Dave's Oscar moment | reviews, news & interviews
Dave's Oscar moment
Dave's Oscar moment
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
I had a slightly surreal experience last night, when an actor playing the butler of a future Cabinet minister in Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband announced during the interval that David Cameron had just departed Buckingham Place en route to 10 Downing Street to form the next UK government. It was just one of a few pleasing convergences of art and life of the evening, not least of which was that we were gathered in something called the Churchill Room at the time.
The play, which has several political references that could have been written just before curtain-up, was performed by a group of Oxford students led by actor/ director Krishna Omkar, in a gala performance at Dartmouth House in Mayfair. The historic building, just a stone’s throw from the play’s original setting, is now home to the English-Speaking Union, a charity launched at the end of the First World War with the aim of promoting closer ties between the world’s English-speaking peoples. It has a busy schedule of arts-related events, as well as political debates.
The gala performance was to celebrate 125 years of drama at Oxford, where Wilde himself studied, and which is also the alma mater of a huge number of writers, actors and directors, including Richard Burton, Partick Marber, Hugh Grant, Kate Beckinsale, Thea Sharrock and Rosamund Pike.
The play, which has several political references that could have been written just before curtain-up, was performed by a group of Oxford students led by actor/ director Krishna Omkar, in a gala performance at Dartmouth House in Mayfair. The historic building, just a stone’s throw from the play’s original setting, is now home to the English-Speaking Union, a charity launched at the end of the First World War with the aim of promoting closer ties between the world’s English-speaking peoples. It has a busy schedule of arts-related events, as well as political debates.
The gala performance was to celebrate 125 years of drama at Oxford, where Wilde himself studied, and which is also the alma mater of a huge number of writers, actors and directors, including Richard Burton, Partick Marber, Hugh Grant, Kate Beckinsale, Thea Sharrock and Rosamund Pike.
I had a slightly surreal experience last night, when an actor playing the butler of a future Cabinet minister in Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband announced during the interval that David Cameron had just departed Buckingham Place en route to 10 Downing Street to form the next UK government. It was just one of a few pleasing convergences of art and life of the evening, not least of which was that we were gathered in something called the Churchill Room at the time.
The play, which has several political references that could have been written just before curtain-up, was performed by a group of Oxford students led by actor/ director Krishna Omkar, in a gala performance at Dartmouth House in Mayfair. The historic building, just a stone’s throw from the play’s original setting, is now home to the English-Speaking Union, a charity launched at the end of the First World War with the aim of promoting closer ties between the world’s English-speaking peoples. It has a busy schedule of arts-related events, as well as political debates.
The gala performance was to celebrate 125 years of drama at Oxford, where Wilde himself studied, and which is also the alma mater of a huge number of writers, actors and directors, including Richard Burton, Partick Marber, Hugh Grant, Kate Beckinsale, Thea Sharrock and Rosamund Pike.
The play, which has several political references that could have been written just before curtain-up, was performed by a group of Oxford students led by actor/ director Krishna Omkar, in a gala performance at Dartmouth House in Mayfair. The historic building, just a stone’s throw from the play’s original setting, is now home to the English-Speaking Union, a charity launched at the end of the First World War with the aim of promoting closer ties between the world’s English-speaking peoples. It has a busy schedule of arts-related events, as well as political debates.
The gala performance was to celebrate 125 years of drama at Oxford, where Wilde himself studied, and which is also the alma mater of a huge number of writers, actors and directors, including Richard Burton, Partick Marber, Hugh Grant, Kate Beckinsale, Thea Sharrock and Rosamund Pike.
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
more
Our Mothers review - revisiting the horrors of Guatemala's civil war
Hard-hitting first feature from director Cesar Diaz
Rhod Gilbert, G-Live Guildford review - cancer, constipation and celebrity treatment
Finding the funny in illness
Pop Will Eat Itself, Chalk, Brighton review - hip hop rockers deliver a whopper
Eighties/Nineties indie-tronic dance mavericks take the roof off
Album: Beth Gibbons - Lives Outgrown
Intimate songs of unavoidable sorrow
Britten Sinfonia, The Marian Consort, Milton Court review - a journey around turbulent spirit Gesualdo
Contemporary homages among the works in this celebration of the Renaissance 'badass'
Music Reissues Weekly: Little Girls - Valley Songs
Deserved tribute to the Los Angeles new wave popsters who failed to click
DVD/Blu-ray: The Holdovers
Bittersweet, beautifully observed seasonal comedy - not just for Christmas
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes review - a post-human paradise
A richly suggestive new era for the franchise reconnects with its 1968 start
Sappho, Southwark Playhouse Elephant review - a glitzy celebration of sapphic love
Too much camp and not enough content in this tribute to the Greek poet
Classical CDs: Coffee, peppercorns and puppets
A prolific conductor's centenary celebrated, plus Hungarian ballet music and baroque keyboard concertos
The Winter's Tale, Royal Ballet review - what a story, and what a way to tell it!
A compelling case for ROH's ballet-friendly rebrand
Gomyo, National Symphony Orchestra, Kuokman, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - painful brilliance around a heart of darkness
A violinist for all facets of a towering Shostakovich masterpiece
Add comment