Arts Reviews

The good, bad and ugly in arts and exhbitions

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Problem with Mo

David enjoyed the Mo Mowlam biopic Channel 4 showed on Sunday; I wish I could say the same but am not surprised that I can’t. (You can watch it here, incidentally.) Yes, Julie Walters was just as excellent as one imagined her to be and, yes, it’s carping to complain about what wasn’t in the film (though an acknowledgement that the Peace Process didn’t start on May 2nd 1997 would have been usefu) and it can’t be terribly surprising that the movie gives the impression that the Peace Process was somehow Mowlam’s own possession. Despite that I thought the film was, in terms of the politics of the matter, quietly

Saturday

Peter Phillips

The first Romantic

Peter Phillips on the life and times of Chopin, who was born 200 years ago The year 1810 may seem a little late to look for the beginning of the Romantic movement in music, but with the births of Chopin, Schumann and S.S. Wesley one could make a case. Think of the difference in the lifestyles of these composers, especially Chopin’s, when compared with those of their immediate predecessors. Where Mozart was tied to a court and lived more or less the life of a servant, these three travelled as they liked, the original freelancing musicians. Where Haydn was emotionally tied to the Church (and physically to a court), only

Luke Coppen

Welcome to the age of Gaga

Unpredictable, spectacular, bold and contentious — Lady Gaga is the perfect pop star for the 21st century, says Luke Coppen In 1903, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a letter to a young man who yearned to be a great artist. ‘In the deepest hour of the night,’ the German poet advised, ‘confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself: must I write?’ It’s fair to say that Rilke never imagined his words would end up tattooed on the arm of a pop star with a penchant for porcelain bikinis and

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

All change at Hampstead

As Ed Hall takes over the Hampstead Theatre, Lloyd Evans offers some advice on how to run this prestigious venue Congratulations, mate. You’ve landed a plum job. And a bloody tough one, too. Paradoxically, it’s harder to run a single venue than to run a group of theatres. The focus is tighter. There’s less opportunity to experiment, to learn as you go, to fine-tune your style. You have to get it right fast. Here are some hints. First, where are you? Since moving to its new premises in 2003, the Hampstead has barely left a trace on London’s theatre scene. Many play-goers have yet to pay their first visit. You’re

Andrew Lambirth

Extremes of joy and suffering

The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters Royal Academy, until 18 April Sponsored by BNY Mellon From time to time we need to remind ourselves of the astonishing fact that Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) produced more than 800 paintings and 1,200 drawings in a mere ten-year career. He also wrote letters, of a depth and originality that qualify them as literature in their own right. So much to offer the world, such a sense of discovery and originality, yet he took his own life while still in his thirties. For decades, Van Gogh has been the artistic god of the self-taught and the misunderstood, making a particular appeal

Michael Tanner

In sight of the <em>Ring</em>

Anniversary-consciousness is no doubt primarily commercially driven, certainly in the music world, where the fact that a scarcely remembered composer has been dead for exactly 300 years is a reason for featuring him as This Week’s Composer on Radio Three, but more importantly for many record companies to persuade us that it is time to revalue his contribution to the Orpheus myth, the first to have a bass hero, etc., etc. Anniversary-consciousness is no doubt primarily commercially driven, certainly in the music world, where the fact that a scarcely remembered composer has been dead for exactly 300 years is a reason for featuring him as This Week’s Composer on Radio

Robin Holloway

Fab four

The last of 2009’s remarkable concatenation of musical anniversaries was celebrated — if that is the word — by Radio Three on New Year’s Eve with a chat show in which each of the four great composers was allotted a defence by a noteworthy music lover, backed up by live phone calls for a brief, impromptu telegram, illustrated with well-chosen extracts from their works, subjected to dissenting discussion, and eventually put to the vote at the hands of the anonymous mass of listeners. The last of 2009’s remarkable concatenation of musical anniversaries was celebrated — if that is the word — by Radio Three on New Year’s Eve with a

Deborah Ross

Mixed blessings | 30 January 2010

Precious 15, Nationwide Claireece ‘Precious’ Jones is a 21-stone, illiterate, black, 16-year-old girl with a father who rapes her — not every day, but still — and a mother so insanely abusive that she throws televisions at her and force-feeds her hairy pig’s feet. (Not every meal, but still.) Precious has already had one child by her father — a Down’s syndrome girl, known non-affectionately by the family as ‘Mongo’, short for Mongoloid — and is pregnant with another. She describes herself as ‘just ugly black grease to be wiped away’, but is then dispatched to an alternative school where a saintly teacher works her saintly magic and, what do

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Dealing and drifting

Six Degrees of Separation Old Vic, until 3 April The Little Dog Laughed Garrick, booking to 10 April Even those who’ve never entered a theatre know the title. John Guare’s 1990 play, Six Degrees of Separation, tells of a penniless black hustler, Paul, who inveigles his way into New York’s upper-class society by claiming to be the son of Sidney Poitier. The couple he bamboozles are art dealers. Wily, avaricious and insecure, they work without a gallery and instead operate in the shadows of parties and restaurants, like illicit bookies, speculating in works which they own briefly and then ‘flip’ to the next greedy broker or syndicate. Dealing invisibly makes

Kate Chisholm

Sound check

Thank heavens for Chekhov! Master of the mundane, the boring monotony of daily life, the meaningless passage of time, he actually makes the random chaos, the pointless repetitions of day-to-day survival seem somehow rather beautiful. Or at least he helps us to realise that we’re all enduring the same feelings that life is useless and trivial and dull, so why worry. Just get on with it.  Radios Three and Four have been giving us a feast of the Russian writer (born 150 years ago), with plays, features, monologues. It’s been the perfect antidote to this drabbest of all Januarys, now that the snow has gone leaving behind layers of grimy

Simon Hoggart

Perfect pitch

Our attitude to the past of our own youth is like our feelings towards an old grandfather: we love him, admire him for what he’s done, but, goodness, we don’t half patronise him. Our attitude to the past of our own youth is like our feelings towards an old grandfather: we love him, admire him for what he’s done, but, goodness, we don’t half patronise him. ‘Gosh, grandad, you mean if you weren’t at home, nobody could phone you? How did you find anything out without Google?’ Television does this mixture of affection and condescension very well. Rock and Chips (BBC1, Sunday) was John Sullivan’s prequel to his astoundingly successful

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Hayek vs Keynes

This is superb. Friedrich August vs John Maynard. Rapping. Needless to say, if we were to have a real discussion and a real debate between FAH and JMK this election season then we’d have an election to look forward to. As it is no-one of any sense can be anything but terrified by the nonsense that is about to be unleashed upon us all. Guilty confession, mind you: I tend to live as a Keynesian while believing or at least suspecting hoping that Hayek is right. If we each contain multitudes we’re also made of weakness and contradiction. Right? And yes, too many videos on this blog lately. Been a

Saturday

Andrew Lambirth

Do the locomotion

On the Move: Visualising Action Estorick Collection, 39a Canonbury Square, London N1, until 18 April The Estorick Collection, which specialises in modern Italian art, has mounted a series of rewarding exhibitions in recent years, all of which bear some essential relationship to its permanent holdings. Futurism remains the best known and most widely celebrated modern Italian art movement, and the current exhibition helps to put in context the Futurist obsession with recording movement through the static image. This display, curated by Jonathan Miller, offers a background to and explanation for the way in which the Futurists depicted movement by examining how animal locomotion was first represented and analysed through the

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

Keeper of the treasure

It’s lovely here in the Art Fund director’s office, both elegant and cosy. Windows sweep from floor to ceiling, an Iznik bowl on a low table reflects the glow from a gas fire. But, even so, Stephen Deuchar doesn’t seem quite settled. It’s the way he moves warily across the room; turns to stare at his computer when it makes a noise. Do you feel at home here yet? I ask. ‘No, not yet. But, actually, being uncomfortable isn’t a bad thing.’ Deuchar sits down on a sofa opposite me and grins. ‘I know from having spent 11 years in my last job [he was founding director of Tate Britain]

Deborah Ross

Shifting power

A Prophet 18, Nationwide A Prophet is an astounding, wholly gripping French film which is both a prison drama and a gangster thriller, and my guess is that, when it comes to the best foreign film category at this year’s Oscars, it’ll be between this and Michael Haneke’s White Ribbon. Obviously, I cannot say which will win, just as I can’t yet say what I won’t be wearing to the Oscars. Every year, it’s the same: they don’t invite me and I then have to worry about what not to wear. Should I not wear the oyster-pink chiffon? And, if not, what shoes am I not going to put with

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Family tensions

Greta Garbo Came to Donegal Tricycle Every Good Boy Deserves Favour Olivier Frank McGuinness, the world’s leading supplier of Celtic Kleenex drama, is back with a variation on his favourite theme. Misery upon misery bravely borne in a green, green island long, long ago. The twist is the addition of Greta Garbo. In 1967, the wandering superstar visited McGuinness’s home town of Buncrana in Donegal. This nugget of truth is decorated with fictional frills. McGuinness billets the melancholy hermit on an invented Irish family, the Hennessys, whose house has been bought by a society painter from England. The toiling Irish underlings are thus condemned to scrub and skivvy in a

Michael Tanner

Ocean of ugliness

Elektra Barbican La bohème Opera North In his little-read but wonderful book Daybreak, Nietzsche writes: Our composers have made a great discovery: interesting ugliness too is possible in their art! And so they throw themselves into this open ocean of ugliness as if drunk, and it has never been so easy to compose…But you will have to hurry! Every art which has made this discovery has turned out to have only a short time to live. Written in 1880, with Wagner in mind but unmentioned, the words fit Richard Strauss’s Elektra with uncanny precision. Everyone exclaims about Strauss’s alleged retreat from modernism after Elektra, but where was there to go?

Kate Chisholm

Confessions of a Cog

There’s something about Chris. There’s something about Chris. Don’t know what it is. But his Radio Two breakfast show is so bright, so bouncy, so full of bonhomie, it’s irresistible. I just can’t turn it off — even though I know Evan and Jim are waiting patiently on the other side. By the weekend I was wondering how I’d cope without that blast of high-octane energy to wake me up. Yes, I’m going to have to admit it. I’m a Cog — and proud of it. He’s not, it’s true, blessed with Sir Terry’s smooth, seductive voice. It’s actually a bit hoarse and grating, and the decibel level is far

James Delingpole James Delingpole

Glorious send-up

Bellamy’s People (BBC2, Thursday) began life in 2006 as a spoof Radio Four phone-in show called Down the Line presented by ‘award-winning’ Gary Bellamy (Rhys Thomas) with the Fast Show’s Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse playing the various callers. Bellamy’s People (BBC2, Thursday) began life in 2006 as a spoof Radio Four phone-in show called Down the Line presented by ‘award-winning’ Gary Bellamy (Rhys Thomas) with the Fast Show’s Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse playing the various callers. Now it has moved to TV and its satirical target — not before time — are all those programmes where celebrities drive round the country meeting people and saying, ‘Isn’t Britain brilliant?’

Ursula Buchan

Go west

The gardening press in England is often criticised for being parochial. The Scots I meet never miss an opportunity to remind me of this but you could argue that Irish gardens and gardeners are more at the margins of our consciousness. Geographical distance is a major factor, of course, but against that must be set a common pre-20th-century gardening heritage — among the moneyed classes, at least — as well as a common language, temperate maritime climate and, in the case of Northern Ireland, citizenship. Indeed, if it were not for the impact made by an irrepressible trio of contemporary horticulturists, I suspect that Irish gardening would be largely ignored