A Polar Interlude
7 – 20 March 2026
Saturday 7 March
To Buenos Aires by plane (via Mexico)
On one of the flights, I watched The Girl With the Needle, the 2024 Danish film by Magnus von Horn, which competed at Cannes. Von Horn manages to sustain the film’s grim, almost gothic, atmosphere throughout while offering striking insights into working-class life in Denmark at the outset of World War I, with fully realised characters. Tragedy lends itself well to cinema.
Sunday 8 March
Buenos Aires, Teatro Nacional • The theatres dotting Avenida Corrientes have a long-established tradition of offering good-quality theatrical productions. Still impressed by a performance of Hairspray I had seen almost 20 years earlier, I jumped at the opportunity to attend a local production of Company. Apart from the ill-advised omission of “Barcelona” (and my favourite instrumental passage, “Tick Tock,” famously arranged by David Shire), the performance proved excellent on every front. The cast made the most of the material, both dramatic and comedic; the overall pacing was excellent, further enhanced by a remarkable lighting design; and the leading man, Fernando Dente, exhibited strong triple-threat credentials, commanding the stage with electric ease.
Monday 9 March
Buenos Aires, Museo de Arte Moderno • Two of the temporary exhibitions focused on the explosion of theatrical experiments in the wake of Argentina’s return to democracy in 1983. At a time when avant-garde directors were gaining increasing visibility worldwide, the Argentine experiment felt all the more revolutionary in that it was fuelled by a newly acquired sense of freedom and marked by the still-open wounds of oppression and dictatorship.
Tuesday 10 March – Friday 20 March
A ten-day cruise to Antarctica started with an early-morning flight to Ushuaia to board the MS Fridtjof Nansen, named after one of the pioneers of polar exploration. A relatively calm journey through the Drake Passage took us to the Antarctic Peninsula. What followed felt less like travel than the discovery of another world entirely — one that seemed almost staged in its unreality. We spent five days enjoying otherworldly landscapes and admiring the abundance of penguins, whales, seals, and albatrosses, at a time when the alternation of day and night gradually reasserted itself after months of perpetual daylight. A series of lectures provided additional insights on the history, geology, biology, and even geopolitical situation of the seventh continent. The time came too soon to head back to Ushuaia and Buenos Aires, and to adjust to a less lunar environment.
Friday 20 March
Buenos Aires, Teatro Liceo • A condensed, intermissionless, 110-minute version of the musical Mrs. Doubtfire, called Papá por Siempre, allowed me to discover yet another theatrical gem in the Teatro Liceo, a remnant of a glorious past. The production’s value for money was outstanding in every respect, but the performance also emphasised the very minor contribution of the score to what would probably work just as well as a “straight” play. It also got rid of the show’s most cringeworthy scene, the sportswear fashion show. Given that there must have been no more than 300 people in the audience — perhaps fewer — I couldn’t help but admire what came across as a genuine love for theatre and stagecraft on the part of everyone involved.
And so, for now, the lights dim… until the next act.