Robert Gore-Langton talks to an irreverent Dominic Dromgoole about the Globe A few months ago I was at a literary festival on a drama panel which featured a senior actress of the stage. She was holding forth about working with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford when I suggested that Shakespeare’s Globe was just as
Leon Kossoff: Unique Prints Art Space Gallery, 84 St Peter’s St, London, N1, until 21 June Paintings of Stockport by Helen Clapcott Stockport Art Gallery, until 28 June Leon Kossoff (born 1926) is best known as a painter of people and buildings, rendered in thickly meshed paint surprisingly full of light. He trained at the
Royal Ballet: Double Bill Royal Opera House Theatre magic has a lot to do with the unpredictability of the performed event. Regardless of the alluring promise of an all-star cast or the doubts raised by daring artistic choices, there is no certain way to forecast what any live performance will be like. Indeed, it is
The Deep Blue Sea Vaudeville The Birthday Party Lyric Hammersmith Pygmalion Old Vic Osborne crushed Rattigan. Crudely stated, that’s what we’re told happened in 1956 when Osborne’s demotic new voice displaced Rattigan’s classier, cosier manner. Even now Rattigan’s reputation hasn’t fully recovered and The Deep Blue Sea, which premièred in 1952, is the first of
Tosca Royal Opera House Idomeneo Barbican Carmen Bernie Grant Arts Centre The latest revival of Tosca at the Royal Opera, with many changes in production by Stephen Barlow, shows signs of taking the work seriously, though they are contradicted by the corporate- and bar-friendly intervals, of a length to dissipate tension and momentum. Antonio Pappano’s
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 12A, Nationwide After a 19-year break, Indiana Jones, the world’s greatest adventurer and probably the world’s worst ever archaeologist — listen, even I know you can’t go around ripping open ancient mummies whenever you so fancy — is back. He is back because he has to
You can almost hear the whispering through the ether. A whole weekend devoted to Chopin? Whatever was Roger Wright, Radio Three’s controller, thinking of? The Polish-born composer was only 39 when he died of TB in 1849. And he only ever really wrote for the piano. Surely there’s not enough music to fill 24 hours,
I used to have one of Alan Sugar’s old Amstrad computers; in fact I wrote two books on it. The great advantage it had over modern computers was its slowness; you could literally make a cup of tea while it saved a page of text, and prepare a three-course meal while it saved a chapter.
