My friend Mickie O’Brien, late of 47 and 44 RM Cdo, died the other day. My friend Mickie O’Brien, late of 47 and 44 RM Cdo, died the other day. I’m not sure how old he was — late 80s, I would imagine — but, whatever, it was good going for a man who should
Frederick Cayley Robinson: Acts of Mercy National Gallery, until 17 October The free exhibitions in the Sunley Room offer a programme of meditations on the National Gallery’s permanent collection, either through works of art directly inspired by or related to the old masters, or connected in a more oblique way. Frederick Cayley Robinson (1862–1927) is
Tamara Drewe 15, Nationwide Tamara Drewe is directed by Stephen Frears and is based on the graphic novel by Posy Simmonds and so you may think, as I did, what’s not to like?, to which I would now have to reply: where do I start? Where, where, where? I wanted to love this film. I
‘We’re women, not ladies,’ the Women’s Libber, still in campaigning mode after 40 years, reminded us sharply. ‘We’re women, not ladies,’ the Women’s Libber, still in campaigning mode after 40 years, reminded us sharply. She was for the first time in the same room as Peter Jolley, who had helped to organise the notorious 1970
Roderick Conway Morris on how Genoa’s glorious Villa del Principe has been brought back to life Palazzo Doria Pamphilj houses the most important private art collection in Rome. But the family possesses another treasure, the Villa del Principe in Genoa. The Doria side of the family moved to Rome in 1760, when they inherited the
The Switch 12A, Nationwide As a rule, Richard Burton acted stupendously well in stupendously bad films. Jennifer Aniston has mastered half that duality. The Switch, her latest film, is comfort-zone Aniston: a charmless rom-com with a crass attempt at eroticism — Toy Story’s more titillating, to be honest. Cliché is The Switch’s currency. A pallid
The Switch 12A, Nationwide As a rule, Richard Burton acted stupendously well in stupendously bad films. Jennifer Aniston has mastered half that duality. The Switch, her latest film, is comfort-zone Aniston: a charmless rom-com with a crass attempt at eroticism — Toy Story’s more titillating, to be honest. Cliché is The Switch’s currency. A pallid
Renard; Mavra; The Rake’s Progress Glyndebourne Anyone who was lucky enough to go to Glyndebourne on one of three days last week had the option of seeing not only the opera they had booked for, but also, before it, a couple of brief works by Stravinsky that were put on by the Jerwood Chorus Development
Last month, when unveiling my all-time top ten favourite albums, I predicted that the list would probably have changed by the autumn. In fact, it changed within days of filing my copy. For along came Larkin’s Jazz, which I think is the finest, most scholarly and above all wonderfully entertaining and affecting CD collection that
In the Blood Finborough, until 4 September Zelda Leicester Square Those who oppose state-funded theatre in Britain sometimes imagine that America, with its far smaller subsidised sector, is spared the sort of pious, jokeless, grind-yer-nose-in-it plays which our handout theatres use to punish audiences for the sin of being affluent. But American theatre turns out
One of the few things I respect about mainstream TV is how utterly shallow and addictive it is. In many ways it’s like crack: it doesn’t pretend that it’s good for you but it gets you to where you want to go way more effectively than tofu or wheatgrass juice or organic dolphin-friendly tuna caught
What must it have been like for Allen Lane to wander into a bookshop in the 1940s and see the serried ranks of pale-blue, cerise, green, yellow, dark-blue and grey Penguins on display, knowing that he was responsible for all of them? His genius idea had in less than a decade transformed not just bookselling
The Surreal House Barbican Art Gallery, until 12 September Surreal Friends: Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Kati Horna Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, until 12 September It may not come as a surprise to readers to learn that ‘the individual dwelling [is] a place of mystery and wonder’, yet this is the premise of the Barbican’s
Uber Hate Gang Underbelly Little Black Bastard; Stripped Gilded Balloon The Tailor of Inverness Udderbelly Pasture Ginger and Black Pleasance And it’s getting bigger. Amazing as it sounds, the Edinburgh Festival keeps expanding like a slum landlord. Every year half a dozen cobwebbed halls and disused assembly rooms are forced open, spruced up and pressed
Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival Hammersmith Studios It’s 11 years since I first went to a Tête à Tête evening, then at the Battersea Arts Centre, a most agreeable location, but not used by Tête à Tête since 2004, I think. Nowadays there is a whole festival each year in August, the operatic low
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World 12A, Nationwide Scott Pilgrim vs. the World has a running time of 113 hateful minutes — actually, make that 112 hateful minutes; the first minute was fine, and not too loud — but, in its defence, it probably wasn’t made for someone as hopelessly middle-aged and frighteningly not with-it as
Chopin is a difficult composer to celebrate, at least in the festivals of larger format. Countless piano recitals don’t really fit the bill and the music which includes orchestra is not the best of him. He surely was a miniaturist — perhaps the most compelling there has ever been. Which other composer can set a
The X Factor is back on ITV, and it’s fascinating, being a paradigm of British life. The X Factor is back on ITV, and it’s fascinating, being a paradigm of British life. Persons of little or no talent are assembled to be jeered. Those who have a modicum of ability are praised as if they
An unsettling interview with Moazzam Begg, the British Muslim held prisoner in Guantanamo Bay for three years, and with his father Azmat, began with the haunting cry of the muezzin as it rang out across a cityscape, unnamed and unidentifiable, and the clashing of heavy iron gates being shut. Two sounds that perhaps sum up
Volcano: Turner to Warhol Compton Verney, until 31 October On my desk is a lump of lava, a memento of Vesuvius. It doesn’t look like much, but neither does the volcano from the cinder track that winds around to its summit. From close to, Vesuvius is a giant ash heap; it’s from across the bay
