Arts Reviews

Theatres outside London like to produce shows that appeal to their local communities. Inside London, where cultural attitudes are strangely warped, theatres are happy to disregard the neighbourhoods they serve, and they show little interest in the lives of their customers. But the Royal Court Theatre and Hampstead Theatre have both chosen to stage shows that feature characters who live nearby. Mates in Chelsea, at the Royal Court, stars a bone-idle superbrat, Tuggy, whose inheritance is threatened when his snooty mother (who is brilliantly played by Fenella Woolgar) decides to flog the family castle in Northumbria. An offer is received from a Russian billionaire, Oleg, and Tuggy promptly has a

Choose your weapon. Artists are closely defined in the public imagination by their instrument of choice. Though the most untamed and transgressive progenitors of rock’n’roll – Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard – were piano pounders, and despite the later efforts of Elton John, over time the instrument has come to be associated with restraint and politesse; the straight second cousin to rock’s clichéd wild child, the electric guitar. He strolled on stage like a stranger and left 100 minutes later as an old friend I hadn’t realised I’d missed American singer-songwriter Ben Folds has been playing with these expectations for the best part of 30 years, first in Ben

It’s nearly a quarter of a century since Michael Nunn and William Trevitt bravely left their safe haven at the Royal Ballet to set up BalletBoyz, a company aimed at developing the underused potential of male dancers and exploiting Nunn and Trevitt’s passion for film technology. At the time this seemed like a useful mission – stereotypes and prejudices lingered around men in tights, and the formats for smaller dance companies needed loosening up. It lasts a moderate 70 minutes and, in its nutty way, it’s quite enjoyable One measure of BalletBoyz’s subsequent success is that so many of their experiments have been incorporated into the mainstream, and the enterprise