Arts Reviews

The good, bad and ugly in arts and exhbitions

Saturday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Follow that dream

‘Our fate lies within ourselves. We just have to be brave enough to see it,’ says Princess Merida, the winsome, feisty heroine of Disney-Pixar’s latest animated romp Brave (PG, nationwide). ‘Why shouldn’t we choose our own fate?’ asks another character, chafing at the constraints imposed by family, duty and tradition. Why not, indeed? As Brave is set in Scotland — albeit an imagined Caledonia owing more to Ossian than history — the politics of the movie are inescapable. If you’re burdened with being Scottish, that is. The rest of the world can, and presumably will, enjoy this caper unburdened by such dreary contemplation. Nevertheless one can see why Alex Salmond

Michael Tanner

Brief encounter

Glyndebourne’s last offering this season is one of the most stylish things it has done for a very long time, Ravel’s two brief operas directed by Laurent Pelly, who was responsible for its brilliant Hänsel und Gretel in 2008. It may seem odd that Ravel’s pair — though they were conceived quite separately, and years apart — don’t get done more often, but they both demand elaborate sets, and would just be boring if not unintelligible without them. Actually, I find L’heure espagnole, first performed in 1911, boring anyway, but that seems to be a minority view. The plot — a venerable one of an unsatisfied wife who looks forward

James Delingpole James Delingpole

Faustian pact

When my kids grow up, I want them to go to university and read chemistry. That way they will have the skills to manufacture high-class crystal meth (or similar), make lots and lots of money and keep their father in the style to which of late he has become unaccustomed. I got the idea for this, some of you will have guessed, from Breaking Bad — probably the most brilliant series to come out of the US (or anywhere else) since The Sopranos. Its hero is Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a middle-aged high school chemistry teacher from Albuquerque, New Mexico who realises — as we all do eventually — that

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Walk on the wild side

A good title works wonders at the Edinburgh Fringe. Oliver Reed: Wild Thing (Gilded Balloon) has a simple and succinct name that promises excitement, drama and celebrity gossip. And it delivers. Mike Davis and Bob Crouch’s exhilarating monologue races through the chief highlights of Oliver Reed’s career. Showmanship ran in his veins. On his father’s side, he was the grandson of Herbert Beerbohm Tree, the founder of Rada. But the connection was illegitimate. Reed’s grandmother had six children with Tree although they never married. Her surname, she claimed, was a facetious comment on the relationship. ‘I’m a frail Reed in the shadow of a mighty Tree.’ Young Ollie was packed

Peter Hoskin

Bourne again | 18 August 2012

Seriously, what has Hollywood got against wolves at the moment? First there was last year’s The Grey, which saw a bearded Liam Neeson stalked across Alaska by a pack of the beasts before using his survival skills — and some broken bottles — to smash them on to the endangered species list. Now we have The Bourne Legacy, which starts with a bearded Jeremy Renner being stalked across Alaska by a pack of the beasts before using his survival skills to, etc., etc. It’s very similar, except Renner doesn’t have broken bottles at his disposal. He has military drones. It would be wrong to dwell on this lupicide, however. This

Saturday

Jack Wakefield

Eastern promise | 11 August 2012

The Olympic Legacy List has less to do with the Olympics than its name suggests. True, it is responsible for the long-term cultural programme in the 618-acre Olympic Park but, as one insider put it, the real work begins when the circus leaves town. The word on every Olympic panjandrum’s or British politician’s lips is legacy. There’s a lot that’s disingenuous about this. If regenerating the East End were all that mattered, a direct investment of £9 billion into infrastructure would have done very nicely, thank you. Still, just because the money could have gone further if it had been invested differently doesn’t mean that we have to gnash our

Andrew Lambirth

Unholy alliance

The British Museum has collaborated with the Royal Shakespeare Company on this exhibition, in order to make links between the rich array of BM treasures and Shakespeare’s plays. I’ve never been very convinced about the intermingling of video screens and art: people almost always gravitate to the moving image, particularly if words are involved and people featured. Clips of actors rolling out Shakespeare’s lines with every appearance of enjoyment are bound to capture the attention of the audience at the expense of artefacts, which simply don’t have the same drama or human interest. ‘Oh look, there’s Siân Phillips — or is it Harriet Walter?’ is a much more likely cry

Olivia Glazebrook

Please release me

I am writing this at teatime on Sunday — day nine of the Olympics. So far: 34 medals, we’ve all gone completely bananas, and the Great British mood has improved by what commentators call 110 per cent. Andy Murray has just won gold, beating Roger Federer in straight sets, and by the time I finish writing he may have won another gold in the mixed doubles’ final. To write about this week’s television and not mention the Olympics would be peculiar, but to write about nothing but the Olympics would be foolish because what I write today will be old hat by the time you read it. Today the Games

Kate Chisholm

Save our soap

It’s no good. We’ve been putting up with weird character changes, laughably unconvincing plotlines, calculating theatricals for a while now. But life in Ambridge has now plunged into the danger zone. If we don’t rise up in protest, The Archers is doomed, destined for broadcasting oblivion, killed off by a flash flood of OTT dramatics. There were warning signs as soon as Ambridge Extra was launched on Radio 4 Extra with a mission to update life in the Borsetshire village, make it more appealing to younger listeners, provide a hinterland for all those minor characters whose names we knew but from whom we never heard — Freda, Ryan, Sabrina. Things

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Touch of evil

Richard III is seriously bad for your health. Any actor will tell you that the part of the ‘bunch-backed toad’ is so physically punishing that the chap in the title role usually ends up being injected with painkillers by the local quack before each show. Or he finds himself in hospital when he should be on stage. Mark Rylance has heeded these warnings. His Richard — an astonishing feat of creative originality — is very nearly able-bodied. He has no crutches, no twisted limbs, no bandy legs, no hump weighing him down like a medicine ball. He walks with a faint limp. He carries a withered arm discreetly under his

Claudia Massie

Spirit of the Fringe

In the beginning was the Edinburgh International Festival, a carefully curated exhibition of high culture. Then came the Fringe, in which every pub and church hall in the city became a venue for everything from student theatre to experimental dance. Now, it is mutating again — and for the better. The real arts story of Edinburgh this year is emerging from what used to be the Royal Veterinary School. It has been renamed Summerhall, transformed inside into a world of fresh wood and glass doors and offered as a strikingly ambitious, multifaceted arts venue. Bankrolled by the financial consultant and sometime Downing Street adviser Robert McDowell, the 2.5-acre site incorporates

Deborah Ross

Scattergun speed-dating

OK, let’s get this over with quickly so we can all hurry back to watching the Olympics. I’m obsessed by the Olympics (Go, Mo, go!; Yes, Jess, yes!) and all our gold medals. It’s like we can’t stop being showered with them. In fact, I went to the corner shop just now and came back with four, after a standing ovation! So is 360 worth tearing yourself away from, say,  the synchronised swimming — or ‘designer drowning’, as it is known in our house — for or not? It certainly has magnificent credentials. It is directed by Fernando Meirelles, who also directed The Constant Gardener and City of God, one

Michael Tanner

Dorset cream

My first visit to Dorset Opera, last year, left me very impressed. If anything this year was even better, though I found one of the three operas dull. In last year’s programme, I seem to remember, we were promised an Olympically themed opera, Jesse Owens, but that didn’t materialise, nor was there any mention of it.  As usual, after ten intensive days of rehearsal, with all concerned living in Bryanston School, Dorset Opera puts on one opera the first night, another one (this year two) the second, the first on the third, and on the last day the first is a matinée. This year’s mainstay was Il Trovatore, an opera

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Robert Hughes RIP

It has been a bad week for men of letters, with the loss of Gore Vidal a few days ago and Robert Hughes today. Gore was famous for his feuds, but Hughes, a Spectator contributor, had a softer side, unless your art was phony: ‘The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is given to the less talented as a consolation prize.’ And the man once dubbed the ‘greatest art critic in the world’ was certainly sure of himself. Bret Easton Ellis recalls: ‘The only time I came in contact with Robert Hughes was in 1991 when he threatened to leave Random House if they published American Psycho.’

Saturday

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Northern lights | 4 August 2012

No one knows quite why we go. It’s not for the whisky (which is like drinking liquefied peppercorns), or for the shortbread (like eating undercooked biscuit-mix), or for the weather (like walking through a car-wash). Nor does the moaning falsetto of the bagpipes draw us north. But every year, without fail, the London media colony sets off for the Scottish capital to watch a gang of wackos and wannabes (mostly from the London media colony) making a bid for fame and glory. This is my tenth visit and here are my tips for maximising the fun. Big question first. How to avoid being engulfed in an avalanche of pretentious tripe

Kate Chisholm

Word perfect

‘Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight…’ It all began on Friday night with the Shipping Forecast, made world-famous by Radio 4’s team of continuity announcers. Radio reigns supreme in these Olympics. It’s so much part of why Britain is different from the rest of the world, and Danny Boyle sparked off his extravaganza by recognising this. Hurrah! We’ve stuck with the old wireless technology, adapting, renewing, ensuring that the power of radio as life-saver, fact-checker, storyteller not only survives but also grows in stature. TV gives us the brave new world of moving pictures, and brought Boyle’s creative vision to life, but the commentators never seem to have done enough preparation.

Victoria Lane

Brown study

Stage hypnotists need the trust of their audience, but also a whiff of danger. So Derren Brown calls his show Svengali, though he is not really an evil puppetmaster but a gentle, coaxing, mostly ethical puppetmaster. That show, which opened for its first run at the end of 2010, is back for a short time at the Novello theatre (until 11 August). It’s fun watching the audience drift through the doors and wondering who will end up on stage dancing naked or eating raw onions or whatnot. A thousand potential victims. There are quite a lot of children given that Derren can be a bit sweary on stage — but

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

In health and hypocrisy

George Bernard Shaw argued passionately that Britain should create a public health service. And he lived long enough (1856–1950) to become one of its earliest victims. This play from 1906 shows the very best and the very worst of his creative abilities. He had a plan: to strip bare the iniquities of private medicine and stick the knife in deep. We open in Harley Street where a gang of slick and prosperous doctors are bantering away, like tipsy clubmen, about their patients. I cured this one. I killed that one. Each quack has his preferred treatment. One thinks all disease is caused by blood poisoning. Another that surgery cures every

Michael Tanner

Striking gold

If I said what I really thought about Götterdämmerung at the Longborough Festival, of which I saw the last of four performances, anyone who wasn’t there would think I was madly exaggerating; but anyone who was there would agree — I have run into several people who were at one or another of the performances, and they were all breathless with excitement and admiration for this astounding achievement. Raving doesn’t make for enjoyable reading, I realise, so I’ll try to be a bit more specific. In the first place it was a tremendous team effort with, at its centre, the fanatical dedication and experience of the conductor, Anthony Negus, colleague

Deborah Ross

Druggy bear

The greatest compliment I can pay Seth MacFarlane’s Ted is that although this is essentially one of those slacker, stoner comedies, and such comedies aren’t really my thing — too old, too tired, only once had a joint and it made me feel sick then my knees went  all funny — this did make me laugh quite a bit. It’s about a teddy bear that comes alive to fulfil the dream and friendship needs of a lonely little boy. Years later, the two are still living together, in a state of extended adolescence, although it is Ted who is the bad influence. Ted has a potty-mouth. Ted has a dirty