If you’ve ever doubted that Harold Pinter deserved his 2005 Nobel Prize, take yourself to see Sean Mathias’ production of No Man’s Land with the duo of theatrical knights, Sir Ian McKellen (as Spooner) and Sir Patrick Stewart (as Hirst) at Wyndham’s Theatre. Forty-one years ago, at the same venue, another pair of knights, Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, starred in Peter Hall’s … [Read more...]
Archives for 2016
The Higher Criticism and The Good Food Guide
The Good Food Guide is a peculiarly British phenomenon, founded in 1951 by one Christian socialist classical scholar, Raymond Postgate (1896-1971), and edited for many years by another, Christopher Driver (1932-1997). More accurately, Postgate (who was also a crime writer) and Driver (a journalist and CND supporter) compiled the GFG, as it was, a bit like Zagat guides, put together … [Read more...]
Groundhog Day, the (Buddhist) Musical
Intelligence is not exactly the first quality you look for in a musical. Of course there have been a few intelligent examples of the genre – mostly by Stephen Sondheim, and I’ll concede that there are a few intelligent, or at least witty instances of musical theatre from Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Kurt Weill and the Gershwin brothers. Even … [Read more...]
Chrome Yellow: the Colour of the 2016 Edinburgh Festival
Cecilia Bartoli as Norma (Photo Credit: Hans-Jörg Michel) Last year’s was the first Edinburgh Festival I’ve missed for twenty-something years, and I was very pleased to return this year, if only briefly, to attend half a dozen performances at the International Festival. Next year will be the 70th anniversary of the great post-War European cultural gathering initiated by the late Sir Rudolf … [Read more...]
Young Chekhovathon for Chekhovaphiles (of all ages)
Young Chekhov A bit of a sucker for aesthetic marathons, there’s nothing I like better than taking a whole week out of one’s life to hear and see Wagner’s Ring; Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach had me avid for tickets; a painter’s late-career retrospective is usually my kind of show; and from the sublimity of Proust, and at least some of the 12 volumes of Anthony … [Read more...]
Is Brexit Doomed? European Music & (Little) English Country House Festivals Dispel the Gloom
[contextly_auto_sidebar] We’re suffering post-Brexit gloom, and disappointment at the cabinet appointments made by the new Prime Minister. (Who is Matt Hancock, the new Minister for Culture? I don’t recall ever seeing or hearing of the MP for West Suffolk at the theatre, opera or at a gallery.) As for Mrs May’s major choices of the interesting David Davis, the dreadful Liam Fox and … [Read more...]
His Kingdom for a Horse: Another Bad Brexit Deal?
The Almeida Theatre is one of the wonders of North London – a little theatre that has had a costly makeover, leaving the uncomfortable seating untouched, but still attracting high-paid Hollywood stars to work for relatively tiny fees. Why? The Almeida’s current Artistic Director is Rupert Goold, still the hottest director in town, which is at least half the explanation. Actors want to … [Read more...]
How an Operatic Sow’s Ear Becomes a Silk Purse at Wormsley
Director Tim Albery and conductor Tobias Ringborg’s production of Mozart’s Idomeneo for Garsington Opera at Wormsley transforms this operatic sow’s ear into a silk purse. By tightening up the story, cutting down the recitative but adding music from the Anhang, the appendix to the published edition, they have restructured the youthful composer’s flabby piece. In a “conversation” in the programme, … [Read more...]
82 Portraits, One Still-Life, and a Few Nice Loans – Is This the Future of Exhibitions?
Two thought-provoking exhibitions have just opened in London. At the Sackler Gallery of the RA are “82 Portraits and One Still-life by David Hockney”; and at the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery, “Painters’ Paintings: from Freud to Van Dyck.” Each of these is at least slightly novel, and indicative of changes that must be afoot in the art world. None of Hockney’s 82 portraits … [Read more...]
Prelude to Wagner
Photo: Catherine Ashmore for ENO [contextly_auto_sidebar] In the round of summer opera festivals (I am so lucky as to have two world-class local ones, Garsington and Longborough) the first to come up as Garsington’s Rossini, L’italiana in Algeri. It was most notable for its striking sets, by George Souglides. But not entirely in a good way. The gilded columns and Moorish … [Read more...]