Event Cinema for April 2015

Another packed month of music, ballet, theatre, opera, art exhibitions and filmmaker Q&As at Bristol cinemas. As ever, check the what’s on section for further information and trailers.

Royal Opera House: Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

Poet Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill’s satire on the pursuit of money and pleasure is as relevant today as its was back in 1930. Even those who aren’t opera buffs are likely to recognise Alabama Song from covers by Ute Lemper, The Doors and David Bowie. Sung in English, this first ROH staging is by Associate Director of Opera John Fulljames. The dodgy denizens of the fictional pleasure city of Mahagonny include wild lumberjack Jimmy (Kurt Streit) and his sweetheart Jenny (Christine Rice).

Screening April 1: Cineworld, Odeon, Showcase Cinema De Lux, Orpheus, Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green

Encore screening April 5: Showcase Cinema De Lux, Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green

Eliminate: Archie Cookson

Premiere of comedy spy thriller, shot entirely on location in Bristol, followed by Q&A with director Rob Holder and crew

Screening April 2 & 14: Orpheus

Stratford Festival: King John

Much unpleasantness ensues when the King of France demands that the eponymous hedonistic English monarch must relinquish his crown in favour of his young nephew, Prince Arthur. Tony Award-nominated British director Tim Carroll’s partly candlelit production of Shakespeare’s rarely performed cynical play about politics – which now, of course, feels quite contemporary – was recorded live at Ontario’s Stratford Festival. The cast includes Tom McCamus, Seana McKenna and Graham Abbey.

Screening April 8: Showcase Cinema De Lux

NT Live encore screening: A View from the Bridge

Belgian director Ivo Van Hove’s tense and thrilling Young Vic production of Arthur Miller’s great tragedy. Mark Strong stars as Brooklyn longshoreman Eddie Carbone, who welcomes two illegal Sicilian immigrant brothers into his home, but seethes with rage when his innocent 17-year-old niece falls in love with the younger sibling. This ain’t gonna end well.

Screening April 9: Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green

Globe on Screen: Titus Andronicus

Punters were allegedly passing out during Lucy Bailey’s revival of the Bard’s gory, darkly funny revenge tragedy. “Bailey completely understands the Globe space and uses it brilliantly,” enthused The Guardian. “This is not just a splatter fest. Its savagery is always disturbing, and the wild laughter it evokes sticks in the throat as the world turns mad.”

Screening April 9: Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green

Lost River + Ryan Gosling Q&A

Ryan Gosling’s much-derided, Lynchian directorial debut, followed by a live satellite Q&A with Mr. Gosling himself.

Screening April 9: Vue Cribbs Causeway, Watershed

Exhibition on Screen: Vincent van Gogh

To mark the 125th anniversary of the artist’s death, Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum is staging a major reshowing of his greatest work. This documentary boasts “complete and unprecedented access” to the museum’s treasures, with world-renowned curators and art historians on hand to offer interpretations and explanations. Audiences are also promised surprises as the results of recent research are revealed exclusively.

Screening April 14: Cineworld, Vue Cribbs Causeway

NT Live: The Hard Problem

Tom Stoppard’s first play since Rock’n’Roll – and his first for the National Theatre since his The Coast of Utopia trilogy back in 2002 – explores some of the deeper questions about consciousness. It’s the story of god-bothering young brain boffin Hilary (Olivia Vinall), who works at a swanky neuroscience institute and frets about the implications of science finding a mechanistic explanation of human consciousness. If you detect a spot of gratuitous anti-science Richard Dawkins-bashing here, you’re probably right. Indeed, the New Scientist observed that Hilary’s mentor, Spike (Damien Molony) “is a kind of caricature Richard Dawkins – though significantly more buff.” Nicholas Hytner directs, in his final production as the NT’s head.

Screening April 16: Cineworld, Odeon, Showcase Cinema De Lux, Orpheus, Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green

Bolshoi Ballet: Ivan the Terrible

In the 16th century, Tsar Ivan IV goes bonkers after plotters poison poor old Mrs Ivan – AKA Anastasia Romanovna – to whom he was blissfully married. Prokofiev’s score was originally composed for Battleship Potemkin director Eisenstein’s unfinished 1944 historical trilogy of the same title. Bolshoi artistic director Yuri Grigorovich subsequently recycled it for this powerful two-act ballet, which was premiered in 1975 and went on to become a global success.

Screening April 19: Cineworld, Orpheus, Showcase Cinema De Lux

The Emperor’s New Clothes & Russell Brand Live

In the wake of last year’s big event cinema plug for his book on revolution, Russell Brand, the world’s fourth most influential thinker (according to Prospect magazine), returns to the big screen to front prolific Michael Winterbottom’s polemical documentary about the financial crisis and gross inequality. The screening is followed by a live satellite Q&A with Winterbottom and Brand.

Screening April 21: Watershed, Cineworld, Vue Cribbs Causeway

I’m Still Here

The BBC Concert Orchestra team up with ‘The First Lady of British Musical Theatre’, Elaine Paige, for a farewell concert revisiting the roles of Eva Peron in Evita, Grizabella in Cats and Florence in Chess as well as other highlights from her 50 year career. Recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall.

Screening April 23: Showcase Cinema De Lux, Vue Cribbs Causeway

Met Opera: Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci

The Met Opera’s current Live in HD season concludes with Sir David McVicar’s new production of these two short Italian verismo tragic operas, which are staged at the Met for the first time in 45 years. War Horse designer Rae Smith uses the same Sicilian setting in two time frames. The 1900 village square of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana is skilfully transformed into a 1948 truck stop for Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. Making his company role debut, Marcelo Alvarez takes on the challenge of both leading tenor parts: the unrepentant seducer Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana and Canio – the leader of the doomed vaudeville troupe – in Pagliacci.

Screening April 25: Showcase Cinema De Lux, Lue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green

Globe on Screen: Julius Caesar

Dominic Dromgoole’s Julius Caesar has been described as one of the rowdiest productions ever staged at the Globe. “Dromgoole’s confident use of the audience and the space emphasises Shakespeare’s brilliant dissection of politics in action,” enthused the FT’s reviewer of this sell-out production.

Screening April 30: Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green