The Intimate Portrait: Drawings, Miniatures and Pastels from Ramsay to Lawrence British Museum, until 31 May In Room 90 at the BM is one of the free exhibitions the Department of Prints and Drawings do so well. This one has been organised in collaboration with the National Galleries of Scotland and was first seen at
Giselle; Triple Bill The Royal Ballet In my view, the debuts of Marianela Nuñez and Lauren Cuthbertson in Giselle have been the highlights of London’s current ballet season. I wish I had the writing abilities of Théophile Gautier, the man who first turned dance criticism into a respectable profession, to be able to convey the
I’ve got this brilliant idea for a Sunday night TV series. I’ve got this brilliant idea for a Sunday night TV series. It’s called Inspector Fluffy and His Agreeable Pipe. Every week, Inspector Fluffy (Stephen Fry) will travel to a picturesque corner of Britain in his battered Morris Traveller, giving tearaway gypsy children clips round
My colleague Alex James (how cool to be able to describe the bassist of Blur as a colleague) briefly mentioned the online music streaming service Spotify a few weeks ago, largely as a means to confessing his tragic addiction to the music of Ray Conniff. Actually, I gave old Ray a listen as a result
Angels & Demons 12A, Nationwide Angels & Demons is based on the book by Dan ‘Da Vinci Code’ Brown and is directed by Ron Howard and stars Tom Hanks and all I can really say about it is this: if there is one movie you don’t see this year, do make it this one. Or,
Götterdämmerung Bridgewater Hall, Manchester Don Carlos Opera North Manchester has a long and exalted history of service to Wagner, with Hans Richter, first conductor of the Ring, the chief conductor of the Hallé from 1899-1911, and Barbirolli a great Wagnerian, though there are lamentably few records of him in this repertoire. Mark Elder has for
There are wonderful lines in Fawlty Towers, many from rants by Basil. To the man who dares to ask for breakfast in bed: ‘You could sleep with your mouth open so I could drop in lightly buttered pieces of kipper…’, or to the woman who doesn’t like the view: ‘What did you expect from a
It’s spring, the gardening public has woken up and the plinky-plonky music calls us back for another series of BBC 2’s Gardeners’ World. It’s spring, the gardening public has woken up and the plinky-plonky music calls us back for another series of BBC 2’s Gardeners’ World. We in England have no choice; it is all
Framing Modernism: Architecture and Photography in Italy 1926-65 Estorick Collection, until 21 June Adrian Berg: Panoramic Watercolours Friends Room, Royal Academy, until 11 June Architecture exhibitions, as I’ve had occasion to note before, are not always the most visually exciting of events, principally because the experience of a building can only really be conveyed in
Art and Memory: New perspectives on memorial art West Dean, Nr Chichester, until 1 November There are those who haunt ancient churchyards in search of elegant epigraphs or curious carvings on lichened gravestones, but many focus only on what makes a good memorial when forced to do so by bereavement, and the desire to commemorate
There’s been a lot of muttering lately about the word ‘sorry’ and the reluctance of politicians and bankers to say it — an unrealistic expectation, given that the logical follow-up is resignation. There’s been a lot of muttering lately about the word ‘sorry’ and the reluctance of politicians and bankers to say it — an
Waiting for Godot Theatre Royal Haymarket Monsters Arcola Godot is one of the most undramatic pieces of theatre ever written and it contains a conundrum I’ve never seen satisfactorily resolved. As a playwright you aim to communicate emotion. If you can make the spectators feel what the characters are feeling, you have a success. However,
In his Point of View this week (Radio Four, Sunday), Clive James wove together a subtle threnody on the virtues of having a Poet Laureate. He remarked on how good poets have the ability to conjure up ‘the phrase that makes your mind stand on end’, showing that it’s a quality shared by many prose
The Last Cigarette Trafalgar Studio Rookery Nook Menier Simon Gray’s twilight diaries may well be a prose masterpiece. That the stage adaptation hasn’t done them justice is a fact few want to admit. The ‘much-loved’ fallacy has descended over this production for understandable reasons. Gray was a darling of the theatre, and the cast —
As You Like It; The Winter’s Tale Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon Back in the rehearsal room for the first time since his triumphant Histories cycle, the RSC’s artistic director Michael Boyd whisks As You Like It far away from the Forest of Arden. Not a tree in sight, and does anyone give a twig? Yes, the
The current exhibition at Tate Modern (Rodchenko and Popova: Defining Constructivism, until 17 May) is rich in cultural reference, apart from any reference to music. Here we have Popova collaborating with theatrical producers and designers, Rodchenko working alongside film-makers and poets (especially Mayakovsky), and everyone in a headlong dash away from easel work towards sculpture,
Lohengrin Royal Opera House Nietzsche said of the prelude to Act I of Lohengrin that it was the first piece of hypnosis by music, and listening to the Royal Opera orchestra’s performance of it under Semyon Bychkov tended to confirm his claim, at any rate until the climax, where Bychkov pulled out a few stops
Star Trek: The Future Begins 12A, Nationwide Listen, I’m no Trekkie, I don’t speak Klingon, I’ve never boldly been anywhere in the least bit exciting — my fear of motorways has always hampered me horribly in this respect — and I don’t like action epics but Star Trek: The Future Begins is quite fun. I’m
Easily the best thing that has happened to me recently was being called a warthog on TV by Charlie Brooker. At least that’s what I heard from people who’d seen Newswipe (BBC4 — http://is.gd/vztj). But it turned out I was just one of a number of hacks illustrating a point about opinion pieces written by
At last a late-night ‘comedy’ show on Radio Four that sounds a bit different. At last a late-night ‘comedy’ show on Radio Four that sounds a bit different. Bill Dare and his team of writers have been taking us on Tuesdays at 11 into their Secret World (Radio Four). It’s a universe in which you