The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Andrew Lambirth is entranced by the central purity of Dan Flavin’s installations Many artists are involved to a greater or lesser degree with the depiction of light, but Dan Flavin (1933–96) made it his exclusive subject, and in the process was responsible for the apotheosis of the humble fluorescent tube. As an artist, Flavin was
Twenty years ago George Jonas wrote a book called Vengeance, about the targeted assassinations of various murky Arab figures that took place in Europe in the wake of the Munich massacre. According to film critic Terry Lawson in the Detroit Free Press the other day, George Jonas ‘claimed to be the leader of the assassination
What was I thinking? A fortnight ago I berated the hammy, eggy, lardy, puddingy acting style of the RSC. Well, here’s a play where grandiosity, exaggeration and overemphasis are perfectly suited to the material. It’s the early days of the Roman Empire. Tiberius has retreated to the sun-kissed paradise of Capri in order to murder
The revival of Richard Eyre’s production of La Traviata at the Royal Opera didn’t go quite as planned, because Elena Kelessidi was ill, but I wonder whether that made much difference so far as the audience was concerned. We had instead Victoria Loukianetz from the Ukraine; she has previously sung Gilda at Covent Garden, and
My advance DVD from the BBC was marked ‘The Virgin Quenn’, which I thought was pleasing and evocative. Possibly the quenn was a mythical beast, condemned to live for only one generation due to its perpetual virginity. Or perhaps it was bawdy Tudor slang, used by Shakespeare: ‘Why, friend, a queen shall have a quenn,
The astonishing removal of Charles Kennedy for having been a heavy drinker confirmed my long-held belief that the Liberal Democrats are by far the nastiest and most ruthless bunch of all. It was frustrating to see gullible people regarding them as the nice party when I knew differently. Their dirty tricks in election campaigns are
Edwina Leapman (born 1934) is an abstract painter and colourist of beguiling subtlety. Her current show at Annely Juda Fine Art (until 25 February) is a mini-retrospective of 30 years’ work, and a celebration of 30 years of exhibiting with the same gallery. (This continuity is to be applauded in an age when artists swap
Years ago a movie buff pal said to me he couldn’t understand why I liked the theatre. ‘A great show is only great to the people who were there,’ he said. ‘A great film is for ever.’ Ha! Tell it to your humble critic after a month in which he’s reviewed the ‘new’ King Kong,
The Christian Church sought to banish the ancient gods, but their fascination proved too strong. Their reappearance in their many manifestations during the Renaissance transformed Western visual culture, reviving, nourishing and sustaining the nude and the erotic as legitimate subjects of art. How the antique gods and demigods descended to earth again, enlivening panels, canvases,
Is London a model city or a sink of iniquity? Defining things in terms of extremes is of course a typical dialectical strategy intended to stimulate discussion. London is a melting-pot, a vast stew of energies and lassitudes, of good and evil. In this exhibition we are offered a taste of how artists respond to
The older I get the less tolerant I grow towards any form of entertainment — a play, a film, a TV programme, a book, whatever — that doesn’t deliver sufficient value. Tempus fugit, mors venit, and the last thing I want to be doing in my declining years is wasting precious leisure time on anything
Why, exactly, are we celebrating Mozart this year? Because the anniversarial numbers have trapped us (he was born in January 1756)? Because there is something new to be said about him? Because we cannot live without his music and want to pay tribute to that fact? Whatever the answer, we are in for a media
Humperdinck’s minor masterpiece Hansel and Gretel is one of those operas that disappears for a time and then comes in waves. I hope that Opera North’s splendid new semi-production of it heralds a fresh wave, because we’ve had a long period without it. It went very well in the grand spaces of Leeds Town Hall,
There’s a central chapter in Moby Dick where the narrator Ishmael traces his fascination with the whale to the colour white. For all its associations ‘with whatever is sweet, and honourable, and sublime’, he feels that ‘there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue which strikes more of panic to
The distaste for torture and abuse of prisoners or detainees has never been shared by everyone in this country, though on the whole we’re better than those in many other countries. We have our own sadists who somehow end up in charge of others as well as those who, under pressure to provide results, overstep
The name of Bacon in the 17th century inevitably suggests Sir Francis, first baron Verulam and viscount of St Albans, Lord Chancellor and natural scientist, philosopher and writer. Of an acutely inquiring mind, Sir Francis died of a chill caught trying to deep-freeze chickens. Nathaniel Bacon (1585–1627) was his nephew, and showed some of the
I can’t remember a Christmas where I watched so little Christmas TV as this one, which is a shame in a way, because I do think that mammoth sessions in front of the box are the key to feeling truly Christmassy. Going to church helps, too, obviously, but it’s never quite enough. The only way
In a recent article in the Times, Matthew Parris wrote stirringly about the inspiration which may come from listening to buskers: ‘Amazing how a snatch of music heard in passing can lift the imagination and spirit.’ To him the essence of this snatch is hummable or whistle-able melody, and we are told that the ‘superior’
It’s the morning of 2 January as I write, and I’m gloomily contemplating my New Year’s resolutions. Actually, gloomily is hardly the mot juste. I’m having a complete jelly-livered panic attack about them. It’s our family custom to go to the Pilot Boat pub in Lyme Regis for lunch on New Year’s Eve, and to
Andrew Lambirth on the splendour of the Canaletto exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery Magnet for tourists as it is, Buckingham Palace is the perfect setting for Canaletto in Venice, an exhibition devoted to the grandest producer of tourist art of the 18th century focusing exclusively on a city which had already become one of the
The good end-of-year news was that Home Truths on Radio Four (Saturdays) is to be taken off the air in the spring. Unfortunately, it seems likely to be replaced by something similar. The new show, says Mark Damazer, the network controller, ‘will continue to feature the sometimes extraordinary experiences of its listeners’. Damazer explained that
Memory Lane circa 1900, revisited by moonlight without cars, let alone speed cameras: not since Thorsten Rasch’s hommage to late-romantic/early-modern idioms admiringly described in this column a couple of years ago have I encountered so thoroughgoing an exercise in pastiche as the gigantic string quartet that occupied most of a recent evening on Radio Three.
Oh joy, oh bliss, it is Nutcracker season again! Hordes of overdressed and overexcited children invade our theatres, much to the despair of those who know that the kids’ excitement and attention will fade as soon as they realise that neither the Mouse King nor the Sugar Plum Fairy can be incinerated by one of
On Ego is a lecture that turns into a nightmare. An amiable young neurologist, Alex, strolls on stage and addresses us on the subject of mind. He has a lab technician Derek (Robin Soans wearing a white coat and a lost gaze), who presents him with a bucket containing a brain. Alex picks up the
English National Opera’s production of Billy Budd originated in Wales seven years ago, and is also shared with Opera Australia. Neil Armfield is the producer, and the set design is by Brian Thomson. It is an hydraulic platform, which in Cardiff occupied the whole stage, but at the Coliseum leaves a lot of surrounding space
Each year the same thing happens. Each year we’re expected to suspend for a month the exercise of sound musical judgment as we’re engulfed, willingly or otherwise, in a deluge of Christmas Music. All of a sudden, banality in various guises becomes completely acceptable. Every church in the land that hasn’t descended to the satanic
A Christmas spirit hovers over Art of the Middle Ages at Sam Fogg (15d Clifford Street, W1, until 12 January), visible particularly in the Three Kings bearing gifts in the tiny 14th-century French ivory diptych, and in the green-winged stained-glass angel probably from the glazier who worked at Sées Cathedral, Orne in Normandy, around 1270–80.
Verdi’s Falstaff is an opera which I have usually found it easier to admire than to love, but English Touring Opera’s production, which has been going round the country since October, is exceptionally endearing. I hope that they might keep it in their repertoire — so many of the best things this company has done
When I started writing this column in 2001 I didn’t have much time for the theatre. As a child of the Thatcherite Eighties, I regarded state funding of the arts as a ruse cooked up by the liberal intelligentsia to obtain cheap tickets, and thought of theatre people as effete intellectual snobs who spent their