The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
66 Books – The Bush Theatre The Bush opened its new theatre with an extraordinarily energetic celebration of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. The 66 playlets, one inspired by each of the books of the Bible, included the occasional dud – but the overwhelming majority were sparklers. Stand-outs included Ony Uhiara as
Thanks to some mistake of history, Shakespeare’s Richard II has never quite been recognised as one of those roles against which the great actors are measured. But it takes a virtuoso to bring Richard to life: like all the toughest roles, he’s a heap of contradictions out of which only the most talented actors can
There are, as they say, only thirteen more shopping days until Christmas. And that, unless you don’t much care for seasonality, means only thirteen more days of Christmas music. But what to listen to? There are the old standards, of course: the carols, the hymns, that Slade song. But I thought I’d delve into my
If you don’t like Simon Callow, you probably don’t like the theatre either. He is as theatrical as a box of wigs. Who else would bark ‘come!’ when someone knocks on his dressing-room door? There he is with a glass of wine, a boom of good cheer, having peeled off his side whiskers after his
When I was at school, I remember the art teacher returning incensed from a trip to London during which he’d taken a group of seniors to the Tate Gallery. The particular object of his ire was what he described as ‘a pile of blankets’ by Barry Flanagan. He could not accept that this was a
The Unthanks couldn’t have chosen a more fitting venue for the first night of their current tour than St James’s Church, Piccadilly; just as it’s all too easy for passers-by, eyes glued to the bright lights, to overlook this relic of the 17th century, one could be forgiven for missing The Unthanks’ distinctive breed of
The Onion is a comic giveaway American newspaper that satirises the awfulness of most American newspapers. ‘Doofus Chilean miner stuck down there again’ is one of their recent headlines, along with ‘Parents honor dead son by keeping up his awful blog’. Now we in Britain can watch the television version, Onion News Network (Sky Arts
Too much dark, not enough light, often leads us inwards, into those dark regions of the mind where memory resides. Between the Ears (Radio 3, Saturday evening) echoed the mood of the month by taking us on a journey back into that hinterland of darkness where names begin to disappear, places can no longer be
You can see why Harold Bloom, in his marvellous book Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, should have called Measure for Measure one of Shakespeare’s most ‘rancid’ plays. But it’s also one that he greatly admired, though it takes a good production like Roxana Silbert’s new one at Stratford to show you just why. Bloom’s
It’s the usual old muddle. You take a Shakespeare classic and you time-travel it to an alien century, usually the present one, which has no connection with its historic setting. The plan, we’re always told, is to generate that supremely irrelevant attribute, ‘relevance’. Director Dominic Cooke has fast-forwarded The Comedy of Errors to modern London
Like a few who have ploughed through the Steve Jobs biography, I am now heartily tired of early adopters, those strange men who are always at the front of the queue at the Apple shop when some dismal new gewgaw is coming out. I myself am a classic late adopter, discovering the new and exciting
This year’s Christmas offering at the Royal Opera is yet a further revival of Richard Eyre’s production of La Traviata, which began the season and is being revived again early in 2012. The main reason I went again to an opera for which I usually feel distaste was to see and hear Simon Keenlyside in
Puss in Boots was the surprise hit character — the standout sidekick — of the second Shrek movie, and went on to tickle us in Shrek the Third and Shrek Forever After. Sleek, foolish, vain and blessed with the all-butter voice of Antonio Banderas, he was the roving ginger tom whom audiences wished to take
Ed Balls is a bonny fighter and even his opponents often appear to enjoy being wound-up by the Shadow Chancellor’s pleasingly-shameless* approach to opposition. There was a typical piece of Ballsian chicanery during this afternoon’s debate on the economy when Balls accused George Osborne of stubbornly sticking to a failed “Plan A” and, to buttress
Michael Henderson talks to John Wilson, whose obsession with songs from the golden age of musicals led him to form his own band ‘People think I am an expert on musicals,’ says John Wilson, in his pleasing Geordie voice, ‘but that is something I am certainly not. I am obsessed with songs, written by professional
Among exhibition organisers, hyperbole is clearly the order of the day. The crowds are going wild over Leonardo at the National Gallery, expecting an exhibition packed with paintings (though only nine are by the master), and now the Fitzwilliam is hauling them in with a show called Vermeer’s Women that contains just four paintings by
Inexplicably, this series failed to note that Gillian Welch and David Rawlings finally released a new album this year. Better late than never, here they are again this time performing Dark Turn of Mind…
Plays used to end in marriage. Then they anatomised the highs and lows of life as a couple. Now — at least in Neil LaBute’s latest London première — the relationships are all either over or heading that way fast. Reasons to Be Pretty (Almeida, until 14 January) gives a spot-on depiction of those no-man’s-land
To the Manor Reborn (BBC1, Thursday) is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant programmes in the history of television. But then I’m biased for the Rat is in it, and what a splendid, handsome and talented young fellow he has turned out to be. If you looked very carefully about halfway through episode one, you’ll
Keep awake, urges the Gospel messenger in the readings for the beginning of the Christian festival of Advent. That’s not easy in late November when by lunchtime the sun is already fast dropping to the horizon. The propensity to nap, to switch off, can be overwhelming. In Finland it must be so much worse. For
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s and Jérôme Bel’s 3Abschied is the latest addition to a long and historically well-established series of choreographic works set to music by Gustav Mahler. There are still those, however, who cringe at the idea of dancing to the notes of this revered composer — as Keersmaeker points out in her initial
They can’t even be bothered to think of a decent title. Good thing too. The Riots, at the Trike, is a rush job, a gripping and pacey attempt to analyse the disturbances that engulfed Britain last August. Cops, criminals and community leaders have been interviewed by Gillian Slovo, who fashioned their statements into a dramatic
Hugo 3D is Martin Scorsese’s first child-friendly family film and the first thing to say about Martin Scorsese’s first child-friendly family film is that it is a visual wonder: rich, lush, beautiful, gorgeous. But the second thing to say is nothing else is as exciting as the look of it and if there is a
Her mother was Ellen Terry, the most admired actress of the day. Her brother was Edward Gordon Craig, the celebrated stage designer. Little wonder then that Edith Craig was overshadowed for most of her life by two such towering figures. Yet her theatrical achievements were substantial. She was a talented costume designer and maker, the
In recent years there has been a surge of interest in the treasures hidden in our public art collections, many of them rarely if ever on view. The Tate Gallery is perhaps the principal offender here, showing only a tiny percentage of its glorious and wide-ranging holdings of British art, but attention is now being
At least one market posted strong results in November. That was the market for contemporary art. In just four days in New York — 7 to 10 November — a phenomenal $775 million was spent on postwar and contemporary art at auction alone (who knows what deals were transacted privately). Sotheby’s evening sale exceeded its
I prepared for this exhibition in Düsseldorf by taking the short train journey down the Rhine to Cologne, which would hate to be thought of as a twin city. Its gigantic cathedral is as I first saw it some 40 years ago, still black with soot (but where would you start to clean it?), and
Venice and Alexandria were, as far as the Venetians were concerned, twin cities. According to legend, St Mark had visited Venice before going to Alexandria, where he preached, performed miracles and was martyred. When two Venetian merchants stole the saint’s remains from Alexandria in 828, they were merely fulfilling the prophecy of the Angel that
Historically, British artists have not been good at money management. George Morland (1762–1804) was chronically insolvent; Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846) served four jail terms for debt and eventually killed himself after being reduced to pawning his spectacles; even Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830) died leaving debts of £30,000. But the painter who turned serial defaulting into an