The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Patrick McGoohan’s character never made it out of “the village”. But I’m back in London after a six hour journey from Portmeirion, where the series was filmed and don’t seem to have been followed by a giant white inflatable ball. I’ve just watched the first episode of The Prisoner again and it really is as brilliant
Did you know that Tony Scott is filming a remake of Pelham One Two Three? If you think that sounds as though it must be a bad idea wait until you learn that the Robert Shaw part will be played by, yes, John Travolta. Seriously. Obviously. As Ross Douthat says, this is an entirely pointless
Ever noticed how the debate on African development is colonised by white men? I’ve just finished a book on the subject by Dambisa Moyo, an African woman, and it’s a brilliant indictment of the aid industry which, she agues, does more harm than good in her native continent. Moyo is Zambian born, bred and educated
Steven Berkoff admits to Lloyd Evans that, despite his reputation, he’s not tough at all On the waterfront. This, literally, is where I meet Steven Berkoff to discuss his stage adaptation of the classic Fifties movie. Berkoff’s east London office is a sumptuous, spotlessly clean apartment with wraparound views of the grey-green Thames. He strolls
Triple Bill Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House ‘Saucy’ and ‘funky’ are not terms one would normally expect to hear in relation to a ballet performance. Nor is the irritatingly ubiquitous ‘cool’, which is what my young(er) date uttered last Saturday at the end of the Royal Ballet’s triple bill. Yet they all suit perfectly well
Nationwide tribute (BBC 4, Thursday); Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA (Channel 4); Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life (BBC1, Sunday) Nationwide began 40 years ago, and on Thursday BBC4 showed a tribute. The show ran nightly up to 1983, and was always the cheekie chappie of BBC programming. In the early 1980s I did a
At the cinema the other night to see Frost/Nixon, at least five minutes of the commercial break were devoted to selling Radio Four. It was such an odd experience. Nothing to watch, just a blank screen, with Paul Merton and co. telling a few jokes in Dolby sense surround. But we’d bought tickets to watch
With Ford posting losses of over $10 billion, Honda shutting its Swindon factory until June and fields full of unsold cars, we might be excused for thinking that doom and gloom is here to stay. But we shouldn’t, and we can start changing it now. Probably you’re not thinking of buying a new car today,
In an admiring review (Spectator, 15 May, 2004) of Peter Parker’s biography of Christopher Isherwood, Philip Hensher conceded, perhaps reluctantly, that ‘Isherwood was not, in the end, a writer of the first rank’. In an admiring review (Spectator, 15 May, 2004) of Peter Parker’s biography of Christopher Isherwood, Philip Hensher conceded, perhaps reluctantly, that ‘Isherwood
Palladio: His Life and Legacy Royal Academy, until 13 April In a truly civilised society, a basic understanding and appreciation of architecture would be taught in schools. After all, most of us spend a large portion of our lives in buildings. Yet you only have to look around you to see that architecture is dishonoured
Die tote Stadt Royal Opera House The Queen of Spades Barbican At last, after 88 years, Erich Korngold’s almost impressive opera Die tote Stadt has reached the UK in a handsome production, and in every respect the Royal Opera does it proud. If it isn’t quite a major work that’s because it vertiginously occupies a
Be Near Me Donmar Complicit Old Vic Here’s the odd thing about the Donmar, the country’s pre-eminent theatrical power-house. Its productions are nearly always stunning and rarely (very rarely) atrocious. They don’t do so-so. But here we have it, an OK sort of show done with tremendous affection and commitment but with numerous elementary flaws.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 12A, Nationwide The most curious thing about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is that it could receive 13 Oscar nominations when it is such tedious schmaltz, and not just any tedious schmaltz. This is the worst kind of tedious schmaltz; the kind that doesn’t even have the decency
Sweet Water and Bitter: The Ships that Stopped the Slave Trade, by Siân Rees The narratives of slavery have, it’s safe to say, replaced the narratives of imperial adventure in our reading lives, and our moral compasses are orientated by indignation at suffering and exploitation rather than by the contemplation of our ancestors’ achievements. The
The Flying Troutmans, by Miriam Toews Suicidal single mothers, delinquent teenagers and unwashed children sound like the ingredients for a standard-issue misery memoir with an embossed, hand-scripted title and a toddler in tears on the cover. Fortunately, Miriam Toews has instead shaken them with wit, warmth and a firm pinch of absurdity, and produced a
In the spring of 2006, Rachel Cusk and her husband decided to take their two small daughters out of school and spend three months, a season, exploring Italy. She felt too settled, too comfortable, and if her friends wondered at what seemed like a curse of restlessness, what frightened her more was the opposite, ‘knowing
An early memory from the years we lived near Stowe was the sight of my father pushing our front door firmly shut in the face of one of its headmasters, who was attempting to force his way in and apologise for some misdemeanour. He had, I believe, tried to seduce my mother. Later on I
A new arts centre with no public subsidy? Henrietta Bredin talks to its founder Peter Millican Let’s get one thing out of the way immediately — King’s (with an apostrophe) Cross in London is the location for the new and very splendid mixed-use office building and performance space, Kings Place, which has no business letting
Surprisingly (for it seems so against the odds) these have been good — even great — times for that apparently most elitist medium, the string quartet. Surprisingly (for it seems so against the odds) these have been good — even great — times for that apparently most elitist medium, the string quartet. Longer-established groups have
Revolutionary Road 15, Nationwide Revolutionary Road is Sam Mendes’s adaptation of the celebrated 1961 novel by Richard Yates and it may be too faithful to the book — big chunks of dialogue have been directly lifted — although, on the other hand, if it were less faithful then everyone would say it isn’t faithful enough,
I’m sorry, really I am, but I don’t love The Wire as much as I know I should. I’m sorry, really I am, but I don’t love The Wire as much as I know I should. It’s not that I can’t see that it has huge amounts going for it. I love McNulty’s cheeky chimp
The abstract painter John McLean celebrates his 70th birthday this year, and the enterprising Poussin Gallery (Block K, 13 Bell Yard Mews, 175 Bermondsey Street, SE1) has mounted a show of his recent prints in recognition (until 14 February). McLean is an inventive printmaker and when paired with a master craftsman, as he is here
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Novello Thriller — Live Lyric Too long. Too long. Way, way too long. Is it just me or is A Midsummer Night’s Dream twice the length it should be? No, it’s not just me. It’s everyone. It has to be. And I blame the movies. Billy Wilder reckoned a comedy should
Darwin’s Sacred Cause, by Adrian Desmond and James Moore Darwin: A Life in Poems, by Ruth Padel In 1858, on the brink of publishing his theory of evolution, which I discussed here three weeks ago, Charles Darwin took a hydropathic rest cure at Moor Park, near Farnham in Surrey. While walking on the sandy heath,
Why Us?, by James Le Fanu The past half-century has seen the most astonishing concentration of scientific discoveries in history. In physical terms, from the Big Bang to the Double Helix, our understanding of the universe, of life and ourselves has been extended with an intensity and on a scale that may never be repeated.
M. R. D. Foot confesses that he has always endeavoured to follow Whistler’s counsel, ‘Not a day without a line’. His written output is impressive and his judgments severe on those who do not come up to his standards. Heinz Koeppler, his boss at a Foreign Office study centre, with his fawning on his superiors
Is this map of birds’ migratory routes informative or deceptive? Does it create the impression that nature is flourishing when it is really in decay? In today’s golden age of cartography, when technology has lifted mapmaking to an unprecedented level of sophistication, The Natures of Maps wants to be a party-pooper. Maps, it declares, pretend
The Companion to British History (Third Edition), by Charles Arnold Baker Readers familiar with the first edition of The Companion to British History (Loncross, 1997) will already know that its value as a reference work proceeds from an inclusive attitude towards its subject. Besides providing the rudiments — monarchs, battles etc — the CBH was
Memoirs? No one writes them any more. If you wish to distinguish yourself from the sweaty masses, you are far better off publishing a diary, or notebook, call it what you will (Frederic Raphael naturally calls it a cahier). To publish one, of course, you need to have written one, ideally some years ago, full