The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Mary Wakefield talks to Jonathan Kent about his plans to jump-start the West End Something is rotten in the West End. It’s not just the sour smell of lager, or the Saturday night binge drinkers. It’s more that as I walk up St Martin’s Lane, through what should be the beating heart of theatreland, there’s
Born Georg Kern in 1938, Baselitz adopted the name of his birthplace in Saxony, East Germany just after his definitive move to the West in 1958. Brought up in an atmosphere of gloom and social realism, he had been expelled from art school in East Berlin for ‘social-political immaturity’. He fared better in West Berlin
Positively oceanic was the season’s principal novelty. It was not a new commission; rather, the rediscovery 440 years after its composition of the Mass in 40 parts by Alessandro Striggio, whose final Agnus Dei rises to a staggering 60, which ought to leave Tallis’s celebrated Motet (whose inspiration is reckoned to originate here) pale and
Anyone who goes into the Annely Juda Gallery in Dering Street expecting something like those light, airy, weight-denying abstract steel sculptures, painted bright red all over perhaps, like the Tate’s song-evoking ‘Early One Morning’, 1962, is in for a big surprise. All works shown here stand with absolute, resolute, broad-based firmness as if to proclaim
Too many musicals in London? It depends whether you think the West End should be a temple or a funfair. Room for both, I’d say. But the fact that many musicals are thriving doesn’t mean any musical will. Hit shows succeed because they get virtually everything right. Bad Girls gets three out of five things
Michael Clayton is one of those American films about American lawyers doing American lawyer stuff which isn’t usually my kind of thing. And, anyway, didn’t money-hungry men in neat suits stop being cool or interesting in about 1982? But you know what? This is a pretty decent corporate thriller: tense, exciting, involving, and best of
Guilty pleasure (Radio 4) Unmasking the English (Radio 4) In 1908 Gerald Mills borrowed £1,000 (worth about £52,000 in today’s money) to set up a publishing company with his friend Charles Boon. Among their first authors were P.G. Wodehouse and Jack London, who would probably be horrified to realise that their books are now associated
I once knew a young woman who worked for a large public-interest organisation. She was clever and well educated, but funds were tight, and she feared she was about to lose her job. In which case, she planned to follow a university friend and become a high-class prostitute. It sounded marvellous, she said. The agency
There’s more to folk these days than dodgy beards and cable-knit sweaters and it’s clear why Bellowhead, instigators of an outbreak of frenzied folkish foot-stomping at Shepherd’s Bush Empire on Wednesday, picked up Best Live Act in this year’s BBC Radio Two Folk Awards. Fronted by the charismatic Jon Boden, and underpinned by a riotous
It is more than 40 years since the foundation of the Garden History Society signalled that the study of the history of gardens and designed landscapes had become an important subject in its own right, instead of being simply an optional add-on to the study of historic buildings. Since then, our knowledge of the subject
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara: This fictionalised account of the Battle of Gettysburg is one of the best historical novels you’ll ever read. The characterisation is masterful and the plotting so good that you almost forget that you know the battle ended the South’s chances of victory in the Civil War. The individual chapters
Lloyd Evans Zimbabwe – last in the dictionary and too often last on the agenda. The new season of Intelligence Squared debates opened with the motion ‘Britain Has Failed Zimbabwe.’ Moderator Richard Lindley set the scene by taking us back to Salisbury, now Harare, on November 11th, 1965 where, as a young journalist, he reported
On The Courtauld’s 75th anniversary, Robin Simon looks back at its colourful and distinguished history The Tate Gallery …sorry, I’ll start again. ‘Tate’ spent £100,000 a few years back just to lose its ‘the’. Staff are strictly instructed by the gallery’s Oberkommando to refer to it according to the brand name, as in ‘I’m at
This beautiful exhibition celebrates the 100th anniversary of Lee Miller’s birth in Poughkeepsie, New York State, and it takes place 30 years after her death from cancer. When she died, her only child Antony Penrose had no idea of her achievements as muse and artist, and only learnt about them gradually. As he grew to
It is not surprising that Edward Hopper (1882–1967) is an immensely popular artist. His pleasing deployment of colour and easy-going presentation of the paraphernalia of everyday life give his work an immediate warmth and likeability. His muted palette, careful modulation of hues, and soft-edged precision are a recipe for visual charm. Considered simply as aesthetic
Opera: Iphigénie en Tauride, Royal Opera House; Romeo und Juliet, St John’s Iphigénie en Tauride Royal Opera House Romeo und Juliet St John’s It is astonishing that Gluck achieves such greatness with such limited musical resources. For me he ranks with the top four or five operatic composers, yet he remains a permanently semi-neglected figure.
No idea why, but the hunt is on for lost 20th-century masterpieces. Michael Attenborough is searching for gold at the Almeida and Matthew Dunster has his pan in the stream at the Young Vic. Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding is an adaption of her 1946 bestselling novel. We’re in the Deep South where
Between the towering majesty of Greene King’s brewery and its bottling plant in Bury St Edmunds nestles the Georgian gem of the Theatre Royal. Built in 1819 by William Wilkins (architect of the National Gallery) and now reopening after a £5 million restoration, its survival is something of a miracle. From 1925 it was effectively
At the launch of Patrick Bishop’s 3 Para at the Cavalry and Guards Club last week, I met some of the boys who’ve been doing their bit in Helmand. At the launch of Patrick Bishop’s 3 Para at the Cavalry and Guards Club last week, I met some of the boys who’ve been doing their
Warren Mitchell is lying on an air mattress in rehearsals. He’s 81 and in constant pain, made worse by a recent operation. Warren Mitchell is lying on an air mattress in rehearsals. He’s 81 and in constant pain, made worse by a recent operation. He looks very tired, very old and I wondered, hauling him
The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army, British Museum, Sponsored by Morgan Stanley Here’s a show to pull in the public. More than 100,000 advance tickets already sold (Michelangelo’s drawings, though popular, sold only a fifth of that before it opened), and so much media coverage you scarcely need my review. Except, of course, that most
What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. But not with Sir Elton John, who last week brought the Red Piano Show that has thrilled audiences at Caesar’s Palace for two years to London’s O2 Centre. While not yet etched in legend quite as deeply as Sinatra’s residency at the Sands, or Elvis’s performances at the
Theatre: Lone Star & Pvt. Wars, King’s Head; We The People, Globe; All About My Mother, Old Vic The King’s Head has a deserved hit on its hands with a James McLure double bill about soldiers haunted by Vietnam. Emasculation is the linking theme and the scripts dance nimbly between the opposing poles of pathos
3:10 to Yuma has everything you might want from a western apart from anything original or interesting, and as for Russell Crowe, he’s actually pretty crap. Obviously, I can’t say what the director, James Mangold (Walk the Line), who apparently fought hard to make this project, was thinking of. What shopping to get in on
British Youth Opera celebrates its 21st birthday season with its annual two productions at the Peacock Theatre: this year one is reasonably successful and one a triumph. The moderate success is The Magic Flute, in Jeremy Sams’s sharp translation. Flute is a work which students and young singers go for whenever possible (this is the
Catch ’em young makes sense if you’re selling a product, an organisation or a belief system. Catch ’em young makes sense if you’re selling a product, an organisation or a belief system. And the BBC has never lagged behind the commercial broadcasters and their advertisers in this regard. From its inception children’s programming was seen
Watching television as a critic is an artificial way of watching television. For the most part we see DVDs supplied by the television companies. We start and finish when we like. If the phone rings, we don’t groan and bark ‘yes?’ — we can press pause and settle down for a leisurely chat about our
If you’re planning a visit to the cinema this weekend, I recommend you bypass the cold, albeit visually impressive, ‘Atonement’, in favour of Julie Delpy’s first effort as an actor, writer and director, ‘2 Days in Paris’. The premise is simple: a couple round off a tour Europe by spending two days with the girl’s
No words required, mes amis. Peter Martin’s commentary for Radio Clyde is almost as good as the goal itself.