Newsletter n°233 / Last of the Summer.

Dear franceinlondoner

'Je me presse de rire de tout, de peur d'être obligé d'en pleurer.'

Pierre Augustin Caron de BEAUMARCHAIS, Le Barbier de Séville, acte I, scène 2

'I push myself to laugh about everything for fear of having to cry about it.'

Cinema

Certified Copy

With Juliette Binoche

A beautiful film by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami set in Tuscany for which Binoche rightly won yet another award at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

Three pairs of tickets to be won

Danton's Death by Georg Büchner in a new version by Howard Brenton

Until 14th October

1794: the French Revolution reaches its climax. After a series of bloody purges the life-loving, volatile Danton is tormented by his part in the killing. His political rival, the driven, ascetic Robespierre, decides Danton’s fate. A titanic struggle begins. Once friends who wanted to change the world, now one stands for compromise the other for ideological purity as the guillotine awaits.

We loved it. If anything because the Marseillaise is beautifully sung and sends goose pimples down your back:

Lilly: My Debussy

To celebrate the world première of Lilly: My Debussy on Thursday 2 September 2010, The Louise Blouin Foundation is hosting a champagne reception followed by a special evening of music and dramatic performance.

One pair of tickets to be won.

Pierre Soulages at the Bernard Jacobson Gallery

Until 1st September

Bernard Jacobson Gallery is holding the first exhibition of new work by Pierre Soulages in London since 1972. Now 90 years old, Pierre Soulages has been recently honoured by having a painting exhibited in the Louvre and a major retrospective of his work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, currently on tour in Mexico, before heading to Berlin in the autumn. In Paris the retrospective was seen by over 500,000 people, making it the 4th most visited exhibition in the history of the Pompidou (after Dali, Matisse and Kandinsky).

Last chance!