Arts Reviews

The good, bad and ugly in arts and exhbitions

Saturday

Nicola Mccartney

Collector’s eye

To celebrate Elizabeth Blackadder’s 80th birthday, the Scottish National Gallery is staging a landmark retrospective (until 2 January 2012) spanning the last six decades of the artist’s career. To celebrate Elizabeth Blackadder’s 80th birthday, the Scottish National Gallery is staging a landmark retrospective (until 2 January 2012) spanning the last six decades of the artist’s career. Blackadder is best known for her vibrant still-lives of the Sixties, a time when most of her contemporaries were experimenting with Pop and Abstract Expressionism. Influenced by her passion for collecting and for fastidious attention to detail, she has spent a lifetime popularising and successfully re-inventing the genre. Blackadder’s prolific body of work reveals

Lloyd Evans

The real deal

The Cambridge Footlights (King Dome) have a lot going for them. Poise, brains, clean-cut looks, nice accents and privileged status at the Edinburgh Fringe as keepers of a sacred flame. But in reality these advantages count against them. Audiences know that comedy comes from a paranormal neverland, from damaged grotesques, from halting, slobbering outsiders. Comedy is unpleasant. And these boys are anything but. So it takes them a while to convince us that they’re the real deal and not some artful muck-about from the college quad. Their comedic sources are obvious. Movie spoofs, workplace mix-ups. And much of their material defies current political orthodoxies. A joke about the Jamaicans not

Andrew Lambirth

Pastoral perfection

One of the highlights of the Royal Collection is Gainsborough’s ‘Diana and Actaeon’, a painting I always make a point of visiting when I am viewing a new temporary exhibition in the Queen’s Gallery One of the highlights of the Royal Collection is Gainsborough’s ‘Diana and Actaeon’, a painting I always make a point of visiting when I am viewing a new temporary exhibition in the Queen’s Gallery. An unusual picture, it is Gainsborough’s only mythological subject with an identifiable classical literary subject. Best-known for his portraits, Suffolk-born Thomas Gainsborough (1727–88) would have preferred to spend his time painting landscapes, but couldn’t make a living at that. He stuck to

Freddy Gray

Totally Tom: class act

If you are feeling chippy — and I hope you are not — you might find Totally Tom annoying. If you are feeling chippy — and I hope you are not — you might find Totally Tom annoying. Here are two Old Etonians, Tom Palmer and Tom Stourton, who want to be comedians. They have been catapulted towards success at an early age thanks to the internet, and their act is all the rage at this month’s Edinburgh Fringe. Girls like them, obviously. ‘Oh, my God, Tom!’ shouts a nubile blonde as they walk into the room. ‘I was just about to text you!’ Chippiness, however, would be quite the

Mark Greaves

Let there be light | 20 August 2011

The bare brickwork of Westminster Cathedral’s ceiling was always meant to be covered in mosaic. Mark Greaves meets Tessa Hunkin, who will bring the project to life Three years ago, Tessa Hunkin was asked if she would like to undertake the biggest mosaic project since the Hagia Sophia. The project, which would probably take decades and cost tens of millions of pounds, was to decorate the ceiling of Westminster Cathedral. Monsignor Mark Langham, then cathedral administrator, told her, ‘We will have work for you for the rest of your life.’ The cathedral, built in 1903, was always meant to be covered in mosaic. The bare brickwork of its vast domes

Giannandrea Poesio

Sheer magic | 20 August 2011

The term ‘circus’ is used in the ballet world with disparaging intentions to criticise any excessive display of technical bravura. The term ‘circus’ is used in the ballet world with disparaging intentions to criticise any excessive display of technical bravura. Yet in the appropriate context, dazzling acrobatics can be high art, as the Guangdong Acrobatic Troupe of China demonstrated last week. I would never have thought that I would have raved about a version of the immortal Swan Lake in which the ballerina swivels on point while balancing either on her partner’s bicep or on his head. But there I was, gasping with surprise like a six-year-old. The Guangdong’s is

Chris Ayres

Silly and sweaty

There is panic in the extraterrestrial markets. The Ursa Minor indexes are tanking, and slime-based lifeforms throughout the galaxy are dumping the Outer Space equivalent of Italian bonds and piling into something a bit safer — gold. But gold is running out, so aliens looking to diversify their portfolios with the universe’s most valuable metal are left with only one option: steal it from some backwater of a planet like, well, Earth. OK, I’m speculating here. But imagine this scenario playing out 150 years ago, and you pretty much have the backstory of Cowboys & Aliens — in which an intergalactic mining vessel thuds down somewhere in the New Mexico

Michael Tanner

Love in the Alps

Opera Holland Park has as its speciality little-known Italian operas from the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th. It’s a period that seems to have been swarming with composers who were eager, somehow, to combine the ardours of Verdi with the larger symphonic constructions that were being created across the Alps. OHP has turned up some worthwhile specimens, of which last year’s Francesca da Rimini by Zandonai was one of the classiest. This year is La Wally by Catalani, of which everyone knew, or still does, the hit number ‘ebben?…N’andro lontana’ thanks to the movie Diva. Alas, that turns out not only to

Kate Chisholm

Bearing witness

Even the great Alan Bennett sounded out of synch with the times as he read from his new short story ‘The Shielding of Mrs Forbes’ for this week’s Book at Bedtime (Radio 4). Even the great Alan Bennett sounded out of synch with the times as he read from his new short story ‘The Shielding of Mrs Forbes’ for this week’s Book at Bedtime (Radio 4). His peculiarly English brand of wit, mordant, slightly sinister, a touch supercilious, grated on the nerves. No one else on radio can put together a character with such economy and yet such excruciating vividness. But in the light of the events of last week

Simon Hoggart

Let them eat cake

Prince Charles turned up on TV again this week, in Britain’s Hidden Heritage (BBC1, Sunday), wandering round a country house in Scotland that he had helped to restore. Prince Charles turned up on TV again this week, in Britain’s Hidden Heritage (BBC1, Sunday), wandering round a country house in Scotland that he had helped to restore. He was interviewed by Paul Martin, best known as the presenter of Flog It!, in which he gets aerated by an auction for a Georgian silver salt cellar, or a set of cigarette cards. For some reason, presenters who would sink their fangs into a politician, no matter how important, are reduced to quivering

Saturday

Barry Humphries

An Australian in Lautrec’s Paris

The remarkable career of Charles Conder At the small but distinguished exhibition at the Courtauld Institute — Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Avril (until 18 September) — we glimpse many of the habitués of the Moulin Rouge with the exception of Charles Conder. A marginal figure in at least four works by Lautrec, he is also the subject of a fine portrait drawing at the Art Gallery of Aberdeen. Conder was born in London in 1868 and as a child went to Australia with his parents. He showed an early aptitude for art and at the age of 15 was employed as an illustrator for the Sydney Morning Herald. In the next

Andrew Lambirth

Hungarian photography, Richard Long, Thomas Struth

As regular readers of this column will know, I am not a great admirer of photography exhibitions, but the current show in the RA’s Sackler Galleries is more enjoyable than most. I have long loved the work of André Kertész and Brassaï, and besides presenting a lavish selection of their photographs, this show offers the context of their fellow Hungarians to further illuminate their achievement. The effect is interesting, if not entirely happy. Nothing seems to diminish Brassaï, but Kertész suffers by comparison. In the company of such relatively unknown photographers as Imre Kinszki, Rudolf Balogh and Erno Vadas, Kertész looks less strikingly original. Although the presence and example of

Ed Rex

Imogen Heap

Imogen Heap, the English songwriter whose gloves let her control her music with hand gestures, has perfected the art of delegation. While most musicians leave it to their labels to sort out a press biography, she forged hers from 1,500 contributions from her Twitter followers; where others endlessly pore over potential concert setlists, she lets visitors to her website choose hers. It’s what the 21st century has termed ‘crowdsourcing’, and Heap is now taking it one step further: she’s co-writing her fourth album with her fans. She’s brought out two songs from the album so far, and both have involved asking the public to contribute ideas: from musical snippets to

James Walton

Simon Hoggart: Chilean Miners

Angus Macqueen is a film-maker whose CV includes The Death of Yugoslavia, Gulag, Cocaine and a slightly odd period commissioning the likes of The Secret Millionaire as Channel 4’s head of documentaries. These days, happily, he’s back making his own stuff — and BBC2’s Chilean Miners: 17 Days Buried Alive was another gem. Commentary was kept to a minimum and the reconstructions were nicely restrained, leaving the heart of Friday’s programme filled by gripping interviews with six of the miners themselves. These proved to be a varied lot, from Mario ‘Perry’ Sepúlveda, a family-loving Jehovah’s Witness, to Samuel Ávalos, a cheerfully foul-mouthed former street-kid, who praised mining as the best

Kate Chisholm

Kate Chisholm on The Reunion

There was a scary moment on last Sunday’s The Reunion when we heard that the derivatives market has ‘exploded’ since the collapse of Barings in 1995. Banking has become more, not less, dependent on the kinds of gambling on future (i.e., virtual) values that brought down Britain’s oldest merchant bank. When Barings fell, just over $1 billion went down the drain. Now, the derivatives market is worth $1.4 quadrillion — a figure that becomes more and more meaningless the bigger it gets, wafting through the ether like a cloud of poisonous gas. Even more alarming (you can tell that I read Cranford at an impressionable age, upon which my knowledge

Michael Tanner

Dorset delight

Dorset Opera dates back to 1974, but I have only just been for the first time. The quality of what I saw and heard was such that I’m annoyed with myself, ashamed even, for not having been before. The annual effort begins each year as soon as the Bryanston School holidays start; everyone involved in the performances lives in the school accommodation: that includes the star singers, the conductors, directors, the chorus, largely consisting of young people from around the country, and the orchestra, freelance professionals; and no doubt many more. They assemble on a Saturday and the – this year – five performances take place during the second half

Chris Ayres

Monkey business

Apes have always made lousy movie stars. They never have front-page affairs with other celebrity animals; there’s no Most Emotional Grunt category at the Academy Awards; and teenage girls don’t lie in bed at night, dreaming of one day meeting the Right Orangutan. That’s why, if you going to make a summer blockbuster named Rise of the Planet of the Apes, with a primate in the starring role, you’d better cast a pretty damn good human foil: an actor of such prodigious handsomeness and talent, the audience will forget it has paid good money to spend two hours in the company of hominoids. Sadly, 20th Century Fox had to make

Patrick Carnegy

Power games in Stratford

There’s something decidedly odd in being part of a largely grey-haired audience sitting respectfully through a play about the discomforts of a cantankerous old butcher’s ménage consisting of a chauffeur, pimp, demolition worker and, ah yes, a professor of philosophy incomprehensibly returning from his American campus to the bosom of his dysfunctional family. This revival of The Homecoming is also Harold Pinter’s return to the RSC after a long absence and it’s part of the company’s celebration of its 50th birthday. In 1965, the premiere of The Homecoming was a landmark of Peter Hall’s early years as founder-director of the RSC. The play was then as iconoclastic as Waiting for

Lloyd Evans

Pushy mothers

Weird experiments in stone and glass clutter the South Bank opposite the Tower of London. The near-spherical City Hall looks like a speeding squash ball photographed at the moment of impact with a racquet. Around it stretches an acre of sloping flagstones, ideal for freestyle biking and skateboarding. (Sure enough, both activities are vigorously suppressed by patrols of scowling guards.) Nearby, the Scoop is a roofless amphitheatre fashioned from a crater of layered granite. It’s an eerie and compelling sight, as if a divine whirlwind had ripped deep spirals out of a barren moonscape to produce a huge grooved funnel. As I took my place on a freezing seat, I

Giannandrea Poesio

Mariinsky Ballet | 13 August 2011

It’s somewhat surprising that there are many people who are still amazed by the Mariinsky Ballet’s sparkling response to the choreography of George Balanchine. After all, it is well known that the father of modern American ballet, born Georgi Melitonovic Balanchivadze, had been trained at the Imperial Ballet School, from which developed the artistic principles that have long informed the Mariinsky Ballet’s tradition. It is true that once in the United States Balanchine reworked those principles with movement ideas that were typical of the Americana he felt so attracted by. Yet all his creations remained unmistakably rooted in the old Russian school. Such historical/artistic affinity has been central to the