The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Of all the world’s under- developed and misruled countries few can compete with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The former Belgian Congo, more recently known as Zaire, has lived for so long with lawlessness, brute violence and neglect, with Belgian colonial and Mobutu’s post-colonial exploitation, that it seems to have justified Joseph Conrad’s selection
What is the What cuts through the strata of criticism, and gets straight to a fundamental question, one which echoes the title: What is a novel? The plot is the journey to Ethiopia, Kenya and finally America of a Sudanese refugee, Valentino Achak Deng, but what makes this ‘novel’ unusual is that Valentino is a
The problem about contemporary history is that we know both too little about it and too much. The archives of the state are closed to the public for 30 years, leaving us dependent on those famous sources of myth and misinformation, political diarists, memoir writers and journalists. At the bottom end, a history of our
We are promised a true American love story, but the lovers of this romance do not so much make love as f***, even in their tenderest moments. The couple in question are Rosalie, Duchess de la Rochefoucauld and William Short, Thomas Jefferson’s adoptive son and secretary at the Paris embassy in the 1780s and ’90s.
I have a hazy memory of a 1950s television series on stately homes in which Richard Dimbleby (dubbed ‘Gold-Microphone-in-Waiting’ by Malcolm Muggeridge) would respectfully prompt their Wode- housian owners into trotting out seasoned anecdotes. ‘And this of course is the celebrated Red Drawing-room. Your Grace, I think, ahem, you have a story about that curious
Why do we have to pay between £3.50 and £5.40 to book tickets for the theatre on the internet? Most people are unable to turn up in person to book seats — the only way to avoid the extra cost. If a theatre has, say, 600 seats, and over half are filled by people booking
Iain Dale reports that Ed Balls was understandably gloating about the defection of Quentin Davies last night at a Fabian Society reception last night and promised his audience that, “There’s more to come – as I know.”
Where better to spend the last night of the Blair era than in the company of ageing rockers? These days, The Who smash their tambourines rather than their guitars. But, other than that, they are still as sharp as the sharpest Carnaby Street winkle pickers and as taut as the tires on a brand new
This Fraser Nelson piece from September reveals which eight people will really matter when Gordon Brown finally gets his hands on the crown. Do give it a read.
If you think Glastonbury is silly, click on the BBC News website and watch the clip of 2,000 heavy metal fans playing Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” in Stuttgart. This, as any fule kno, is one of the most over-rated songs in the history of pop music, plodding and portentous, opening with a mindless
There is a corner of Northumberland, in the valley of the River Coquet, where the climate has been changed for ever by the actions of one man. In the mid-1860s, William Armstrong set out to transform vast tracts of raw, bleak moorland into what he described as ‘an earthly paradise’ and by the time of
There is a remarkable project of great enterprise and diligence in progress throughout the land — a plan to catalogue all the oil paintings (as well as those in acrylic or tempera) in national collections. This gigantic task is being undertaken by a charity called The Public Catalogue Foundation, which is publishing its findings in
‘They order, said I, this matter better in France.’ It is the norm at the national pavilions (a record 76 nations are present this year) for a new commissioner to be appointed for each edition, who selects the artist, or artists, to represent their country, or heads a committee that does so. A dozen years
Midsummer. Holidays loom. Migrations are being pondered and planned. Right now the English theatre-going middle classes are yearning for August, for Tuscany, for the pine-scented South, and for the sunbeds where they’ll sprawl and doze all summer smeared in perfumed lard and turning the colour of teak. Lovely. The West End is ready for these
Sex, the City and Me (BBC2, Sunday) might just as well have been called ‘All Men Are Bastards — based on a true story’. Sarah Parish played Jess, a horrible person, a fund manager who is better at her job than all the men around her. She was offensive to them, offhand to her husband
We know the pressures the steady flow of immigrants has caused in our society though we hear less about the benefits of having them here; nor do we have much idea what they think about us. Lev, the Polish migrant in Rose Tremain’s new book, expected to find men who looked like Alec Guinness in The
During the post-war years, the author of this book was a much-talked about variety artiste, famous for breaking ten-inch nails, bending steel bars in her teeth and throwing Bob Hope over her shoulder. Billed as the Mighty Mannequin, Joan Rhodes enhanced her appeal by looking and dressing as if she had stepped out of the
Is he a monster, saint, genius or lunatic? In this massive book Naim Attallah attempts to lay to rest the gossip, slander and misconceptions that have dogged him for much of his life, while also coming clean about his own mistakes and failures. I have to declare an interest. I was, in the 1980s, one
Italian intellectuals, Cambodian peasants, Hungarian workers, Russian colonels, Angolan insurgents, French philosophes, American actors, British miners, Chinese craftsmen, Nicaraguan labourers: over the years, the adherents of the international communist movement have been so geographically and socially diverse as to defy classification. During the 100-odd years of the movement’s existence, nations as different as Czarist Russia,
Two books just out from small publishers throw interesting light on the more secret corners of the British handling of the world war against Hitler’s Germany. Each covers a subject that was deadly secret at the time, but of critical importance for winning the war. Joan Bright Astley’s war autobiography, published to much less acclaim
‘Painting with money’ is how Michael Winner described making films. And if the money runs out you can always turn your script into a novel. Ken Russell’s Beethoven Confidential was to have starred Anthony Hopkins in the title role with Glenda Jackson and Jodie Foster as a couple of swooning aristos eager to sponsor the
No doubt Mr Blair will soon be at work on his memoirs; or perhaps his ghost will. Ghosts play a necessary role in the publishing business. Indeed all those firms who rely for their profits on the autobiographies — and even occasionally the novels — of celebrities might collapse without the work of these industrious
At last an issue to unite all of us — right, left, Muslim, Christian and Hindu, liberal and conservative. The decision to knight the author Salman Rushdie has brought together, in angry concordat, almost the entire world. There are those who, even now, may be strapping on the semtex to deliver to Rushdie the righteous
The departure of Nick Ross from “Crimewatch” is a sad victory for the worst kind of criteria now being applied in television. Nobody disputes the importance of appearance on screen – it would be odd if it were otherwise – but Ross is scarcely senescent and looks a pretty sprightly 59 year old. Having dined
Back from Interesting 2007, a daylong festival of creativity in the Web 2.0 world at the Conway Hall in Red Lion Square, and organised by the peerless Russell Davies (check out his always stimulating blog). Amongst the many ideas and concepts given an airing: the links between the Muppets and Ibsen; ‘foot candy’ for those
David Belasco was a pioneer in the field of stage lighting, passionate about creating realistic effects, the most famous of which occurred in his one-act play Madame Butterfly, during which the action slowed to an almost total halt for a 14-minute, lovingly rendered dawn sequence. Puccini saw the play in London in 1900 and rushed
The Royal Academy Summer Show boasts that it is the world’s largest open submission contemporary art exhibition, but this year it focuses on invited artists and distinguished foreign visitors. Thus it neglects both the Academicians, its real strength and raison d’être, and the until now faithful corps of British artists who submit year in, year
A small but beautifully staged exhibition is now on show in the garret of Dr Johnson’s House in London. It was in this room that Johnson worked on his mammoth Dictionary of the English Language. A large roof-space with eaves and heavily charred roof timbers (the roof was set on fire by the Germans a
Nabucco; Pelléas et Mélisande Arriving for the first production in Opera Holland Park’s new season, we were greeted with a reassuringly retro set. Since there is no curtain, what we see is what we’re going to get, and it is a stage full of battered suitcases and nothing else. For the operagoer, this sets bells