Arts Reviews

The good, bad and ugly in arts and exhbitions

Saturday

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Classy act

Michael Grandage, boss of the Donmar, is a most unusual director. He has no ideas. His rivals go in for party-theme, concept-album, pop-video Shakespeare (provincial folksiness in metropolitan disguise), but Grandage just goes in for Shakespeare. He arrives with no prejudices or pieties, only solutions. He’s the bard’s delivery boy. His current production of King Lear sweeps the stage clean of the usual Ozzy Osbourne clutter and reduces the inventory to just three items, a map, a chair and a pillory for Kent. Nothing else. This daring austerity opens things up and allows the mysterious, grotesque, lurching and inscrutable play to do its best and worst, to charm, horrify, move

Giannandrea Poesio

Magical adventures

English National Ballet has a long history of Nutcrackers, each memorable in its own way. This one, created by ENB’s artistic director Wayne Eagling for the company’s 60th anniversary, is no exception. Contrary to today’s trends, Eagling has opted for a fairly traditional staging, steering away from the lure of modern readings, satirical reinterpretations and impenetrable psychological takes. For the seasoned viewer and newcomer alike, this Nutcracker has the same retro flavour that some illustrated books from 50 to 60 years ago possess, thanks also to Peter Farmer’s luscious sets and costumes. One of its greatest novelties is that the action takes place in this country and not in some

James Delingpole James Delingpole

Weekly shockers

Did you hear the one about Jordan’s disabled son? Unlikely, since you probably don’t watch Tramadol Nights (Channel 4), nor read the Mirror (‘Katie Price furious after Frankie Boyle joke about her disabled son’), nor the Guardian (‘Frankie Boyle’s Katie Price joke sparks Ofcom investigation’). Did you hear the one about Jordan’s disabled son? Unlikely, since you probably don’t watch Tramadol Nights (Channel 4), nor read the Mirror (‘Katie Price furious after Frankie Boyle joke about her disabled son’), nor the Guardian (‘Frankie Boyle’s Katie Price joke sparks Ofcom investigation’). Don’t worry, I’m not going to repeat it here. What kind of sicko do you think I am: Rod Liddle?

Kate Chisholm

Everyday surprises

It’s so unnerving, knowing there are going to be two big surprises tomorrow night (2 January) on The Archers, but having no idea what’s in store. It’s so unnerving, knowing there are going to be two big surprises tomorrow night (2 January) on The Archers, but having no idea what’s in store. Experience warns me that it’s not going to be pleasant. But who’s for the chop? The press release says one half of the double-whammy will play out an existing storyline. That’s easy. I bet we’ll find out that Ian is the secret father of Helen’s baby. For the uninitiated, he’s gay but ages ago wanted to be a

Saturday

Peter Phillips

Arts administration: Questions of privilege

The rights and wrongs of internships for those who are seeking a first job have been hotly debated in the press recently, and nowhere more so than with reference to young people who hope to make a career in arts and music administration. But the principles remain the same whatever the discipline: is it legal for an organisation to employ people who are usually given a stipulated job when they become an intern, and not to pay them; and is it acceptable that these opportunities tend to go to young people who are already rich enough (through parental support or earnings from a gap year many cannot afford to take

Tristram Hunt

Wedgwood Museum: At risk

We are fairly certain that the late Robert Maxwell never met the even later Josiah Wedgwood, but Cap’n Bob’s nefarious legacy is now being keenly felt by Wedgwood’s descendants. For it was in the aftermath of Maxwell’s plundering of the Mirror Group that the Pension Protection Fund was established to compensate pensioners in the wake of insolvency. And now this legislation is being used to asset-strip one of the great museums of England. On the southern edge of Stoke-on-Trent stands the Wedgwood Museum, dedicated to ‘The People Who Have Made Objects of Great Beauty from the Soils of Staffordshire’. A museum that in 2009 won the £100,000 Art Fund Prize

Andrew Lambirth

A look ahead | 18 December 2010

The trend of fewer temporary exhibitions in our museums is becoming established, as the cost of mounting blockbusters escalates beyond even the generous reach of sponsorship. This is in sharp contrast to the commercial galleries, which still put on as many as 10 or 15 different shows a year in the hope of tempting clients to part with their cash. Taking a keen look at forthcoming exhibitions is always a mixed pleasure: the expected counterpointed with the novel, the obvious with the obscure. Thankfully, there are still enough exciting prospects in the public sector to raise the spirits and move us to make a note in the diary. At the

Andrew Lambirth

Intimations of infinity

Andrew Lambirth finds a striking metaphor for the physical limitations of earthbound existence versus the infinite freedom of the spirit in Paul Nash’s painting ‘Winter Sea’ Paul Nash is one of the best-loved English painters of the last century, a great imaginative artist, always trying to discover the appropriate form for what he wanted to say. Nash was a philosopher-poet who expressed himself best (though he was a good writer) in visual terms and chose landscape painting as his primary vehicle. Although he died prematurely, in 1946 at the age of 57, his work stands easily above that of most of his contemporaries, and its originality and inventiveness have continued

Ed Rex

Culture notes

Hush: it’s secret When I go to a film, there are certain things I expect: the popcorn only affordable with a small loan; the endless standing up and sitting down as people push past, suddenly sure the film will look better from the row in front; these are a given. What I don’t expect is to be plunged into the film’s set, spending two hours wandering through the real-life version of the world on screen. But that’s what you get when you sign up to Secret Cinema. I booked a ticket to its latest screening, and arrived at the specified time and place without knowing what film I would actually

William Cook

Interview: Goodies’ triple triumph

Here in HMV on London’s Oxford Street, three comedians are signing autographs. Here in HMV on London’s Oxford Street, three comedians are signing autographs. The queue of fans stretches through the foyer, almost out on to the street. Nothing unusual about that — this record shop regularly stages personal appearances by Britain’s biggest stars. What’s so surprising is that these comics are in their late-sixties, and the show that they’re promoting hasn’t been on TV for nearly 30 years. As The Goodies autograph their new DVD (a compilation of vintage shows, rereleased to mark their 40th anniversary) their greatest hits are replayed on a giant screen above their heads. Yet

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

All over the place

Deceptively attractive. Romeo and Juliet tempts directors and leads them on while keeping all its false doors and secret pitfalls out of view. Rupert Goold’s RSC production is two fifths good and three fifths indifferent. A respectable score. This lovely, tricky and rather silly play isn’t the work of a genius but of a jobbing apprentice with a careless, or perhaps ambitious, sense of what could be managed on stage. Goold adds a spot of extra bother here and there, overusing the balcony, bunging Arabic music into the masque ball, and botching the costumes. Spectacular irrelevance seems to be his guiding principle. The street brawls are enlivened by whooshes of

Deborah Ross

The long march

Peter Weir’s The Way Back tells the story of a group of escapees from a 1940 Siberian gulag who walked across Siberia, Mongolia, Tibet and the Himalayas to freedom in British India, a journey of 12 months and 4,000 miles, and a journey that will bring into sharp focus the domitability of your own crappy spirit, particularly if you always take the bus two stops up the hill, as I do. Peter Weir’s The Way Back tells the story of a group of escapees from a 1940 Siberian gulag who walked across Siberia, Mongolia, Tibet and the Himalayas to freedom in British India, a journey of 12 months and 4,000

Kate Chisholm

Unsung poets

We might actually be glad of the time difference over in Australia this Christmas, so that we can switch on to Aggers and co. and listen in peace long after Aunt Maud has been safely tucked up with her mug of Horlicks and hot-water bottle. The Fourth Test in Melbourne promises to be the best present of the season, cheering up the nation and turning us all into Yes We Can people after decades of No Can Do. Who can remember a time when cricket has been so incredibly exciting, with England’s batters whacking the ball into triple figures, and wickets falling ball-on-ball not to the terrifying speed of the

Simon Hoggart

Top of the pops

The most watched programme on British television this year was the special live edition of EastEnders, broadcast in February to mark the soap’s 25th anniversary. The most watched programme on British television this year was the special live edition of EastEnders, broadcast in February to mark the soap’s 25th anniversary. This was the one — I assume you’re keeping up — in which Bradley Branning plunged to his death and Stacey confessed that she had killed Archie. At the end, some 16.6 million people were watching, which is roughly 28 per cent of the population, still a fraction of the 50 per cent who watched the old Morecambe and Wise

Ursula Buchan

Gardens: Beguiled by olive trees

Fashion may be Folly’s child, but that never stopped gardeners, when the urge was on them, from planting something à la mode. Fashion may be Folly’s child, but that never stopped gardeners, when the urge was on them, from planting something à la mode. That must be why olive trees (Olea europea), natives of the rocky dry soils of the eastern Mediterranean, are now so widely planted in British gardens. Prince Charles has them at Highgrove and they can be seen each year at Chelsea Flower Show so, hey, we all have to grow them, don’t we? If you want them to survive unscathed our new-style, old-style cold winters —

Saturday

Andrew Petrie

The road to ruins

Director Patrick Keiller made his name with London (1994) and Robinson in Space (1997), semi-documentaries recounting the peripatetic investigations into ‘the problem of England’ conducted by the unseen narrator and his fellow academic Robinson. The late Paul Scofield’s voiceover, rich in literary reference and understated satire, combined with meticulous shot composition to produce unclassifiable portraits of a country forever in decline from its literary and industrial pre-eminence. In the new film Robinson in Ruins, Vanessa Redgrave assumes Scofield’s role as narrator. Robinson’s research has narrowed in scope to the counties of Oxfordshire and Berkshire, but has taken a turn for the supernatural: he is convinced that the fall of meteorites

Andrew Lambirth

Exhibitions Round-up: lifting the heart

The run-up to Christmas is the perfect season for an exhibition of Andrew Logan’s joyful and extravagant art. The run-up to Christmas is the perfect season for an exhibition of Andrew Logan’s joyful and extravagant art. At Flowers (82 Kingsland Road, E2, until 31 December) is an installation of glittering sculptures which lightens the spirit and brings a song to the lips. Fashion meets fantasy in Logan’s signature mirror sculptures, his unique blend of resin, glass, fibreglass, paint and glitter. For the past 40 years, Logan (born 1945) has brought colour and light into people’s lives. He was a pioneer of the sensational long before the YBAs toddled into view;

Deborah Ross

All the lonely people

Whereas Sofia Coppola’s directorial breakthrough, Lost in Translation, featured two lonely souls rattling about in a Tokyo hotel, her latest film, Somewhere, features one lonely soul holed up in a Californian hotel, and isn’t half so good. Whereas Sofia Coppola’s directorial breakthrough, Lost in Translation, featured two lonely souls rattling about in a Tokyo hotel, her latest film, Somewhere, features one lonely soul holed up in a Californian hotel, and isn’t half so good. It’s not bad. It’s not hateful. It’s not evil. You won’t want to hunt it down and bring it to trial. But a second film about ennui suffers from ennui itself. And I’m not sure I

Michael Tanner

Gruesome fun

Having been away, I only got to Alexander Raskatov’s opera A Dog’s Heart at its fifth performance by ENO, by which time everyone knew that it was brilliantly mounted, but not of much musical substance. Having been away, I only got to Alexander Raskatov’s opera A Dog’s Heart at its fifth performance by ENO, by which time everyone knew that it was brilliantly mounted, but not of much musical substance. Actually, you could say the same for most of the new operas that ENO has mounted over the past decade, and from composers much better known than Raskatov. I’d be happy to volunteer a list. For me a good deal

Michael Tanner

Interview: Semyon Bychkov: his own man

Semyon Bychkov has rather unspectacularly become one of the world’s most sought after conductors, and at present he is in London to conduct a series of performances of Wagner’s now least often staged canonical opera, Tannhäuser, at the Royal Opera House. Semyon Bychkov has rather unspectacularly become one of the world’s most sought after conductors, and at present he is in London to conduct a series of performances of Wagner’s now least often staged canonical opera, Tannhäuser, at the Royal Opera House. He was trained in St Petersburg, at that time Leningrad, by the apparently legendary Ilya Musin; but at least as important was the long-time chief conductor of the