This week has pointed up, for me and many of my colleagues, a category of critical judgement that all critics hate, the "oh dear" performance. You know exactly what I mean. It's what you say when someone asks you about a play, opera, ballet or concert for which you had high hopes and, usually, some special incentive to get a ticket - a director, actor, conductor, singer or dancer you rate highly, … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2009
All London’s a stage…
On Tuesday, January 27th, the UK Critic's Circle Drama Awards for last year will be announced. Here's a small, incomplete survey of what's happening on the London stage at the beginning of 2009. … [Read more...]
A Monstrous Achievement
Michael Holroyd is my friend and, since 1972 (senior) partner in literary crime, when we were appointed co-literary executors of the Strachey estate by Alix, the widow of James Strachey, who was the last surviving sibling of Lytton. I plead my special interest here because I have hugely relished his new book, A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and their … [Read more...]
From whom all blessings flow…
Earlier this week the national British papers, which is to say all of them, as there is only one London paper, The Evening Standard, and all the other big daily and Sunday papers are national (it is, after all, mostly one, fairly small island we're talking about), published the New Year's Honours List. This consists of the several hundred names of those whom the queen has decided to give a "gong" … [Read more...]