Film There’s been a rush of good movies recently — Rachel Getting Married (with Anne Hathaway) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, to name just two — and coming up is The Class, winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, which opens on 27 February. It’s based on an autobiographical novel by a French schoolteacher and centres
Circus Cirque du Soleil has taken a surreal turn with its latest show, Quidam, at the Albert Hall: a headless man with an open umbrella, a crowd of people wearing white protective overalls doing, well, nothing much … but it’s the acts what count. Most are thrilling: a couple lift, stretch and contort themselves in
It’s a real shame that Frank Gehry’s pavilion next to the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park has just been demolished. It was England’s first built project by this great Canadian-born architect and was a terrific addition to the park. During its three-month lifespan the huge wooden and glass structure was a place for live music
Liz Anderson It beggars belief that anyone – particularly the artist himself — could have thought that a bronze frieze of a commuter falling in front of train driven by the Grim Reaper would be appropriate for St Pancras station. While the banal sculpture of a man and woman embracing, also by Paul Day, is
1. Sitting beside a foot-tapper beating time 2. Sitting next to a person who texts throughout a performance 3. Sitting next to/behind/in front of a snorer/fidgeter/cougher/sniffer/whisperer 4. Sitting behind over-tall people and those who wear hats 5. Sitting beside an obese person who spills over into my seat
Michael Tanner calls it a ‘neglected near-masterpiece’. So what is ‘it’? Answer: Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, a one-act opera about a blind princess, which is now on at Opera Holland Park. I was lucky enough to see it yesterday evening, and was completely enchanted by the entire production. Michael’s review will be on the website tomorrow. Do check it
MUSIC Proms: Get booking now for this two-month season (18 July to 13 September). Highlights include the Berliner Philharmoniker with Sir Simon Rattle (Brahms and Shostakovich) on 3 September; Handel’s Belshazzar conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras (16 August); Daniel Barbenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra playing Haydn, Schoenberg and Brahms (14 August); plus endless other goodies. For
I can’t remember. How many times have we all made a similar response and thought no more about it? But what if those three words start to recur rather more often? Panic. And what if you are under 60 years of age and you know that a family member has already been diagnosed with early-onset
Sebastian Faulks has named 40 books which “shaped his writing”. He’s picked works by Tolstoy, Stendhal, Iris Murdoch (one of only five women — no Jane Austen), Solzhenitsyn, Colin Thubron, J.D. Salinger, Philip Larkin… To see who’s on the list and who’s missing, head over to the Waterstones website.
The Chinese are coming — or, rather, they’ve come. China Design Now at the V&A is the latest arrival in the China Now Festival — a nationwide celebration of all things Chinese, leading up to the Olympic Games. It kicks off tomorrow – and runs until 13 July – but I was lucky enough to
I always knew I was right not to be one of the 59 million (7 million in the UK) people who have joined Facebook, and Tom Hodgkinson’s article in today’s Guardian has confirmed my prejudice. He makes an extremely convincing case for not wanting to be part of Facebook’s ‘heavily funded programme to create an
I was bicycling to work along the south side of Hyde Park, admiring the last of the autumn colours, when, glancing to my left, I saw an enormous Ferris wheel. I know I am strictly a fair-weather cyclist and this week has been a rain-filled one, but this huge machine has sprung up near Hyde
A pair of dames made last night’s new television adaptation of Mrs Gaskell’s Cranford. Dame Judi and Dame Eileen played the two sisters Matty and Deborah Jenkyns in this terrific 19th-century drama. Eileen Atkins had some wonderful one-liners: ‘Speculation is the enemy of calm’; and ‘Clearly they are not carriage people’, as she saw a
I need help. I’ve got an addiction. It’s reading property magazines and newspaper supplements and watching property programmes on television. I’m not looking for a new flat or house to buy so there’s really no excuse for this time-consuming passion. The compulsion started some two years ago when I was looking for a flat to
ITV’s three-parter Torn came to an end last night. This drama by Chris Lang about an abducted child was one of the most gripping television plays I have seen for ages. Holly Aird, playing the child’s mother, was terrific, as were all the cast. More, please. Note to Radio Times: don’t give away the ending
An exhibition of self-portraits by members of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters has opened at the Bulldog Trust, 2 Temple Place, London WC2, and runs until 10 October. The Trust, which was started in 1983, supports selected charities, such as Hampshire Hospices and the Prince’s Trust, and gives advice as well as money. Rolf
A huge screen behind the stage at the Dorchester Hotel yesterday showed Montserrat Caballé singing for a hot-dog in a café. Sadly, she wasn’t there in person to collect the Lifetime Achievement award at the Classic FM Gramophone Awards. Neither was Steven Isserlis present, but his friend Barry Humphries — in the wittiest speech of
Present Laughter opens at the National Theatre next week and I went to a preview last night. Theatre-goers are in for a treat. Alex Jennings is a terrific Garry Essendine (a part Noël Coward himself played), and the set by Tim Hatley is wonderfully evocative of a Thirties drawing room. Altogether a hugely warm-hearted, witty
Success – of a sort. I first contacted Virgin Media seven weeks ago as I wanted to change from dial-up to broadband. Yesterday (after some five weeks of almost daily nagging) I was sent a text message that my ‘Virgin broadband service is now active’. Why the delay? Virgin blamed BT, and BT wouldn’t speak
