Arts Reviews

The good, bad and ugly in arts and exhbitions

Wednesday

Andrew Lambirth

Meditation on meaning

Rothko Tate Modern, until 1 February 2009 The first thing that should be noted is that this exhibition is not the retrospective that its title implies. In fact, it’s a severely limited show, concentrating on the late work only. There are therefore none of the joyful, brightly coloured paintings that sell so well around the world in reproduction. This exhibition is an altogether more sombre experience, the work darker and more minimal. I wonder how many people will buy their tickets (£12.50 per head, concessions £10.50) expecting a feast of colour and be disappointed. I hope they won’t — this is a fascinating exhibition — but it is not a

Deborah Ross

Losing is the new winning

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People 15, Nationwide How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is based on Toby Young’s best-selling memoir of the same name and, already, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: what, a film based on Toby’s book? Well, he kept that very quiet, the sly old devil. Who’d have thought it? I even suspect that although, in the end, Toby did attend the recent glitzy, red carpet première in London — you saw him lined up with all the other celebrities in the following day’s papers, surely — he probably wasn’t that keen, probably protested with something along the lines of: ‘It’s

James Delingpole James Delingpole

Campaigning genius

Jamie’s Ministry of Food (Channel 4, Tuesday); Ian Hislop Goes off the Rails (BBC4, Thursday) ‘People have a problem with me,’ claims Jamie Oliver, but I’m not one of them. I’ve had my doubts in the past — overuse of phrases like ‘luvly jubbly’, the Sainsbury’s ads, the general extreme jealousy of his stupendous wealth, ruining my daughter Poppy’s name by calling one of his daughters Poppy and starting a massive trend — but I love his new campaigning series Jamie’s Ministry of Food (Channel 4, Tuesday), just as I loved his last campaigning series Jamie’s School Dinners and his ‘Look, I can still cook you know and, by the

Robin Oakley

The turf | 1 October 2008

An old friend in journalism, well aware that he was prone to conspiracy theories, especially where his own career was concerned, used to say to me, ‘Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean the bastards aren’t out to get me.’ So were the authorities out to get Aidan O’Brien when they convicted him and jockey Colm O’Donoghue of team tactics in the recent Juddmonte International, won by Duke of Marmalade? I ask because some of the best-respected voices in racing have suggested that the motivation for the action against O’Brien was jealousy, because English trainers are having a comparatively poor season while O’Brien and his Ballydoyle team have already secured a

Saturday

Veronica Lee

Ayckbourn’s unflinching gaze

Veronica Lee profiles the playwright as the Old Vic revives his best-known work Alan Ayckbourn, so theatre lore has it, is the second-most performed British playwright after Shakespeare. So why has he become so unfashionable among theatre cognoscenti? Partly, it’s his own doing. In 2002, disillusioned by the musical-laden, drama-free territory it had become and despite his many successes there throughout his career, he announced a West End hiatus on his work (only recently ended for a revival of Absurd Person Singular with Jane Horrocks). Plus, he insists on premiering all his new work in his beloved home town of Scarborough. And two of his tropes — complicated plotlines and

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson suggests

Theatre   It promises to be a wonderful autumn for London’s theatre-goers. Ivanov, Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of Chekhov’s early play, has opened the ‘Donmar at Wyndham’s’ season, to superb reviews. Joining it in a quest to bring the increasingly dowdy West End into repute is No Man’s Land, Harold Pinter’s 1975 masterpiece, revived at the Duke of York’s with Michael Gambon and David Bradley assuming the roles of Hirst and Spooner initially taken by the great knights, Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud (and, 17 years later, at the Almeida, by Pinter himself opposite Paul Eddington).   The Norman Conquests, the three-parter with which Alan Ayckbourn conquered the West End three

Charles Spencer

Nanny knows best

Although I waste a lot of time these days gazing longingly at advertisements for luxury cruises in the Daily Telegraph, I don’t think I could ever leave England for good. Although I waste a lot of time these days gazing longingly at advertisements for luxury cruises in the Daily Telegraph, I don’t think I could ever leave England for good. A three-month cruise chasing the sun would be as long as I could bear to be away from home, and only then if I could take the cat Nelson with me as a cabin companion. But if anything ever does drive me into exile, it will be the irksome British

Robin Holloway

A unique acoustic

Robin Holloway on the unique orchestra layout that produces the Festspielhaus’s unique acoustic There was no space in my report last month, on a first visit to the Bayreuth Festival, for what was in retrospect its most exciting quart d’heure, a privileged informal investigation of the unique orchestra layout that produces the Festspielhaus’s unique acoustic. This, I was kindly permitted to explore one afternoon. Impossible to imagine from the auditorium the precarious peculiarity of this astonishing construction, steeply raked downward from the conductor’s chair at the summit, semi-circles of hell before the air-conditioning denied to the audience was installed to relieve the sweating players (though invisibility allowed them to dress,

Simon Hoggart

Other people’s lives

There was a sad moment in The Family (Channel 4, Wednesday) this week when Dad, the very long-suffering Simon Hughes, is inspecting his daughters’ bedroom, and doesn’t like what he sees. He has been assured that the room is neat and clean, so he responds with a blast of sarcasm. ‘Oh, look at this tidy, tidy, tidy room, oh crumbs, how tidy it is, all this stuff doesn’t exist, it’s a figment of my imagination…’ I felt a blast of pity for him. Most dads, like me, would have given up long ago but he goes onward, ever onward, in the quest for orderly bedrooms. Sisyphus had it easier with

Alan Judd

Sense of occasion

The first Rolls-Royce I drove was a 1960s Shadow, across the Cairngorms on the glorious A939 to Tomintoul. It was a memorable drive, clear skies, snow-capped mountains, little traffic. When we returned to his Speyside house the owner suggested I try his Jaguar XJ6, which he thought a better drive than the Shadow. It was: even by XJ6 standards, the Shadow’s steering and suspension, geared for the American market, were too light and soft. But there was still something special about effortless stately progress behind that wonderful Spirit of Ecstasy. Shadows got better as they got younger and I suspect the subsequent Spirit was better still. But my next truly

Wednesday

Edie Lush

The parable of The Golden Calf

Edie Lush attends the record-breaking Sotheby’s sale of Damien Hirst’s artworks, and wonders whether it is all a metaphor for the recent madness of financial markets Last Monday was a historic day. Lehman filed for the biggest bankruptcy in history; the insurance giant AIG teetered on the brink; the Dow had its worst day since 9/11 — and in Mayfair an extraordinary event occurred at which seemingly few of those present had even heard of the credit crunch. Buyers and gawkers queued outside Sotheby’s to get in for the historic evening’s sale of works by Damien Hirst. Minutes after it began, auctioneer Oliver Barker’s hammer went down on the first

Andrew Lambirth

Man as machine

Cold War Modern: Design 1945–1970 V&A, until 11 January 2009 It’s difficult not to admire the ambition of the V&A in mounting exhibitions which summarise and explain the great historical movements in design. There have been notable successes in the past, particularly with their surveys of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, but the closer the organisers approach our own times, the more fraught with complication is the enterprise. It’s almost impossible to locate and maintain any degree of objectivity about very recent happenings — we have no historical perspective on them and find it difficult to view them except in terms of personal preference. Of course, like and dislike have

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Peak performance

Ivanov Wyndham’s Theatre Now or Later Royal Court Rain Man Apollo Great directors have the power to alter taste. Michael Grandage’s avowed aim with this revival of Ivanov, which opens the Donmar’s year-long residency at the Wyndham’s, is to secure the play a permanent place in the repertory. But even a director as sure-footed as Grandage can’t overcome the script’s shortcomings. Dashed off in ten days by a 27-year-old Chekhov, it feels glib and careless, its imitative homages to Hamlet creaky and self-conscious. Ivanov is a country landowner, his debts climbing, his marriage sinking, infatuated with a neighbour’s young daughter and with a peculiar taste for philosophical ramblings. All of

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Way Down in the Hole

The last ever episode of The Wire was (finally) broadcast in Britain last night. Not, to their shame, on the BBC or Channel 4 but on the obscure, little-watched (hell, little-known) FX channel. A quiet end then. Coincidentally, the end came as, for the fifth time, the clowns who divvy up the Emmys failed to recognise The Wire’s genius. In five years the show secured a paltry two nominations and didn’t win once.

Henrietta Bredin

Something a little different

There’s an intriguing performance coming up at the Purcell Room on London’s Southbank next Tuesday. Façade, the collection of poems by Edith Sitwell set to music by William Walton, will be recited by another Sitwell (William, also known as editor of Waitrose Food Illustrated and Food Spy for the Evening Standard) for the first time since Edith herself astonished audiences with her sonorous, incantatory delivery (it has to be said that she also made some of them giggle uncontrollably). He’ll be accompanied by singer Pippa Longworth who, thanks to the family connection, has been given permission to rummage in Edith’s dressing up box to borrow some of her fabulously elaborate

Sunday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Rural life

No blogging for the rest of the day, I suspect. Why? Because I* just unloaded and stacked 200 bales of hay. Best cold beer of the summer being enjoyed right now. *OK, other people helped.

Saturday

Henrietta Bredin

Poetry in motion

Henrietta Bredin talks to Peter Manning about taking risks and creating opportunities There is an almost palpable forcefield of energy around Peter Manning. You expect a crackle of static to explode when he shakes your hand or wraps you in an enthusiastic hug. Concertmaster of the Royal Opera House orchestra, founder of the eponymous Manning Camerata chamber orchestra and now music director of Musica Vitae in Sweden, his relish for a challenge, for fresh stimuli, is voracious. He is a violinist, a conductor, and now a galvanising producer and artistic director. His current, most pressing preoccupation is with a fabulously multi-layered and ambitious project, the performance of a new opera

Kate Chisholm

A simple horror

The BBC World Service’s drama department has been drastically cut back over the last few years and plays, squeezed out by news and current affairs, are difficult to find. But they’re usually worth looking out for on the website, or listed in ridiculously tiny print in the Radio Times. There’s often something a little bit different about them, an outside-the-box atmosphere, created for an audience that might not, for instance, quite understand what the NHS stands for in the United Kingdom, and the traumatic impact of the case of The Good Doctor (broadcast this Saturday evening and repeated on Sunday). It’s ten years since Harold Shipman was arrested on suspicion

Deborah Ross

One-trick pony

Tropic Thunder 15, Nationwide Unrelated 15, Selected Cinemas Tropic Thunder is an action comedy which stars Ben Stiller, is produced by Ben Stiller and is directed by Ben Stiller, from a story by Ben Stiller and a screenplay by Justin Theroux…and Ben Stiller. So if, after this movie, you don’t feel properly Stiller-ed, I can’t think where you would go from here. I would also like to ask: how much Stiller-ing do you need? Whatever, it’s a send-up of Hollywood which starts rather dazzlingly — at last, a funny film that’s actually funny! — but then droops horribly, even becoming a victim of all the absurdities and excesses it is