The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Antony and Cleopatra Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, in rep until 28 August In this deplorable new production, it is not just the great general Antony who’s taken leave of his senses but Michael Boyd, its director and generalissimo of the RSC, too. In prospect, the casting of the diminutive character actor Kathryn Hunter as the serpent
There has already been a lot of talk about this second Sex and the City film along the lines of whether the franchise is feminist, pre-feminist, post-feminist, not feminist, was feminist once, for ten minutes, but didn’t like it, or pre- and post-feminist, in which case, it’s probably best to leave them to fight it
Triple Bill Royal Ballet, in rep until 11 June After a number of successfully conceived and well-performed mixed programmes, the Royal Ballet’s latest triple bill, its last offering of the season, was a bit of a let-down. This was a pity, for the dancing was good and sometimes phenomenal. One of the problems was that
Tosca English National Opera, in rep until 10 July La Fille du régiment The Royal Opera, in rep until 3 June Tosca has had several new productions at ENO in the past 20 years which have proved rapidly perishable. It’ll be interesting to see whether the new production, with set designs by Frank Philipp Schlössmann
Miami Beach seems an unlikely venue for a noble, idealistic artistic venture. Yet it is here that the New World Symphony has made its base for more than 20 years. It’s a sort of equivalent to our own National Youth Orchestra, with the same sense of joyous dedication wherein hard work becomes fun; but with
I know this is going to get me into an awful lot of trouble, but I really don’t think the TV adaptation of Martin Amis’s Money (BBC2, Sunday, Wednesday) was that bad. I know this is going to get me into an awful lot of trouble, but I really don’t think the TV adaptation of
There it is: Winder, one of the most imposing peaks across all the Howgill Fells. Whenever I visit my brother, a teacher at Sedbergh School, we make a habit of climbing it. Up you march, through grass kept short by wild horses and paths kept alive by other walkers, until you round back on yourself
Rats cannot be sick, says Bill Bryson. Not many people know that. Rats can have sex 20 times a day. Further down the same page, we read that they also sleep 20 hours a day. Do the sums. Rats must fornicate five times an hour in their waking period, as well as eating rubbish and
When you consider what a bloody mess the Houses of Lancaster and York made of the business, it is easy to see why, since the death of Edward the Confessor, the English have preferred to be ruled by foreigners. Normans, Angevins, Tudors, Stuarts, Hanoverians, anything to avoid having their own kind in charge. Arguably that
Are great sportsmen born with high talent, or do they win prizes through years of application? That question, as old as sport itself, forms the basis of this book, which tries to inform readers ‘how champions are made’. Are great sportsmen born with high talent, or do they win prizes through years of application? That
Nadine Gordimer is now in her mid-eighties. For as long as I have been alive, she has been the towering figure of South African literature, a fact recognised in l991 by the Nobel committee. This is a collection of her non-fiction over 60 years, running to nearly 800 pages. There is a belief, prevalent in
Tudor thrillers are thick on the ground nowadays but this one is rather special. The Bones of Avalon (Corvus, £16.99) is something of a departure for Phil Rickman, best known for his excellent Merrily Watkins series about a diocesan exorcist in contemporary Herefordshire. Here he writes in the first person as Dr John Dee, the
New Labour inspired a golden age of political comedy. William Cook looks to satire’s future Although few will mourn Gordon Brown’s departure, his drawn-out demise should be a source of sadness for comedy aficionados, be they red, yellow or blue. For New Labour’s most unlikely legacy was to inspire a renaissance in political comedy. It
Way back when back in the distant times I was at college I had – still do, in fact – a friend who was a John Denver fanatic. Aged 20 or so he’d seen the great troubador more than 20 times. In those days I had not yet seen the country light and, sad to
William Crozier at 80 Flowers, 82 Kingsland Road, E2, until 29 May Agnes Martin Timothy Taylor Gallery, 15 Carlos Place, W1, until 22 May William Crozier is Scottish born, but has lived much abroad, spending his formative years in Paris and Dublin, and later working in Spain and America, though always keeping a foothold in
La Traviata Royal Opera House, in rep until 24 May; and with cast change 8 July to 17 July This year, when operatic fare in the UK has become sparser and less adventurous than at any time since I remember, it’s no surprise that the old stand-bys should be wheeled out regularly. Top scorer in
The Three Classicists RIBA, until 29 May The Berlin Wall separated two sets of people who shared a history and language. In the same way, architecture has been divided into two groups, Classicists and Modernists, each convinced of their own rightness, and refusing to acknowledge the other’s existence. But suddenly it seems that they are
The demise of French as a useful way of communicating with the wider world has been one of the features of my years as a travelling musician. I can recall many conversations around Europe, the southern Mediterranean and Russia that would not have taken place 30 years ago if I and the local people had
A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky Lyric, Hammersmith, until 5 June Counting the Ways Oval House The Lyric theatre in Hammersmith has an eccentric approach to the dearth of writing talent. Unable to find a good playwright, it has commissioned three bad ones to showcase their talentlessness in a single work. One assumes that
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call — New Orleans 18, Nationwide My dears, whatever else you are doing this week you must set aside time to see this film, which is lunatic but also extraordinary and riveting. It’s directed by Werner Herzog and stars Nicolas Cage and if it is of a known genre, it is
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. There is so much demand that the past is constantly creeping nearer to the present. The BBC is running an Eighties season in which it celebrates events that seem pretty close to most of us. Soon it’ll be looking back, misty-eyed,
I might have to eat my hat, having declared not so long ago that BBC 6 Music would not be much missed if it were cut from the schedules. Recent audience figures from Rajar (Radio Joint Audience Research) have revealed a huge jump in listeners in fewer than three months from just over 600,000 to
As you make your sandwiches and get out your comfortable shoes ready for a day at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show next week (24–29 May), do spare a thought for the 600 exhibitors of show gardens, plants, floral arrangements, educational exhibits and sundries. As you make your sandwiches and get out your comfortable
In 1969 John Gross wrote a justly praised book, The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters. The phrase seemed slightly archaic then, and is more so now. I was going to suggest that Gross is the last Man of Letters, but I find that Stephen Bayley describes me as that in the current
‘What’s Taki like?’ is a common response to my telling someone I’m a contributor to this magazine. ‘What’s Taki like?’ is a common response to my telling someone I’m a contributor to this magazine. People seem to think we regular contributors are jolly shipmates together, living out of hammocks in the hold. The prosaic truth
I have seen the last of the things that are gone, brooded the poet Padraic Colum. But then so have we all. We have seen them clustered outside the plate-glass doors of offices or under the flapping canvas awnings ouside pubs, these last irreconcilables inhaling in the wind and rain. And the crazy thing is
A good story is made of bones. It’s the reader’s job to flesh it into intimacy. In Helen Simpson’s adventurous new collection, In Flight Entertainment, the best stories rattle like skeletons; the worst, squelch. The title piece is about a bullying businessman on a plane, up-graded to first class, pontificating: the scam of carbon-offsetting; the
Both the Greeks and the Jews were haunted by the image of a burning city. Indeed, there is a sense in which their radically differing attempts to exorcise it served to define their respective cultures. Among the Greeks, it was believed that everything most glorious about mortal achievement, and everything most terrible about mortal suffering,
The Birth of Love, Joanna Kavenna’s first novel since her prize-winning Inglorious, is clever, ambitious and not wholly successful. The Birth of Love, Joanna Kavenna’s first novel since her prize-winning Inglorious, is clever, ambitious and not wholly successful. It is a tribute to her skill that she handles her four narrative strands without lapsing into