Henrietta Bredin talks to the Young Vic’s David Lan and ENO’s John Berry about the joys of collaboration Walking into the Young Vic these days is a hugely pleasurable experience, and it’s even more of a pleasure to see the delight with which David Lan, its artistic director, looks around him at a theatre that
Amazing Rare Things The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, until 28 September Do not be put off by the title of this show: in its barrow-boy eagerness to pull in the punters, such a naff title undermines the essential dignity of the exhibits (Leonardo is here, after all), and discounts the high quality of art on
Brilliant Women: 18th-Century Bluestockings National Portrait Gallery, until 15 June It’s refreshing to discover from a new and beautifully judged exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery that there was a time when women were in charge — successful, assertive, and at ease with their sexuality. Brilliant Women celebrates the Bluestocking women of the early 18th
Beaufort 15, Key Cities Beaufort is the Israeli war film that won the Silver Bear at Berlin and was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film and it is very, very dull. After I had seen it I sent a friend to see it who is much more war-literate than I am and
A Couple of Poor, Polish-Speaking Romanians Soho Theatre The Man Who Had All the Luck Donmar Warehouse Brave thrusts at the Soho. A wacky new play by Polish wunderkind Dorota Maslowska has been translated and directed by the theatre’s artistic supremo, Lisa Goldman. It opens with a pair of ugly drunken hitch-hikers speaking English in
New York City Ballet London Coliseum Despite the hype with which it was heralded, and an undeniably interesting programme of delectable choreographic offerings, the New York City Ballet season at the London Coliseum has not lived up to expectations. Last week I expressed my reservations about the second programme on offer, the one celebrating the
Punch and Judy Linbury Studio La vie parisienne Guildhall School of Music and Drama Harrison Birtwistle’s Punch and Judy is very much a piece of its time, the late 1960s, but returning to it after many years I was pleasantly surprised to find how much of it remains fresh and invigorating. Music Theatre Wales mounted
It’s the best book about one of the greatest composers. I’ve devoted odd moments of this autumn and winter to absorbed intake of Hermann Abert’s Mozart and am lost in admiration for its achievement, simultaneous with renewed wonder and delight at the achievements of its subject. Though regrettable that this classic (it finally appeared in
Not Bach, or Beethoven, to celebrate the Easter season on Radio Three, but a series of programmes dedicated to Spring. Not that you would have discovered this from the Radio Times, which gave us a few lolloping rabbits and the strangest and most unappetising-looking Easter eggs but nothing to suggest that Radio Three has been
Television feeds upon itself, which isn’t surprising. Watching TV is by a huge margin our most popular — or our most time-consuming — leisure activity. It’s surprising there isn’t more television about television. We have the occasional oleaginous tribute show to some ancient trouper, a few quizzes about television, and those endless Saturday-night marathons on
