Culture

The Rebound 15, Nationwide Here is my recipe for making your very own lame rom-com. It is a good recipe and a sound recipe but you will need to follow it to the letter — for example, never ever add fully rounded, believable characters — should you wish to make a film like The Rebound, as well as so many others. This recipe can serve an entire Odeon at one sitting and, astonishingly and depressingly, will probably even make money at the box office, even though the best accompaniments are boredom and ennui.  Ingredients: A woman; a man; a few secondary characters (don’t worry too much about these.

The Proms are back, hoorah, and along with them the nightly treat on Radio 3 of interval talks: those 20-minute sessions of directed chat, either through an interview or often just one person speaking about an idea, a memory, a transformative experience. It’s the perfect radio format: long enough to have some real content but not too long to permit the invasion of those distracting thoughts that swirl around like angry bluebottles, waiting for the right moment to settle and take over your mind. On TV such few precious minutes would be gone in a flish-flash of camera angles and tricksy music; on radio you can be taken right inside a person’s head.

The other week Simon Hoggart had a go at Rev — the new comedy about an inner city vicar played by Tom Hollander (BBC2, Monday) — and I don’t blame him. The other week Simon Hoggart had a go at Rev — the new comedy about an inner city vicar played by Tom Hollander (BBC2, Monday) — and I don’t blame him. We had a similar reaction in our household when we watched about ten minutes of the first episode before deciding it wasn’t for us and switching off. And now it’s our favourite must-watch comedy of the week. What happened? Did James Woods’s scripts suddenly sharpen up? Did the superb cast raise their acting skills a notch? Of course not. The only thing that had changed was us — i.e., me and the Fawn.

Beauty & Power: Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes Wallace Collection, Manchester Square, W1, until 25 July Caravaggio’s Friends & Foes Whitfield Fine Art, 23 Dering Street, W1, until 23 July William Crozier: Early Work Pyms Gallery, 9 Mount Street, W1, until 20 July The temporary exhibition galleries of the Wallace Collection are in the basement, next to the lavatories, and while I was there more visitors came down for the purposes of relieving themselves than to acquire new knowledge and experience of Renaissance and Baroque bronzes. It’s a shame if this show is being overlooked, because there hasn’t been a display like it in England for more than 30 years, and there are indeed fine things to be seen.

The Tempest Old Vic, until 21 August Sucker Punch Royal Court, until 31 July Last week when I trotted over to the Old Vic to see The Tempest I had no idea I was about to experience one of the strangest performances of my life. About 20 minutes into the show a heavily built man arrived and installed himself with much effortful wheezing and groaning in the seat just behind me. His rasps and gasps continued for some time and when their tremors finally subsided I was able to return my attention to the play. But then he fell asleep. And then he started snoring. And snoring and snoring.

What am I doing reviewing a documentary about the baroque? I hate the baroque — have done for as long as I can remember — and I expect it’s probably the same with you. What am I doing reviewing a documentary about the baroque? I hate the baroque — have done for as long as I can remember — and I expect it’s probably the same with you. Apart from being an essential sign of aesthetic superiority (we much prefer neoclassical in this country, don’t we, those of us who’ve spent time living in places like Peck quad, what, what, what?) hating the baroque is also the most wonderful time-saver.

As was so often the case with Bertie Wooster when he faced an interview with his fearsome Aunt Agatha, I feel a sense of impending doom as I write this on a beautiful morning in late June. The roses smell sweet, the sun is shining, and a light breeze is blowing through my study window. I ought to be at peace with the world but, in a few days’ time, the chickens will come home to roost, and the prospect is making my stomach knot with an all-too-familiar mixture of guilt and fear. My wife and her sister came into some money following the death last summer of their mother.