The Hard Problem, Sir Tom Stoppard’s first stage play since 2006, begins with what you have to call Stoppardian promise: a bit of dialogue that misleads the audience about its actual subject. We hear a 30-something man tell a 22-year-old woman”: “You’re looking at two years. The jewellery was under the floorboards. The police have nothing to connect you to the scene of the robbery.” But this … [Read more...]
Archives for 2015
We’re all wild about Harry: Paul Levy loves a Birtwistle masterpiece
Sir Harrrison Birtwistle in conversation with Fiona Maddocks Like everyone who knows him, I sometimes call the composer, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, “Harry.” In truth, though, my acquaintance with him is slight – we first bonded in Mere, Wiltshire over a few bottles of serious red from the Northern Rhône, poured by our mutual chum, Robin Yapp, who had been Harry’s dentist before he … [Read more...]