The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
‘Pauline was as beautiful as it was possible to be’, the Austrian statesman Metternich once observed. ‘Pauline was as beautiful as it was possible to be’, the Austrian statesman Metternich once observed. ‘She was in love with herself alone, and her sole occupation was pleasure’. Metternich was not quite fair. Pauline, as sculpted in Canova’s
Here’s a tricky question for your next pub quiz. What do the following people have in common? Here’s a tricky question for your next pub quiz. What do the following people have in common? The protagonist of Christopher Nolan’s film Memento, Scott Bakula’s character in Star Trek: Enterprise and Steve Wozniak, one of the co-founders
Eleven years after Jean Rhys’s death in 1979, Carole Angier published a monumental biography, a model of its kind, with 70 pages of notes and seven of bibliography. Lilian Pizzichini’s ‘portrait’ of Rhys is a book of a wholly different kind. The best way to describe it is that it bears the same relationship to
Ricky Jay has an op-ed in today’s NYT on the Susan Boyle phenomenon. It’s interesting – there may not be many people alive who know more about the history of freak shows and public oddities than Jay – but it’s really just an excuse to point you towards Mark Singer’s terrific New Yorker profile of
Michael Kinsley has a very entertaining take-down of the “new” Newsweek in this week’s edition of the New Republic*. However, I doubt the “old” Newsweek would have dared publish this very entertaining, even brutal, demolition of Oprah Winfrey. In fact, it’s the sort of piece one might imagine appearing in TNR. So, whatever the merits
Andrew Lambirth talks to Douglas Dunn and Norman Ackroyd about their latest collaboration Illustrated books are one of the glories of a library. Looking over my own shelves I find assorted delights ranging from The Story of My Heart, the unorthodox vision of the naturalist Richard Jefferies fittingly partnered with woodcuts by Ethelbert White, to
A Doll’s House Donmar The Observer Cottesloe Amazing guy, Ibsen. Still scribbling away at the age of 181, the Norwegian genius has teamed up with under-rated Spooks writer Zinnie Harris to create a new version of A Doll’s House. They’ve shifted the setting from 19th-century Norway to London in 1909 and promoted Thomas from the
Irresistible, the allure of a snatched weekend in Paris to catch a rare, adored opera, Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui. Irresistible, the allure of a snatched weekend in Paris to catch a rare, adored opera, Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui. This glorious cornucopia of intoxicating invention has ‘enjoyed’ a history of bad luck: the delirious
‘Consider the depth of despair,’ suggested the playwright David Hare in his half-hour reflection, Wall, on Monday evening (Radio Four). ‘Consider the depth of despair,’ suggested the playwright David Hare in his half-hour reflection, Wall, on Monday evening (Radio Four). It is extraordinary how Israel’s construction of a 486-mile barrier along its eastern border, at
So it could be that ITV is saved not by a cigar-chomping, hot-shot show-biz executive but by a spinster from a Scottish village. The appearance of Susan Boyle in the first semi-final of Britain’s Got Talent (ITV, all week) was greeted with adoration — and audience figures — that would have been apt if Maria
Falstaff Glyndebourne There was an interesting, startled article in the Independent a couple of weeks ago in which the writer recorded that, contrary to the expectations of everyone in ‘the media’, as the credit crisis squeezes harder, its victims, instead of turning to ever more feather-brained sources of enjoyment and consolation, are bewilderingly trying an
I am sitting in the town square of Hermoupolis, capital of the Greek island of Syros, when I am approached with great courtesy by a gentleman carrying a bundle of papers, on the top of which I can make out the words Notenbüchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach. I am sitting in the town square of
There are more lesbians in fiction than you could shake a stick at, of course. Graham Robb, writing about late 19th-century fict- ional lesbians, has observed that the fin-de-siècle lesbian was educated at a boarding school or a convent. She was frighteningly self-possessed, wore dark colours, read novels, smoked cigars, injected morphine or inhaled ether,
‘Jamaican history’, wrote Karl Marx, ‘is characteristic of the beastliness of a true Englishman’. In The Dead Yard, Ian Thomson laments the consequences, with the grim conclusion that the British planters cast Jamaica aside like a sucked orange once they had exploited their estates. Having shaped Jamaica’s past for good or ill, Britain has not
Rennie Airth’s first John Madden mystery, River of Darkness, published ten years ago, was set in 1921. His second, The Blood-Dimmed Tide, was set in 1932 and this, the third and reputedly the last, takes place in the closing months of 1944. The series spans, therefore, more than 20 years. In the first, Inspector Madden
Gillian Tindall has had the ingenious and sympathetic idea of combining biography and topography in an overview of British visitors to Paris from 1814 to the present day — an enterprise of formidable research and enviable lightness of touch. Selecting various members of her own extended family, she traces their temporary residence in Paris and
A couple of years ago, Adam Zamoyski — who is, yes, a friend — told me that he was revising The Polish Way, a history of Poland he had published back in 1987. At first he had thought merely to shorten a few over-long paragraphs and check facts. But as he re-read his work, he
For Professor Overy Britain between the two world wars was, as his title proclaims, a morbid age. There was a general view among intellectuals that civilisation — itself a creation of intellectuals — was in crisis, and society in danger of collapse. There was an ‘institutionalised pessimism’ that became ‘an overriding intellectual fashion’ that spread
Get home from the theatre to find my laptop flashing a notice at me saying: ‘Godot: overdue’. Which indeed he was, patiently, achingly, endlessly waited for in an extraordinary performance by Messrs Stewart, McKellen, Callow and Pickup. Difficult to single out particular moments but possibly the best piece of advice for all of us in
Has anyone at the Republican National Committee actually watched Goldfinger? Apparently not. My friend Garance Franke-Ruta picked up on a web video posted on Youtube by the RNC which compared Nancy Pelosi with Pussy Galore. And this is supposed ot be an attack ad? Sheesh, when did being compared to Honor Blackman become a bad
Given the nature of his own work there was something delightfully, shall we say, mischievous about David Brooks’ review of Simon Schama’s (absurdly titled) The American Future: A History. The into was especially good: Some people collect stamps, and others butterflies, but I have a thing for Brilliant Books. The Brilliant Book is the sort
Stephen Pettitt on how Sir Roger Norrington and others started the debate about ‘authenticity’ In the late 1970s, the conductor Sir Roger Norrington, at the time in charge of the late and lamented Kent Opera, created the London Classical Players. With this act Norrington, who has just turned 75, joined a small group of musicians
It’s hard to be certain of these things but, like Peter Suderman, I rather think that (video after the jump) this is the best edition of Auto-Tuning the News yet. And it comes with a dollop of Ron Paul goodness too! Plus, Hamid Karzai, Hillary Clinton, Dick Cheney and Katie Couric. What more could you
Peter Grimes English National Opera L’elisir d’amore Royal Opera House Norma English Touring Opera, in Cambridge ENO’s advertisement for its new production of Peter Grimes under David Alden, and the front of the programme, is of a surly, even aggressive youth with ropes coiled behind him. I wondered whether Alden had decided, in characteristic fashion,
Duet for One Vaudeville Ordinary Dreams Trafalgar Studio Therapy is celebrity by another name. An artificially created audience bears witness to your anguish and joy and enables you to resolve the terrible contradiction that underpins every human being’s world-view. Each of us, in his gut, feels like the star of his life. But in his
On Go4it, Radio Four’s shortly to be axed Sunday-evening programme for children, we heard from children in Swaziland who have created their own radio station, Ses’khone Radio. On Go4it, Radio Four’s shortly to be axed Sunday-evening programme for children, we heard from children in Swaziland who have created their own radio station, Ses’khone Radio. Their
A distractingly surreal moment during an otherwise thrillingly powerful performance of Don Carlos at Opera North in Leeds last night. At a point of high dramatic intensity, the requisite explosive gunshot sound from offstage failed to materialise so Rodrigo, for whom the bullet was intended, was forced to expire dramatically for no discernible reason. A
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