The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Twelfth Night Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon It’s a welcome refreshment after the RSC’s recent dramatisations of hard drinking and mass starvation in Russia to be landed on the sun-soaked coast of Mediterranean Illyria, and especially so in the company of a new and exquisitely beguiling Viola. Director Gregory Doran has been to much scholarly trouble in
The new Wexford Opera House has certainly raised the profile of opera in Ireland. You cannot argue with a prize-winning building that is one of just four large purpose-built opera auditoriums in these islands, alongside Glyndebourne, Covent Garden and the Wales Millennium Centre. Built with Irish taxpayers’ money, it would be a sick Irish joke
Wonderland: The British in Bed (BBC2, Thursday) consists of long periods of boredom interrupted by moments of extreme embarrassment. The notion is to get couples — old, young, black, Sikh, gay — to sit up in bed next to each other, in nighties and jimjams, and talk about their lives as partners. Presumably, the notion
Ben Whishaw sits unrecognised, wearing a black T-shirt and drinking red wine in a dark corner of the Royal Court’s café. He has just come off stage from rehearsing Mike Bartlett’s new play Cock — in which he plays a chap who takes a break from his boyfriend and accidentally meets the girl of his
The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting & Sculpture 1600–1700 National Gallery, until 24 January 2010 If Spanish 17th-century painting and sculpture don’t immediately appeal to you, be prepared to try the new show at the National Gallery — it’s a revelation. I was brought up in the Church of England and used rather to look
The Rise and Fall of Little Voice Vaudeville Life is a Dream Donmar Midnight in a northern slum. The pubs have closed and a boozy, blousy, past-it single mum is trying to seduce a handsome young talent scout. He deters her advances until he hears her teenage daughter, alone in her bedroom, singing jazz classics.
An Education 12A, Nationwide An Education is based on the memoir by the journalist and interviewer Lynn Barber, with a screenplay by Nick Hornby, and, although the word from all the various festivals has been that it is wonderful, I know you will not believe it unless you hear it from me so here you
I have just inherited my College’s collection of long-playing records, now redundant, with permission to retain, give away, otherwise dispose of if and as possible. I have just inherited my College’s collection of long-playing records, now redundant, with permission to retain, give away, otherwise dispose of if and as possible. The cumbrous piles, gradually easing
‘I want people to feel quite shocked,’ said Professor Tanya Byron in her opening lecture for Radio Three’s annual Free Thinking festival. ‘I want people to feel quite shocked,’ said Professor Tanya Byron in her opening lecture for Radio Three’s annual Free Thinking festival. This year’s theme is the 21st-century family and Byron, the clinical
In 1968, when he was still a student at Oxford, Gyles Brandreth was interviewed in the Sun. The headline was a quote from him: ‘I’d like to be a sort of Danny Kaye and then Home Secretary.’ It’s about bang on. He achieved the first, rather than the second, and the fact that it never
Until the credit crunch sent bankers to the naughty step of capitalism, the spot was occupied by oilmen. The consequence is that an exciting tale of human endeavour — how the abundant resources of the earth have been harnessed to power an era of unimagined prosperity — is often obscured by hostile forces and, it
The bibliography to Zac Goldsmith’s The Constant Economy includes The Trap by his father, Jimmy Goldsmith. The bibliography to Zac Goldsmith’s The Constant Economy includes The Trap by his father, Jimmy Goldsmith. When it was published in 1993, The Trap caused a bit of a stir because it challenged the consensus that free trade and
I don’t imagine that Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll was a very hard sell to its publishers. I don’t imagine that Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll was a very hard sell to its publishers. John Harris has been writing about music for nearly 20 years, has an acclaimed book about Britpop to his name and
‘It’s not what’s here — it’s what’s not here’ is the reason given by a voluntary exile in the Alaskan wilderness to the author’s question. ‘It’s not what’s here — it’s what’s not here’ is the reason given by a voluntary exile in the Alaskan wilderness to the author’s question. ‘What keeps you here?’ Space,
Franz Kafka’s Poseidon Franz Kafka’s Poseidon sat at his desk doing the accounts. The administration of all the waters gave him endless work. He could have had assistants, as many as he wanted — and he did have very many — but since he took his job seriously, he would in the end go over
In 1968, aged 28, I wrote the first English book on art deco of the 1920s and 30s. Some people who had lived through that entre deux guerres period — in particular, the interior decorator Martin Battersby, who was girding his scrawny loins to write about it but was pipped at the post — resented
We’re Levantines … hold your head up high and say, ‘Yes, I am. What of it? Byzantine and Ottoman…’ We’re Levantines … hold your head up high and say, ‘Yes, I am. What of it? Byzantine and Ottoman…’ These are the words of Lev- ent effendi, a dignified out-of-work teacher, a ‘Turk’ who turns out
That very title prompted in me a little Proustian epiphany. I was abruptly transported back to the mid-Fifties when, a swotty little creep, I would stow away my completed homework, switch on what we called the wireless and tune in to the Third Programme. For readers too young to have known that august institution, a
There are not many palazzi in Florence still occupied by their original families. There are not many palazzi in Florence still occupied by their original families. Some, like the Medici, Pitti and Corsi-Horne, have become museums, while others, like the Ciofi-Giacometti — now the five-star Relais Santa Croce — have become hotels. ‘Make do and
Fantastic Mr Fox PG, Nationwide Fantastic Mr Fox is actually no more than So-So Mr Fox, if that, and I was pretty bored right from the get-go. The animation is beautiful, the attention to detail is a thing of wonder — with enough mise-en-scènes to keep even the most fanatical mise-en-scène-ists happy — but the
In the Spirit of Diaghilev Sadler’s Wells Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company: Hydra Queen Elizabeth Hall In a dance world asphyxiated by a lack of inventiveness, it is refreshing to be confronted by creations that can still provoke, shock and amuse. This is the case with Javier De Frutos’s Eternal Damnation to Sancho
Oh. My. God. Can it really be, like, 16 years since it was 1993? I very much fear it can and the reason the thought is so bothersome is that I remember thinking, even back then, ‘Blimey, I really am getting on a bit. Can’t do pills nearly as often as I used to. The
The past ten years have been peculiar times for the arts. Under the Labour government pots of money were thrown at culture. But strings came with this funding, requiring art to serve political ends. While there has been cash it has been less for culture and more for schemes promoting social inclusion, community issues and
Kuala Lumpur I dropped into Malaysia armed with F. Spencer Chapman’s anti-Japanese guerrilla war memoir The Jungle is Neutral and took his words to heart. ‘It is the attitude of mind that determines whether you go under or survive. There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’ Chapman survived the jungle’s ‘green
Werther; The Adventures of Mr Broucek Opera North The Truth about Love Linbury Studio Massenet’s Werther is a tricky opera, in fact may well not be susceptible of more than a production which leaves you feeling that you could easily live with its not very numerous highlights. One of its chief problems is highlighted in
Frank Auerbach (born 1931) is flavour of the month. A museum exhibition of his early paintings has opened at the Courtauld (until 17 January 2010), a substantial monograph by William Feaver has just been published (Rizzoli, £100) and a commercial show of recent paintings at Marlborough Fine Art runs until 24 October. Meanwhile, the notoriously
Robert Mapplethorpe: A Season in Hell Alison Jacques Gallery, 16-18 Berners Street, London W1, until 21 November Robert Mapplethorpe’s 1985 self-portrait with little devil’s horns is one of the most instantly recognisable self-portraits in modern photography. Short-haired and cherubically handsome, his face turns back to the camera, an inappropriately appealing daemon, complete with a ‘devil-be-damned’
Not every writer would begin a history of the 1950s with a vignette in which the young Keith Waterhouse treads on Princess Margaret by mistake. But David Kynaston is an unusual historian, rewardingly imbued with a sense of fun and convinced of the importance of the freakish; he is enamoured of the single incident and
Four years ago, we learn from this book’s jack- et, Malcolm Glad- well ‘was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People’. Four years ago, we learn from this book’s jacket, Malcolm Gladwell ‘was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People’. As Gladwell himself might ask, ‘Is what Time says really significant? And what