This week the Painters’ Hall in the City of London opened its doors for the second time to The Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, launched last year by the Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers and the Lynn Foundation to promote the art of representational painting. The exhibition (on view until 2 December) is the newest addition to a
At Leighton House in Holland Park, one of the most delightful of London’s museums, is currently an exhibition of drawings by the master of the house himself, Lord Leighton (1830–96). It’s the culmination of a major programme of cataloguing and conservation, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, and is on the first leg of a
The tills of the West End may be alive with the sound of musicals new and old, but the Brits on Broadway are remarkably well represented at a time when theatre in New York is still suffering a delayed downturn from the after-effects of 9/11. It is indeed some indication of a renewed faith in
Connie Fisher, the winner of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s search-for-a-star reality TV show, hits the ground running in The Sound of Music. Indeed, she’s so high energy, it’s as if she’s starring in an infomercial rather than a West End musical. She overdoes everything, right down to the smallest hand gesture. As contestants in reality shows
In his late ‘romances’ Shakespeare reaches out for happy endings in which sinners are forgiven and the unjustly dead restored to life. This, plainly enough, is territory more problematic than his worlds of tragedy and comedy. For Cymbeline, the RSC’s Complete Works cycle ordered up a rewrite from the Cornish Kneehigh troupe and for The
I have always loved Rambert’s artistic eclecticism. The dancers’ ability to adapt to different choreographic styles and demands goes far beyond mere technical bravura and adds greatly to their usually captivating performances. Yet superb technical skills and powerful drive alone cannot secure the success of an evening, especially when the choreography is as unexciting as
Poulenc’s La voix humaine is a brief, powerful piece, and it’s a matter for gratitude that Opera North has staged a new production of it. It’s a matter for ingratitude, though, that it’s been put on by itself: not just because at 45 minutes it makes for a short evening, but because it would have
‘The medium needs glitz, it needs glamour, it needs an ego,’ read an ominously worded column in this week’s Radio Times, accompanied by a glamorous head-shot of its author, the director of Channel 4’s new online-only radio station. A shiver ran down my spine. If we in radio want to compete with TV, says Nathalie
‘Dad, Dad, we watched this really funny video at Ozzie and Ludo’s called Dick or Treat. Dad, dad. Daaad? Can I show you, Dad, can I?’ says Ivo, eight, while I’m trying to work on my computer. To make him go away, I try looking up the video at the web address he gives me,
