The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
For some reason October this year is yielding the kind of running about the place more normally associated with the summer festivals. From Naples to St Asaph, from Paris to Evora to St Omer and back to Evora in as many days with the added excitement of a broken-down Eurostar and various throat- and ankle-related
There’s something agreeably aimless, even melancholy, about late Saturday afternoons, after you’ve finished whatever you were doing in the day and before it’s time to go out. I found myself in a hotel room in Yorkshire last week at the crepuscular hour of 5.30, too lazy to do any work, too enervated to shower and
Joan Eardley The Fleming Collection, 13 Berkeley Street, London W1, until 20 December The interplay between realism and abstraction that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s in British art gave rise to a number of fascinating paintings as artists struggled to resolve the balance to their own satisfaction. The co-existence of these extremes in the
Cavalleria rusticana & I Pagliacci English National Opera Don Giovanni Royal Opera Cavalleria rusticana and I Pagliacci tend to be regarded by opera buffs as a couple of blowsy old tarts, still plying their trade long after they could plausibly expect any decent customers, and only to be contemplated or tolerated if they are wearing
These days, Charles Pooter, the City clerk and narrator of George and Weedon Grossmith’s The Diary of a Nobody (1892) — the enduring comedy of hum-drum middle-class, late-19th-century life — could never afford to rent (or buy) his six-bedroom house, The Laurels, in Brickfield Terrace, Holloway. The Pooters of this world fled north London a
This is a time for making the most of small mercies. One of the greatest of these, as the financial system collapses around us, is the splendid joke that is Robert Peston of the BBC. His extraordinarily camp, over-emphatic delivery would be perfect for reporting glitzy Broadway first nights but seems hilariously at odds with
‘I couldn’t understand most of it. I mean I could understand each word but not when they were put together,’ says one of the characters in Tulips in Winter on Radio Three on Sunday night. I knew immediately what he meant. There was something wonderful going on in Michelene Wandor’s play word for word, but
Henrietta Bredin on how book illustrations can bring the narrative to life The illustrations in children’s books play a crucial role in expanding the imaginative horizons of the reader and fixing the story in the memory. The very best book illustration is so inextricably linked to the text that it is hard to think of
Ursula Buchan on the new chief presenter of BBC 2’s Gardeners’ World Where do you stand on the most important issue of the day, namely, whether the BBC should have passed over Carol Klein, to be chief presenter of BBC 2’s Gardeners’ World after the retirement of Monty Don, in favour of Toby Buckland? The
A musician friend of mine acquired his first iPod recently, and like small boys who don’t realise that everyone else went through this about five years ago, he and I frequently discuss our battles with the things. A musician friend of mine acquired his first iPod recently, and like small boys who don’t realise that
Six Characters in Search of an Author Gielgud Riflemind Trafalgar Studios Pirandello, the master of pretentious bombast, is perhaps the most talent-free of all Nobel laureates. Here he is in the West End with one of his better-known experiments updated by Rupert Goold and his collaborator Ben Power. Playing games with the conventions of theatre
Why do some sounds endure to jolt the memory and take us back to a specific moment in time, like Proust’s taste sensations, while others fade away? The chunter-chunter-chunt of a steam train, for instance, is instantly recognisable even for those too young ever to have been on a ‘real’ steam journey. When they hear
Rothko Tate Modern, until 1 February 2009 The first thing that should be noted is that this exhibition is not the retrospective that its title implies. In fact, it’s a severely limited show, concentrating on the late work only. There are therefore none of the joyful, brightly coloured paintings that sell so well around the
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People 15, Nationwide How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is based on Toby Young’s best-selling memoir of the same name and, already, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: what, a film based on Toby’s book? Well, he kept that very quiet, the sly old devil.
Jamie’s Ministry of Food (Channel 4, Tuesday); Ian Hislop Goes off the Rails (BBC4, Thursday) ‘People have a problem with me,’ claims Jamie Oliver, but I’m not one of them. I’ve had my doubts in the past — overuse of phrases like ‘luvly jubbly’, the Sainsbury’s ads, the general extreme jealousy of his stupendous wealth,
An old friend in journalism, well aware that he was prone to conspiracy theories, especially where his own career was concerned, used to say to me, ‘Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean the bastards aren’t out to get me.’ So were the authorities out to get Aidan O’Brien when they convicted him and jockey Colm
Veronica Lee profiles the playwright as the Old Vic revives his best-known work Alan Ayckbourn, so theatre lore has it, is the second-most performed British playwright after Shakespeare. So why has he become so unfashionable among theatre cognoscenti? Partly, it’s his own doing. In 2002, disillusioned by the musical-laden, drama-free territory it had become and
Well, yesterday actually. Sheep graze under an oak tree at twilight. Looking east towards Selkirk.
Theatre It promises to be a wonderful autumn for London’s theatre-goers. Ivanov, Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of Chekhov’s early play, has opened the ‘Donmar at Wyndham’s’ season, to superb reviews. Joining it in a quest to bring the increasingly dowdy West End into repute is No Man’s Land, Harold Pinter’s 1975 masterpiece, revived at the
Although I waste a lot of time these days gazing longingly at advertisements for luxury cruises in the Daily Telegraph, I don’t think I could ever leave England for good. Although I waste a lot of time these days gazing longingly at advertisements for luxury cruises in the Daily Telegraph, I don’t think I could
Robin Holloway on the unique orchestra layout that produces the Festspielhaus’s unique acoustic There was no space in my report last month, on a first visit to the Bayreuth Festival, for what was in retrospect its most exciting quart d’heure, a privileged informal investigation of the unique orchestra layout that produces the Festspielhaus’s unique acoustic.
There was a sad moment in The Family (Channel 4, Wednesday) this week when Dad, the very long-suffering Simon Hughes, is inspecting his daughters’ bedroom, and doesn’t like what he sees. He has been assured that the room is neat and clean, so he responds with a blast of sarcasm. ‘Oh, look at this tidy,
The first Rolls-Royce I drove was a 1960s Shadow, across the Cairngorms on the glorious A939 to Tomintoul. It was a memorable drive, clear skies, snow-capped mountains, little traffic. When we returned to his Speyside house the owner suggested I try his Jaguar XJ6, which he thought a better drive than the Shadow. It was:
Edie Lush attends the record-breaking Sotheby’s sale of Damien Hirst’s artworks, and wonders whether it is all a metaphor for the recent madness of financial markets Last Monday was a historic day. Lehman filed for the biggest bankruptcy in history; the insurance giant AIG teetered on the brink; the Dow had its worst day since
Cold War Modern: Design 1945–1970 V&A, until 11 January 2009 It’s difficult not to admire the ambition of the V&A in mounting exhibitions which summarise and explain the great historical movements in design. There have been notable successes in the past, particularly with their surveys of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, but the closer the
Ivanov Wyndham’s Theatre Now or Later Royal Court Rain Man Apollo Great directors have the power to alter taste. Michael Grandage’s avowed aim with this revival of Ivanov, which opens the Donmar’s year-long residency at the Wyndham’s, is to secure the play a permanent place in the repertory. But even a director as sure-footed as
The last ever episode of The Wire was (finally) broadcast in Britain last night. Not, to their shame, on the BBC or Channel 4 but on the obscure, little-watched (hell, little-known) FX channel. A quiet end then. Coincidentally, the end came as, for the fifth time, the clowns who divvy up the Emmys failed to
There’s an intriguing performance coming up at the Purcell Room on London’s Southbank next Tuesday. Façade, the collection of poems by Edith Sitwell set to music by William Walton, will be recited by another Sitwell (William, also known as editor of Waitrose Food Illustrated and Food Spy for the Evening Standard) for the first time
No blogging for the rest of the day, I suspect. Why? Because I* just unloaded and stacked 200 bales of hay. Best cold beer of the summer being enjoyed right now. *OK, other people helped.