What does a producer do on a record? I have often wondered this, as the evidence suggests that they either do (i) too much, or (ii) not enough. The heavy rock producer Steve Albini legendarily limits his contribution to switching on the equipment and pressing ‘record’. The band bashes out the song, Albini switches off
Imagine you had £20 million to spare, burning a big hole in your pocket. What would you spend it on? You could buy a stately home or a private jet, but that would be so boring. Surely the nicest way to spend it would be to ask one of America’s greatest architects to build a
There is hardly ever one of Noël Coward’s old plays not on tour or in the West End. Sometimes you think the commercial theatre would collapse without him. A ‘new’ Coward is therefore an event. Never performed or published, Volcano was written in 1956 when Coward was living permanently in Jamaica as a tax exile.
Last Wednesday two of the three live pooches that appeared in Pina Bausch’s Viktor did onstage what most dogs do when in a state of arousal. The incident, which elicited a great deal of audience laughter and repressed giggles on stage, would have amused the late Bausch. First seen in 1986, Viktor was the first
As an occasional user of Queensway Tube station, I have noticed that on exiting the lift I am met with the extraordinary and beguiling sounds of Mozart symphonies and piano concerti — well-chosen, beautifully played and blasted over the Tannoy system. There is something transporting about this post-underground experience, something I don’t expect after the
There’s an honourable track record of versions of Shakespeare’s play presenting Julius Caesar as a dictatorial monster of modern times. In 1937 Orson Welles (playing Brutus) cast Caesar as Mussolini and staged many scenes like Nazi rallies. Despite a curmudgeonly critic dismissing the conspirators as looking like ‘a committee from a taxi-driver’s union’, the show
When should you set Antigone? Apparently not in the time of Antigone. The greatest classics these days seem to be aimed at the stupidest ticket-holders. And these hapless wretches can’t possibly be expected to understand anything outside their immediate experience. Polly Findlay’s version of Sophocles’ tragedy doesn’t even get modernity right. Her slightly out-of-date set
It struck me for the first time at the latest revival of David McVicar’s production of Richard Strauss’s Salome that this opera, Strauss’s first to maintain a place in the repertory, and its successor Elektra are, for all their differences, companion pieces. Even before reading the late Patrick O’Connor’s excellent article ‘Happy Families’, the best
The BBC has been heavily criticised for its coverage of the Jubilee flotilla, and the tone was incredibly annoying. All those smiley celebrities pretending to enjoy themselves! The tabloids, those for whom the Beeb can never do anything right, would have been just as mean if the treatment had been sombre and serious. ‘And we
Rumours of disaffection were widespread even before I had seen this year’s RA summer extravaganza (sponsored by Insight Investment). The usual complaints about the hanging and selection had doubled or trebled, not just from non-members but from the Academicians themselves, but the critic tries to keep an open mind for as long as possible. Unfortunately,
A Royal Affair is a beautifully mounted historical drama which goes right where so many films of this type go wrong: it doesn’t get distracted by carriages and candlelight and pretty frocks and balls and sumptuous feasts, but keeps its eye firmly and surely on character and story and, my, what a fascinating story it
Will and Nic’s canoodling in the woods. Adam’s bashed-in head. Amy’s makeover from wholesome midwife to foul-mouthed stepdaughter. Ambridge, home to the Archers, the Grundys and of course Lynda Snell, has been transformed from a sleepy village in the heart of Middle England into a crime-ridden soap, fuelled not by the everyday happenings of ordinary
