The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Salome Royal Opera House Salome Royal Opera House What is a producer, or, as they more often like to be called these days, director, to do if he is asked to produce/direct a work about which he has no interesting ideas and none comes along during the production process, and the invitation comes from a
Flight London Coliseum Flight London Coliseum Ballet galas might be the dream of every spectacle-craving balletomane, but they can easily become a nightmarishly boring series of ‘party pieces’ if they are not properly organised. Luckily, this is not the case when a company such as Ensemble Production takes over, as demonstrated by a number of
Wise old man* says: In the forthcoming volume of his Smoking Diaries (not out till April, but I’ve been reading a proof copy) my old friend Simon Gray makes a brave admission. Well, he makes a number of these, but this particular one struck me. ‘I haven’t read him [Henry James] for years. I don’t
I’m not sure they make publishers like this anymore. Alas. As is so often the case we may count on the Daily Telegraph’s exquisite obituaries page to provide the details. Sic transit gloria mundi and all the rest of it. Anthony Blond, who has died aged 79, was a gentleman publisher from an age when
‘Avoiding both the pigeon hole and the blackboard I have tried to trace a connecting line between the apparently diverse and contradictory manifestations of contemporary music,’ wrote the composer and conductor Constant Lambert in the preface to Music ho!, his marvellously breezy survey of modern music published in 1934. Some 70 years later, the New
Anthony Powell always maintained that readers who disliked his early books did so on essentially non-literary grounds. Conservative reviewers of the 1930s, irked by the party-going degenerates of a novel like Afternoon Men (1931) did not believe that such people existed. If, on the other hand, they did exist then novels ought not to be
This book is a metaphor: a book about a museum that is itself a museum, crammed with cabinets and curiosities; a natural history of the Natural History Museum. It contains collections, of objects and of people; it educates and entertains; it helps you to see the world, and the NHM, with new eyes. Richard Fortey
In the forthcoming volume of his Smoking Diaries (not out till April, but I’ve been reading a proof copy) my old friend Simon Gray makes a brave admission. Well, he makes a number of these, but this particular one struck me. ‘I haven’t read him [Henry James] for years. I don’t believe I have the
On the other hand, some actors really are loopy to the tonsils. To wit, alas, the lovely Marion Cotillard, who is, it seems, a pretty keen conspiracy theorist: Marion Cotillard : J’ai tendance à être plutôt souvent de l’avis de la théorie du complot. Xavier de Moulins : Un peu parano ? M. C. :
David Brooks, one of the finest American writers of his generation, has a lovely column paying tribute to Bill Buckley today. The whole thing is well worth reading but the start is particularly delicious. When I was in college, William F. Buckley Jr. wrote a book called “Overdrive” in which he described his glamorous lifestyle.
Alexander Rodchenko: Revolution in Photography Hayward Gallery, until 27 April There’s a whole separate exhibition in the downstairs galleries of the Hayward. It’s called Laughing in a Foreign Language and is supposed to explore the role of laughter and humour in contemporary art through the work of 30 so-called international artists. As an exhibition, it’s
The Guardian had an interesting — and, frankly, terrifying — piece the other day by Nick Coleman, the Independent’s long-serving and shamelessly cerebral rock critic. I used to know Nick slightly: we talked drivel on the same radio show for a while a dozen years ago, and he wrote a piece about my first cricket
Margot at the Wedding Nationwide, 15 Margot at the Wedding is one of those unsettling and bothersome films which will bother and unsettle you during, afterwards and possibly for much of the next day, like a flea in the ear. If this is your sort of film, then you will like it and if you
Brief Encounter The Cinema Haymarket The Homecoming Almeida Under the Eagle White Bear Bit of a spoiled brat, the Cinema Haymarket. Can’t decide what it wants. Originally built as a theatre, it defected to the movies for many years but having tired of hosting popcorn blockbusters it’s now receiving plays again. Lovely auditorium, though. Wide
The Lady’s Not For Spurning (BBC4, Monday) was ostensibly about Margaret Thatcher and the baleful influence she had on the Conservative party after 1990. It was actually about Michael Portillo’s long quest for redemption. This has been going on since May 1997, when he lost his seat. As he pointed out in this documentary, which
Only this column would persuade me to get up at 6.30 on a Sunday morning. Six-thirty! In my other life I pore over the collected works of the 18th-century writer Dr Johnson, who constantly struggled to persuade himself out of bed before noon. He liked the idea of early rising, and each New Year resolved
This is a lively contribution to that mound of books — now approximately the height of Skiddaw — about Wordsworth and Coleridge and their ladies in the Lake District. Frances Wilson has found a niche, basing her book on Dorothy Wordsworth’s Grasmere Journals, written during the two and a half years at the opening of
In July, 1642, as the English House of Commons debated whether to raise an army against the king, a dismayed MP, Bulstrode Whitelocke, wondered how parliament had ‘insensibly slipped into this beginning of a civil war by one unexpected accident after another [so that] we scarce know how, but from paper combats, by declarations, remonstrances,
In 1988 I arrived in Pakistan a few hours after the assassination of Zia ul-Huq, the military dictator whose aircraft had been blown to pieces by a bomb. In most countries the violent death of a leader, who had dominated politics for more than a decade, would trigger soul-searching, or at the very least a
Quick Oscar** thought: no American actor or actress won an Oscar this year. The four acting awards went to: Tilda Swinton (Scotland), Javier Bardem (Spain) Daniel Day-Lewis (England/Ireland) and Marion Cotillard (France). Have the Americans ever been shut out like this before? Does it mean anything beyond the fact that the Oscars are an increasingly
One of the greatest American artists of the Twentieth Century was born 100 years ago today. The artist was Tex Avery (d. August 26th, 1980), and his medium was animation. At his height – in the 1940s – Avery created numerous cartoons and cartoon-characters which gleefully undercut the fluffy Disney archetype. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and
Toby Jones on how theatre is being used in Malawi to help stop the spread of Aids The interior designer charged with decorating the IT suite probably didn’t have theatre in mind. I am staring at the pastel carpeting, Venetian blinds and the useless plug dangling from the overhead projector: we could be anywhere. The
Rambo 18, nationwide Is nothing sacred? Rambo, the patron saint of the American conservative movement, has become a liberal. When we last encountered this Reagan-era action hero, he was helping the mujahedin kick the Russians out of Afghanistan — and before that, in Rambo: First Blood Part II, he was rescuing forgotten American POWs from
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (MacLehose Press, £14.99, translated from the Swedish by Stephen Murray) is the first volume of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. Larsson was a journalist who sadly died of a heart attack before publication. But the books are selling in their millions across Europe and, once you read the first of
The first world war seemed like a good idea at the time. Cheering crowds thronged deliriously through the capitals of Europe as war was declared. In England the prospect of being paid to kill foreigners started a stampede to join up. Within five weeks almost 480,000 men had volunteered, many lying about their age. An
If you were left a legacy by a friend would you tuck it away, blow it on art, or buy something for your home or the person you share it with? Notting Hill-based writer Duncan Fallowell decided to do what it says on the cover and go as far as he could. Why? ‘So that
At the outset of this rich, dense and polemical primer on the modern history of political violence Michael Burleigh has the good sense to define his terms. He describes terrorism as ‘a tactic primarily used by non-state actors, who can be an acephalous entity as well as a hierarchical organisation, to create a climate of
Does Daniel Day Lewis deserve an Oscar for There Will Be Blood? I’d say so, over Clooney anyway – who rarely differs the characters he plays. In a Hollywood era where stars basically play themselves, Day Lewis changes beyond recognition and always has – think Room with a View, My Beautiful Laundrette or My Left
Anyone with a taste for schadenfreude can tune in to BBC1 Question Time tonight, where yours truly will be in Newcastle extolling the virtues of the free market in the home of Northern Rock. Other panellists are Ruth Kelly, Vince Cable and Alan Duncan.