The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
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
Isa Genzken: Open, Sesame! Whitechapel Gallery, until 21 June Passports: Great Early Buys from the British Council Collection Whitechapel Gallery, until 14 June The Whitechapel has just re-opened after a major renovation and expansion, increasing gallery space by 78 per cent, incorporating and transforming the old library next door as part of a Heritage Lottery
Lloyd Evans charts the death of political satire and looks to where comedy is heading next Live comedy ought to be extinct. For five years the internet has been waving an eviction order in its face, but despite the YouTube menace, and its threat of death-by-a-thousand-clips, live stand-up is blossoming. You’ll have noticed this if
Last week it was Dolly Parton in this (newly created!) slot; this Saturday it’s the turn of another great country diva, Emmylou Harris. I saw her at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow last year and, truth to say, it was probably only a 6/10 gig. I think Norm’s assessment of her performance in Manchester
Some say that pop music has nowhere else to go, but they are wrong: there is still extreme old age to negotiate. This week the American singer-songwriter, activist and folk evangelist Pete Seeger is 90 years old. Fifteen years ago, when he was 75, I’m not sure anyone was paying much attention. Folk music had
I’m no sharpshooter but molehills aren’t mountains, and at 100 yards over open sights, when you’re standing unsupported, a slither of white plastic stuck into one looks vanishingly small along the barrel of a Winchester 30-30. I’m no sharpshooter but molehills aren’t mountains, and at 100 yards over open sights, when you’re standing unsupported, a
Stephen Walt and Dan Drezner each list ten films they think merit inclusion in a Foreign Policy Film Festival since they shed some light, one way or another, upon international relations. Well, that’s a parlour game everyone can play. No need to hold tenure! Professor Walt suggests that war movies, spy capers and propaganda films
Best: His Mother’s Son (BBC 2, Sunday) was, for those of us from a certain place and time, almost unbearably poignant. Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris — such a charming soubriquet — was a defender with Chelsea in the 1960s. He tells the story of his manager, Tommy Docherty, briefing him before a match against Manchester United.
Mark Wallinger Curates the Russian Linesman Hayward Gallery, until 4 May Annette Messager: The Messengers Hayward Gallery, until 25 May For many people, Mark Wallinger (born 1959) is the man who likes horses. He is the artist with a passionate interest in racing and thoroughbreds, the successful competitor for the Ebbsfleet Landmark commission, in which
Michael Bullivant tells Petroc Trelawny how he became Bulawayo’s chief musical impresario For an extraordinary month in 1953, Bulawayo became the epicentre of culture in the southern hemisphere. In celebration of the centenary of the colonialist and diamond magnate Cecil Rhodes, the Royal Opera House and Sadlers Wells Ballet took up residence. Sir John Gielgud
Baroque 1620-1800: Style in the Age of Magnificence V&A, until 19 July The Baroque is a style of drama, movement and opulence. Until the 19th century it was a term for the grotesque or absurd; then it was taken over by those who sought to categorise the mainstream developments of European culture. As an adjective,
Calendar Girls Noël Coward Only When I Laugh Arcola Ooh dear, the critics have been terribly sniffy about Calendar Girls. This dazzlingly funny, shamelessly sentimental and utterly captivating tale of middle-aged women posing naked to raise cash for charity should have won five-star plaudits all round. But the reviews have thrown a veil over its
I write fresh from a local event with historical roots far into the past — a concert, part of a year’s-worth of events celebrating Cambridge’s first eight centuries, devoted to exploring the university’s long past and rich present of choral singing. I write fresh from a local event with historical roots far into the past
‘Do you think that Africa is ever going to be free of these superstitions?’ asked the reporter Sorious Samura in the first of his four-part series, West African Journeys on the BBC World Service (Mondays). ‘Do you think that Africa is ever going to be free of these superstitions?’ asked the reporter Sorious Samura in
The phone rang last night, I picked it up and it was our friend Tania. ‘God, I hate my ****ing husband,’ she said. ‘Oh, Tania, don’t be silly, Jamie’s a sweetheart,’ I said. ‘Oh, shut up, I don’t want to be talking to you, you’re a man. Pass me to your wife, she’ll understand,’ said
I am always blown away by the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards. But for some reason, last night’s event seemd to throw up an even more astonishing roster of award winners than usual. It was also good that so many were there in person. (In a surreal touch, Paul Staines, aka Guido Fawkes,
Rodchenko and Popova: Defining Constructivism Tate Modern, until 17 May Art is always at its most dangerous — but perhaps also its most endearing — when it approaches the idealistic. In the wake of the Russian Revolution of October 1917, the group of artists who called themselves Constructivists came to believe that abstraction could transform
Lloyd Evans wanders round Inner Temple and discovers another world in the tangle of squares Where’s the best place to eat lunch in London? First let’s strike restaurants off the list. At a restaurant your plate of recently throttled livestock will have been executed by a pimply sadist, cooked by a cursing psychopath and delivered
Maggie’s End Shaw Death and the King’s Horseman Olivier Here’s an unexpected treat. An angry left-wing play crammed with excellent jokes. Ed Waugh and Trevor Wood’s lively bad-taste satire starts with Margaret Thatcher’s death. A populist New Labour Prime Minister rashly opts to grant her a state funeral which prompts a furious reaction in Labour’s
In the Loop 15, Nationwide Love it, love it, love it and for those of you who are a bit slow — I know who you are; don’t think I don’t — I loved this film. It’s great. It’s fast, it’s funny and it’s so on the money about self-interested politicians, clueless aides, dodgy dossiers
Matthaüs-Passion Barbican ‘God save us…it’s just as if one were at an opera!’ a woman is quoted as saying at a performance of Bach’s Matthaüs-Passion in the 18th century. If she meant that it is hard to imagine a more intensely dramatic experience — it is other kinds of experience, too, of course — then
For reasons that need not detain us here, I have recently had to endure more than my fair share of Luciano Berio and other blighters of that ilk, and I wanted to consider how the glorious Western classical music tradition of structure, harmony and melodic invention could have descended into plinkety plonk rubbish and the
It’s not often that a business correspondent looks to a musician for advice on investing in the stock market, but Radio Four’s Peter Day turned up on Handel Week and gave us an unusual take on the great baroque composer. It’s not often that a business correspondent looks to a musician for advice on investing
The Private Life of a Masterpiece (BBC1, Saturday) got an Easter outing about Caravaggio’s ‘The Taking of Christ’. The Private Life of a Masterpiece (BBC1, Saturday) got an Easter outing about Caravaggio’s ‘The Taking of Christ’. It was superb, as this series invariably is. Understated yet informative, packed with unpatronising experts, it fascinates from start
Let’s rewind back to this morning, and Ed Balls’ appearance on the Today progamme. It was such a classic demonstration of distortion and buck-passing, that we’ve decided to give it a fisk, Coffee House style. Here’s the transcript, with our thoughts added in italics: James Naughtie: Talking about bad behaviour, there’s been a bit of
It is, at present, almost impossible to open a garden magazine, or the gardening pages of a national newspaper, without coming across an article on how we are all now kitchen gardeners and allotmenteers; the theme is that the uncertain economic conditions have turned us back to our gardens, to grow comestibles and thereby ensure
Katie Mitchell explains to Henrietta Bredin how she is creating a parallel film world with Purcell’s opera It is 350 years since Henry Purcell was born and his music is, gloriously, being played and sung all around the country. And there are a lot of different Didos about: Christopher Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage at
Parlour Song Almeida Tusk Tusk Royal Court Back in 1995 Jez Butterworth got tagged with the ‘Most Promising Playwright’ beeper and he still hasn’t shaken it off. Butterworth is an excellent second-rate writer, he has a wonderful knack for quirky comic dialogue but he wants to be a Great Artist too. A pity. All a
Someone needs to write a history of vibrato. Clearly this should be Roger Norrington: to judge from his words on Radio Three recently he has given the topic much thought and come up with some historically-based conclusions. I suspect he isn’t going to do it, though, because, like me, he is too busy chiselling out