Solo behind the Iron Curtain (Radio Four), International Radio Playwriting Competition (BBC World Service) ‘I was pretty sure I was being followed,’ he said in that unforgettably sleek drawl. We are in Prague at the height of the Cold War in 1968 and Robert Vaughn, aka Mr Napoleon Solo, is under surveillance. Cue blazing trumpets
Joe’s Palace (BBC1), A Room with a View (ITV), River Cottage: Gone Fishing (Channel 4) The word ‘dream’ has different meanings, as in the greetings card: ‘May all your dreams come true, except the one about the giant hairy spiders’. Martin Luther King never said, ‘Brothers and sisters, I have a dream, and in this
Act one, scene one The curtain opens on the offices of The Spectator magazine, London SW1, where a woman stands, stage left, staring at a telephone. A clock on the wall says 7.15. Something about the woman’s demeanour suggests it to be p.m. How long can she look at a phone? Just as the audience
The latest exhibition in the grim dungeon of the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing actually looks rather splendid. After a slow start, this tribute to later Renaissance Siena blossoms forth — despite the dim lighting — into real magnificence. It brings together more than a hundred exhibits, mostly paintings and drawings, but including sculpture, ceramics and
Exhibitions 2: British Vision: Observation and Imagination in British Art 1750–1950 This stunning, and constantly surprising, exhibition is the brainchild, or love child even, of the Flemish art historian Robert Hoozee, author of the first Constable catalogue raisonné and director of the Museum of Fine Art in Ghent. He regrets that ‘British art is still
Opera: Siegfried; Götterdämmerung, Royal Opera Siegfried is in some ways the most complex of the Ring dramas, showing us alternately, and then simultaneously, the old order recognising or/and resisting its need of replacement, and the new order beginning to emerge, but with no consciousness of what its purpose is — for Wagner much of the
Theatre: The Country Wife, Haymarket; Rent, Duke of York’s A rarity at the Haymarket. A new production of a straight play. Such is the despair over the creeping musicalisation of the West End that this feels less like a review and more like a life-and-death prognosis on a stricken prince whose wellbeing has become an
Vanity publishing is all the rage these days. Not long ago the idea of putting out something by yourself under an independent label, owned by yourself or one of your many dependents, was considered to be rather shoddy. There was really no replacement for winning a contract (important words) with one of the ‘majors’, whether
Already, the word is out that Elizabeth: The Golden Age isn’t up to much, and it isn’t. It may even be a dog’s dinner although, I should stress, not our dog’s dinner. Our dog, Woofie, likes sushi, which he eats tidily with chopsticks before cracking the top of his crème brûlée with a teaspoon. You’ve
With ever longer gaps between albums, it’s becoming difficult to identify which rock stars are just having a quick lie-down, and which are actually missing in action. Retirement: now that is a bold career move. There must be a few old rockers currently eyeing the example of Joni Mitchell, who retired very noisily some years
According to Tom Roden, one half of New Art Club’s dynamic duo, ‘audience participation is s**t’. I could not agree more, especially since public involvement has become the trite last resort many performance-makers turn to when short of ideas. Yet, if it is well handled, it can still work marvels, as the New Art Club’s
There’s an endless amount of ‘chat’ on radio and TV, but how much ‘conversation’? A recent book by an American, Stephen Miller, reminds us of the difference between them, and how much we have lost by our obsession with argument, obfuscation, self-revelation, or should I say self-deception. Conversation, argues Miller in his thought-provoking book on
Peter Kosminsky’s Britz (Channel 4, Wednesday and Thursday) was heavily flagged beforehand as a drama that was going to annoy a lot of people. Naturally, I assumed that one of those people would be me. It came in two parts, the first telling the story of Sohail, a young Bradford Muslim recruited by MI5, the
One of the great things about having an area of specialism is the discovery of a new aspect to it. Since my teens, I have developed a particular interest in 20th-century British art, encouraged initially by a brilliant art teacher and by the writings of Sir John Rothenstein, quondam director of the Tate Gallery. Well,
Olaf Street sounds as though it should be in some Scandinavian city or other. No doubt there’s a street so named in several Norwegian towns, but there is also an Olaf Street in London W11, of mysterious origin. Could King Olaf II of Norway, fresh from asserting his suzerainty in the Orkneys, have decided to
Bill Clinton looks down at me with that famous, lazy grin. His perfect American teeth show bright white and his blue eyes lock on to mine. I take a few steps forward (who wouldn’t?) but as I draw closer something odd happens to Bill: his face blurs, its outline distorts, wobbling as if underwater. A
Big date for Bohemians next month: 28 November marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of William Blake whose memory is honoured by every moth-eaten visionary, every babbling poet and every garret-bound artist flinging paint at a canvas. Nowadays, Blake’s eminence is universally accepted but the great mystery of his career is that his achievements,
Exhibitions 2: L’Atelier d’Alberto Giacometti: Collection de la Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti In terms of body shape, the week of the Rugby World Cup final was an odd choice for the Pompidou Centre to kick off a new exhibition of Alberto Giacometti, an artist whose attenuated vision of humanity seems better suited to Paris
Tons of sterilised domestic and industrial waste lay strewn across the gallery floor. Against one wall mounds of unidentifiable detritus are shrouded with ribbons of black tape like seaweed on rocks. Beyond, the work of sifting and sorting and baling recyclable material has begun. Despite the sanitisation, the place reeks. All around are the sounds
Here’s your starter for ten. What’s the most famous unfinished piece of classical music in the world? Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony, his Symphony No. 8, of course, which is usually played as a two-movement torso, bereft of the Scherzo and finale which a symphony of its provenance would normally include. Usually, but not always. The latest