Arts Reviews

Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, on a radio programme that tells the history of the monarchy through 50 objects in the Royal Collection A History of the World in 100 Objects managed to squeeze the great paradigm shifts of anthropology into the interval between the roadworks sign and the all-clear, spiriting away traffic cones with remote customs and belief systems. What could follow something so confidently global if not an examination of our own strange customs and belief systems — some introspective anthropology? The Art of Monarchy, though a history told through 50 objects in a single collection, is not intended as another History of the World, but

They are lighting the candles at Covent Garden to honour one of the great singers of our age. Thomas Allen (as he was then) first appeared on the stage of the Royal Opera House in 1972, as Donald in Billy Budd, when Benjamin Britten was alive and his opera not nearly so highly thought of as it is today. This month he returns as a long-standing knight of the realm and, so far as our major house is concerned, a monarch to boot. He may have been born a commoner in County Durham 68 years ago but the baritone’s stellar international reputation granted him regal status many moons ago, particularly

The Muppet Show was my favourite TV programme when I was growing up, but this film, the first in over a decade? Not so much, even though it is fun in parts. I liked it terrifically at the beginning, and loved seeing Kermit again, and Miss Piggy, with her ‘pork chop’ (‘Hi-yah!’) and Gonzo and Fozzie Bear and Animal, because they are all such distinct personalities, and have such presence, and when I heard the theme tune for the first time in years — ‘It’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights, it’s time to meet the Muppets on The Muppet Show tonight…’ — I felt

Remarkably, this is the first solo show in the UK of the work of Albert Burri (1915–95) for more than 50 years. Compare the popularity of other Italian postwar artists — Lucio Fontana, for instance, who only had one idea, the slashed or pierced canvas, to recommend him. Burri remains very much an unknown quantity, with a single work in this country’s public collections. A dozen Burris were shown at the Tate in 2005 in a mixed show of modern Italian art, but otherwise nothing. All praise then to the Estorick for mounting this enjoyable and succinct survey of Burri’s career: it introduces the general public to an artist well

Having studiously avoided the media for years, Charles Saatchi was stirred enough to write an article for the Guardian last December that opened: ‘Being an art buyer these days is comprehensively and indisputably vulgar. It is sport of the Eurotrashy, hedge-fundy, Hamptonites; of trendy oligarchs and oiligarchs.’ He has a point. A new type of collector is taking a close interest in contemporary art and elbowing old hands such as Saatchi out of the way. These new collectors are not interested in watching artists build a career through museum shows over a period of years. They’re not out to spot new movements as Saatchi tried to do with young British

Here he comes. Royalty’s favourite crackpot is back. Alan Bennett’s trusty drama, The Madness of George III, doesn’t really have a plot, just a pathology. The king is fine, he then goes barmy, he stays barmy for a bit, he gets bashed about by sadistic healers, then he recovers. It’s less a play and more a monologue amplified by a cast of glove puppets. Each supporting character is given, at most, two attributes. William Pitt drinks and keeps his counsel. The queen snorts and whinnies like a German weightlifter. Pious equerries proclaim their loyalty. Various doctors wheedle and pontificate. The Prince of Wales, an overdressed slob, waddles in and out