 1981, playing a West Berlin drug addict and effectively co-starring with David Bowie, who had a cameo in the film. Now she has written and directed this satirical caper with an Ealingesque premise: a bunch of depressed people in East Germany in 1990, with reunification a few days away, discover an old storage depot with tons of abandoned and soon-to-be-worthless ostmarks – ostmarks galore, in fact – and not much time left for sneakily exchanging them for deutschemarks at the accepted (and humiliating) rate of two to one. But how to explain this mountain of cash? Sandra Hüller plays a woman called Maren who, with husband Robert (Max Riemelt), leads the plan while Ronald Zehrfeld plays Volker, with whom Maren has some emotional history. Veteran player Peter Kurth brings his mighty presence to the role of Markowski, Robert's glowering dad and disaffected state security guard working at the depot who puts them on to the scam. It's an interesting time to be making a movie about the old GDR, a place whose economic privation and longterm alienation is said to have made it a breeding ground for Germany's new far right. Around 20 years ago, Wolfgang Becker's comedy Good Bye Lenin! brought a similar satirical flavour to its Rip Van Winkle fable of a fiercely communist East Berliner who succumbs to a coma just before the fall of the Wall and on regaining consciousness later is not permitted to discover the awful truth about communism's collapse. There is a fair bit of spark and fun in the opening act of this goofy comedy, a bit like Danny Boyle's children's movie Millions (and how extraordinary to remember, incidentally, that all the talk at the time was of the Wessis' economic hardship, having to swallow up these shiftless eastern ex-communists). But there's not much clarity or discipline to the script itself. First the scam revolves around discreetly buying up consumer items such as microwaves from door-to-door salesmen who still accept ostmarks and sharing these items out or (presumably) reselling them; then it's a matter of finding foreign-domiciled state apparatchiks who are allowed leeway on exchanging cash after the deadline. There's also an unlikely and dramatically unexciting plot point about using the cash to revive the old factory for the community's benefit – so the film's audience understands that the characters are not just greedy. This longish movie jumps the shark around halfway through the running time and loses focus. Hüller is at any rate always a potent, attractive presence. Two to One is in UK cinemas from 2 May.
