England
The King's SpeechTuesday, 04 January 2011
"Only project!" That's not quite what EM Forster famously wrote, but it serves as the leitmotif of The King's Speech, as ripe a piece of Oscar bait as you are likely to see this year. Neither as visceral as The Fighter nor as resonantly and fully... Read more... |
The Rivals, Theatre Royal, HaymarketWednesday, 24 November 2010
“Suicide, parricide and salivation!” Not the ecstasies of a masochist, but the mangled verbal fanfare announcing that The Rivals – Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s classic comedy of manners – is once again a fixture in London’s West End. When it comes to... Read more... |
Robinson in RuinsThursday, 18 November 2010
“How many derelict gasworks can you shoot?” director Patrick Keiller asked almost in despair, at an early screening of his third psychogeographic amble through Britain. Not too many more may be the answer, as Robinson in Ruins significantly misses... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Artist Peter BlakeSaturday, 13 November 2010
Peter Blake (b 1932) seems to have gone seamlessly from a groovy Sixties mover and shaker – he would probably dispute that but, after all, he did hang out with The Beatles – to National Treasure. His new one-man exhibition, Homage 10 x 5 – Blake’s... Read more... |
The Only Way is Essex, ITV2Thursday, 11 November 2010
To vajazzle or not to vajazzle; it’s the question on everyone’s, er, lips. Thanks to ITV’s unlikeliest of hits, The Only Way is Essex, tans will be brighter, teeth whiter and bodies more diamante-encrusted across the nation this winter. It’s the... Read more... |
The English Concert, Alice Coote, Wigmore HallThursday, 28 October 2010
There is an excess about the Wigmore Hall’s Arts and Crafts cupola that lends itself to extravagant musical passions. The mural’s cloudy images may profess to picture music as an abstract creature, but the golden tangle of rays and warmly naked... Read more... |
Thomas Lawrence: Regency Power and Brilliance, National Portrait GalleryFriday, 22 October 2010
Thomas Lawrence was a child prodigy; from the age of 11 he supported his family by making pastel drawings of the fashionable elite who spent the season in Bath. The next step for an aspiring young artist was to learn how to paint in oils and... Read more... |
The Duenna, English Touring Opera, Linbury Studio TheatreThursday, 14 October 2010
Christmas has come early to the Royal Opera House this year. Without a single shout of “He’s behind you!” or even an implausibly-uddered dancing cow, pantomime season is well and truly underway in the form of The Duenna – a corset-straining,... Read more... |
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis, BarbicanFriday, 08 October 2010
Elgar and Delius are two geniuses who only ever composed themselves - the first drawing heavily on psychology and physiognomy, the second drenching his country visions in painful nostalgia. So it made good sense to have man and nature side by side... Read more... |
A Disappearing Number, Novello TheatreWednesday, 15 September 2010
“I want to disrupt your sense of logic and show you something really thrilling,” explains a young academic, as her animated scribbling on the whiteboard gains pace and incomprehensible complexity. It’s a promise that Complicite’s A Disappearing... Read more... |
The Last Night of the Proms, Fleming, Rysanov, BBCSO, BělohlávekSunday, 12 September 2010
It must have been with a leaden heart that the BBC Proms planning team realised that 2010's Last Night would fall plumb on 9/11. How to reconcile all the traditional Brit triumphalism and singing of Jerusalem with the rather more contemporary need... Read more... |
The Last Night of the Proms, BBC One: The Twitter ReviewSaturday, 11 September 2010
Part 2 @bbcproms. The madness begins. Ms Derham has not switched gowns in the interval. No sign of Titchmarsh, for which we must give thanks.The "traditional" necklace of laurels for Sir Henry Wood's bust. Wonder if he'd welcome his head being... Read more... |
