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Celebs take to the streets

Famous, Rich and Homeless (BBC1) Psychoville (BBC2) Famous, Rich and Homeless, made by Love Productions for BBC1, and shown over Wednesday and Thursday nights, was a mess. It almost worked, but in the end it failed. For one thing, the five participants in the experiment were not particularly famous, and I doubt if any were

Caring for Naples

A curious programme on the World Service on Friday reminded us that although we’re now embarking on a new kind of technological revolution, dominated by twittering, downloading, waking up to John Humphrys not in BH but Karachi, we’ve not quite lost our connection with the mindset of the Middle Ages. On Blood and Lava Malcolm

Summer round-up

It’s a rewarding moment for a stroll round the London galleries. Good art is still being made and exhibited (some of it even selling), while more historical figures such as Winifred Nicholson (1893–1981) and Robert Motherwell (1915–91) are being accorded the benefit of monographs and mini-retrospectives. Winifred Nicholson is often overshadowed by the ambitious and

Glittering finale

Jewels Royal Opera House Created in 1967 for a stellar cast of dance artists, Jewels is one of the most written about of Balanchine’s ballets. Intrigued by its uncommon structure, namely three choreographically diverse, plotless sections set to different music, dance writers have long debated the work’s possible meanings. Today it is generally agreed that

Thoughts on morality

It’s not often that by chance you tune in to one of the annual Reith Lectures (Radio Four) and find what you’re hearing so gripping that you actually stay with it. It’s not often that by chance you tune in to one of the annual Reith Lectures (Radio Four) and find what you’re hearing so

The serious business of theatre

Even at 78 and from a distance, Sir Peter Hall has the look of an alpha male. There he is about 100 or so feet away, advancing towards me across the polished boards of his rehearsal room; head forward, bear-like, with the lonely charisma of a boxing champ. As he passes, the younger members of

Domestic conflict

The Winter’s Tale Old Vic Phèdre Lyttelton I seem to be alone in feeling great waves of pity for anyone involved in an assault on The Winter’s Tale. This strange dud of a text remains mystifyingly popular with theatre folk. It’s two plays shunted together. Act one is a mawkish palace tragedy, act two is

Erratic behaviour

Telstar 15, Key Cities Telstar is a biopic about the ‘ground breaking’ 1960s song writer and independent record producer Joe Meek, but unless you know a lot about Joe already — and, I confess, I didn’t — you’re never that clear about what ground he broke exactly. If you fancy seeing this film, I would

Moving on

In the current anniversary-fest the musical world has awarded itself there is an omission which dwarfs the lot of them. This is the invention of what many people still call ‘modern music’. For it was in 1909 that Schoenberg wrote his Five Orchestral Pieces and the monodrama Erwartung. These were early atonal works which used

Blood will have blood

Julius Caesar Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon Romulus and Remus, at least in the flesh, aren’t usually numbered among the dramatis personae of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The famous sculpture of the she-wolf suckling Rome’s founding twins is a not unfamilar sight in modern productions. It’s also favoured by Lucy Bailey as an iconic image for launching her

Blank canvas

Lulu Royal Opera House It’s not often that I have felt so disinclined to write a piece about the past week’s opera-going, especially when it was an occasion I had looked forward to so much: Berg’s second opera Lulu, one of the strangest works in the repertoire, but even if not a masterpiece — it’s

Electric guitar heaven

Like most addicts I have become accustomed to smuggling stuff into my own house. In the old days it was bottles of Scotch or wine. More recently it has been a couple of hundred quid’s worth of CDs after a binge in HMV.  The trouble with CDs is that they take up so much space.

Access all areas

‘Visualisation’ is the latest buzzword at BBC Radio. ‘Visualisation’ is the latest buzzword at BBC Radio. ‘Audiences,’ announces the press release, ‘will be able to watch some of their favourite radio shows being broadcast.’ (Note the use of the word ‘audiences’; we’re no longer thought of as mere listeners.) There’ll be ‘glanceable’ content, webcam streams,

Fantastical joke

‘Hi, my name is Kröd Mändoon, and I’ll be your liberator this evening!’ says the hero of Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire (BBC2, Thursday) as he bursts into a dungeon. ‘Hi, my name is Kröd Mändoon, and I’ll be your liberator this evening!’ says the hero of Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming

Show stopper

You have probably idly wondered, as you stood in a queue for the loos at Chelsea Flower Show, why the Royal Horticultural Society stages its greatest flower show of the year in the week before the Whitsun Bank Holiday. Late May is good for irises, Oriental poppies, alliums, hardy geraniums, seed-raised verbascums, lilacs, wisteria and

Celebrating diversity

Summer Exhibition Royal Academy, until 16 August Every year the Summer Exhibition arrives with promises of innovation and difference, every year it’s much the same. People gamely ask ‘what’s it like this year?’, and the imaginative struggle for a novel way to describe it. Yet its great strength is its unchangeability — the extraordinary (occasionally

Brooding Prince

Hamlet Wyndhams Arcadia Duke of York’s ‘No one can do the definitive Hamlet. It’s too big for that. But you can do an enormous amount.’ Wise words. Jude Law’s as it happens. All Hamlets fail and it’s a great tribute that Law’s fails remarkably little. His stage presence is thrilling, intense and highly athletic, and

Poster hero

Looking for Eric 15, Nationwide Looking for Eric is Ken Loach’s latest film, and while one worships Ken Loach generally and his early work in particular — Cathy Come Home; Family Life; Kes; all of which will still blow your socks off today — I’m just not at all sure about this. I mean, it’s