Having spent the past five weeks in Palm Beach, where I stayed four doors away from Mar-a-Lago, the winter palace of the current Lord of Misrule, I came late to the Twelfth Night party at the National Theatre, which opened last month. We often forget that Twelfth Night or What You Will was offered as a traditional entertainment for the end of the Christmas season. Shakespeare, of course, … [Read more...]

Last Friday Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States. Across the world this weekend millions, mostly women, have marched to protest the event. It is already said to be the largest protest march in the history of the U.S. The attitude of the Briton on the High Street is simple: it’s preposterous.  Not that it can’t happen here – after all, we have Nigel Farage and Jeremy … [Read more...]

                                                                                                      Ruth Wilson as Hedda   My colleagues among the London critics are divided by Ivo van Hove’s new National Theatre production of Hedda Gabler, in an un-gimmicky, plain new version by Patrick Marber – except that they all agree in their high praise of Ruth Wilson’s performance in the title … [Read more...]

(photo Evening Standard)   Adrian Gill would have been pleased and amused by the way his too-early death, aged only 62, has been noticed. It was repeatedly announced in the national BBC radio and TV news yesterday (10 December) ; and today his own newspaper, The Sunday Times, has a magazine cover-feature on his cancer, which he wrote himself last week, plus a front page story, and no … [Read more...]

  Though London is in pre-Christmas gridlock, making it difficult to go anywhere that can’t be reached on foot, there are some important shows to be seen, including the remarkable Beyond Caravaggio at the National Gallery (until 15 January if you can get through the traffic to Trafalgar Square). Though it has only a handful of the naughtiest-painter-ever’s pictures, it is a wonderful … [Read more...]

  In 1993 I was lucky enough to see Simon Russell Beale, then a sprightly 32-year-old, play Ariel in Sam Mendes’ Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Tempest. Last week, at the RSC in Stratford, we saw the 55-year-old Russell Beale’s Prospero, directed by Gregory Doran. This new staging has been done in collaboration with Intel, and is replete with digital bells and whistles, which … [Read more...]

Tom Phillips is the polymath’s polymath. When he gave the Slade Lectures at Oxford in 2006, we gleaned that he is not only a painter, print-maker and a Royal Academician, but also a film-maker, opera librettist and set designer, a fluent writer, translator, composer, and a musician with a fine singing voice. Oh, and he designed a five-pound coin for the 50th anniversary of the Queen’s coronation, … [Read more...]

    Sir David Hare’s adaptations of three early Chekhov plays have been the high point of my theatre-going this year, and I went to see his new play at the National Theatre, The Red Barn, anticipating that it would give me much pleasure. It didn’t – and I think I know why. Based on La Main, a novel by Georges Simenon that he calls one of his romans durs (as opposed to the … [Read more...]

  Picasso was, of course, a great and natural draughtsman. Even as a child he had a fluent and steady line, and was capable of capturing a likeness with ease. The ability to do this doesn’t seem too important to the practice of art today, and isn’t, apparently, a skill much valued or taught at art schools.  This undermines, of course, the very reason for existence of The National Portrait … [Read more...]

        Clive Bayley and Christopher Purves photograph by Robert Workman Richard Jones is a director whose work I admire. I think I was one of the few critics who appreciated his Ring cycle – images from which continue to haunt me whenever I hear certain passages, such as the shamed Brünnhilde being taken back as Gunther’s bride to the Gibichung Hall, her … [Read more...]