The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
There is a word ‘deification’, but there ought to be a homophone, perhaps ‘dayification’, meaning the way daytime television spreads into the evenings. There is a word ‘deification’, but there ought to be a homophone, perhaps ‘dayification’, meaning the way daytime television spreads into the evenings. There are now only five types of daytime programming apart from films and repeats: chat, quizzes and games, food, auctions and property.
Lloyd Evans celebrates Tennyson’s miraculous musicality ‘He had the finest ear of any English poet,’ said W.H. Auden. ‘He was also, undoubtedly, the stupidest.’ This famous jibe aimed at Tennyson (whose bicentenary falls on 6 August) is revealing in its shrill and almost triumphant bitchiness. Every age rejects the one before and it’s no surprise that Auden, a gay, left-wing, pacifist democrat, was keen to advertise his contempt for the uxorious, High Church, monarch-loving imperialist. But the severity of his scorn and its blatant falsehood (Tennyson knew half a dozen languages and was famed for the brilliance of his conversation) suggest that Auden’s real feelings may have been more complex than he liked to admit.
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 15, Nationwide The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is a remake of the 1974 film which starred Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw — remember the ending; the sneeze and the gesundheit? — and I don’t know how this remake got off the ground exactly, but I’m imagining the initial meeting went something like this: Film Executive #1: ‘Let’s remake The Taking of Pelham One Two Three but do it dumber.’ Film Executive #2: ‘How much dumber?’ Film Executive #1: ‘Much, much dumber. And we’ll finish with an armed face-off instead of a sneeze. You can’t get less clever than that.’ Film Executive #2: ‘Great! I love it!
In the course of a long listening career, records tend to come and go. I look back at old columns and marvel at the enthusiasm I once felt for records I no longer remember owning, let alone enjoying. Some records come and go and come back again, of course, and a few stay for ever: the 30 or so albums you’d be buying tomorrow on Amazon if your house burnt down today. And just occasionally there’s an album you think has gone for good but which returns, better than ever before, and you wonder, was it always this good? Was I not paying attention? Shall I play it again right now, or wait until tomorrow?
The Fairy Queen The Proms Gluck double bill Wigmore Hall Purcell’s The Fairy Queen has been a big success at Glyndebourne this year, in a production by Jonathan Kent, and with William Christie conducting. I decided to wait till it came to the Proms, where it was presumably a very different experience. In the Royal Albert Hall you’re almost bound to be so far away from the singers that you have to look at their mouths to see which one is performing, especially if, as here, all the sopranos seemed, for much of the time, to be emulating the bird-like tones of Emma Kirkby. Nor was any of the scenery brought from Glyndebourne, and this is supposed to be a visual as much as an aural feast.
Being a right-wing columnist under New Labour’s liberal fascist tyranny is a bit like being a South Wales Borderer at Rorke’s Drift: so many targets, so little time. Being a right-wing columnist under New Labour’s liberal fascist tyranny is a bit like being a South Wales Borderer at Rorke’s Drift: so many targets, so little time. And just when you think you’ve got ’em all covered — Harriet Harman, ‘Dame’ ‘Suzi’ ‘Leather’, windfarms, George Monbiot, dumbing down, Mary Seacole studies — another one pops up unbidden from the veldt to torment you with his bloody assegai. Take this new Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) epidemic. Did you know there was an epidemic?
We’re still living with the fallout of the Iranian Revolution back in 1979 — and we still don’t really understand how the West got its reaction to events so wrong, or what could have been done differently. We’re still living with the fallout of the Iranian Revolution back in 1979 — and we still don’t really understand how the West got its reaction to events so wrong, or what could have been done differently. The fall of the Shah and rise of the Ayatollah is an object lesson in the powerlessness of Western might against cool-headed strategic thinking, and the negative impact of non-intervention.
Lord knows there's almost no idea too dumb to appear in a newspaper, but this recent effort from the New York Times is a cracker: Does Hogwarts have a drinking problem? As Harry Potter fans crowd movie theaters to catch the latest installment in the blockbuster series, parents may be surprised by the starring role given to alcohol. In scene after scene, the young wizards and their adult professors are seen sipping, gulping and pouring various forms of alcohol to calm their nerves, fortify their courage or comfort their sorrows...recreated on the big screen, the images of teenage drinking are jarring. Previous Harry Potter movies have shown drinking, but this one takes it to a new level.
British Self-Portraits in the 20th Century: The Ruth Borchard Collection Kings Place Gallery, 90 York Way, N1, until 29 August This makes self-portraits fascinating documents but not always easy to live with. Self-communing can be a very private matter, and if the artist has used the painting to exorcise devils, the results can be deeply disturbing. Nevertheless, Ruth Borchard (1910–2000), a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, decided to concentrate her collecting entirely on the self-portrait, citing the fact that her taste in literature was introspective and confessional — towards diaries, letters and autobiographies — and that she should collect paintings on a similar theme.
Spike Milligan’s Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall Hampstead The Black Album Cottesloe Good old Spike. Wonderful, charming, innocent Spike who could skewer authority with a child’s unthinking acuity. ‘Where were you born?’ asked the recruiting sergeant when he was conscripted. ‘India,’ said Spike. ‘Which part?’ ‘All of me.’ Ben Power and Tim Carroll have had the inspired idea of sifting the highlights of Spike’s wartime diaries and turning them into a singalong comedy tribute biography. But hang on. What’s a singalong comedy tribute biography?
If you are about to jet-off on your holidays, beware. This summer, determined missionaries are being sent out across Europe. They will hound you on your sun bed, collar you at the airport, harass you in the tavernas, and lecture you at places of local interest. And this is no ordinary evangelical movement. The proselytisers preach a new creed. They do not want your soul or your money; it’s your vote they’re after. The Standard’s Londoner’s Diary reports that members of an organisation called Conservatives Abroad received an email to stoke their fervour. It goes thus: “As the summer recess approaches you may be preparing for a holiday abroad,” the missive reads.
Felicity, pleasure, happiness, luxe, calme et volupté. Felicity, pleasure, happiness, luxe, calme et volupté. Perfection: the blissful rightness of every note; a peach, or a rose, caught at the exact moment of poise between not-quite and slightly-past. Such thoughts are set off by a recent chance re-encounter with Debussy’s cantata setting a French translation of D-G. Rossetti’s ‘Blessed Damozel’. It’s one of two complementary gems poised upon the edge of maturity while retaining the flush of youth. The Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune is played every day; La Damoiselle élue is sadly neglected.
Jerusalem Royal Court Dreams of Violence Soho Lock him up. On paper, the central character of Jez Butterworth’s new play looks like a worthless nuisance, a menace to society. Rooster Byron lives in a derelict caravan and earns cash by supplying children with controlled drugs. He’s a scroundrel, a drunkard, a liar, a sponger, a womaniser, an absentee father, possibly a burglar too. He’s also a charmer, a spinner of yarns, a laugh. The action takes place on St George’s day and Rooster’s band of followers are preparing to resist the council’s efforts to evict him and throw him in jail. Meanwhile, a 15-year-old girl has gone missing and her distraught father (a former member of Rooster’s gang) is convinced Rooster knows her whereabouts.
Antichrist 18, Nationwide As you probably already know, Antichrist has been called ‘disgusting’ and ‘depraved’ and ‘the most offensive film ever made’, although I don’t personally get what all the fuss is about. Yes, there is extreme violence. Yes, there is explicit, penetrative sex. Yes, there is a genital mutilation scene involving rusty scissors. But, come on, doesn’t this happen in homes up and down the country all the time? Just the other day, in fact, I found my teenage son lounging on the sofa — as usual! — while mutilating his genitals — as usual! — and I had to say to him, ‘Can’t you ever think of anything else to do? What do you think we bought that PlayStation for? To gather dust?
Jette Parker Young Artists Royal Opera Partenope The Proms The Royal Opera ended its season looking to the future, with its Young Artists Summer Concert on Sunday afternoon. Part I was most of Act I of Don Giovanni, and Part II two lengthy excerpts from Massenet’s Werther and Manon. I was only able to stay for the first half, having to get to the Prom performance of Handel’s Partenope, which began at 6 p.m. and went on for ever. Rory Macdonald conducted, and seemed anxious to show his authentic credentials, with the orchestra of Welsh National Opera, by taking the opening of the overture as unportentously as possible: you’d never guess that this music was going to accompany the entry of the Stone Guest.
We heard not one but three renditions of the traditional chorus ‘Heave ho’ on Friday night at the opening of this year’s Proms season. We heard not one but three renditions of the traditional chorus ‘Heave ho’ on Friday night at the opening of this year’s Proms season. Impromptu, responsive and a bit disrespectful, it’s the most British thing about this annual musical jamboree, much more so than ‘Rule Britannia’ or ‘Jerusalem’. The Prommers get the chance to join in, become part of the ‘live’ broadcast, as the lid of the precious Steinway piano is lifted into place.
On a train the other day I overheard a teenage schoolgirl tell her friends, ‘I’m going to watch Channel 4 from eight to midnight!’ When I got home I checked the Radio Times: she was looking forward to Embarrassing Teenage Bodies, Big Brother, Ugly Betty and finally Skins. On a train the other day I overheard a teenage schoolgirl tell her friends, ‘I’m going to watch Channel 4 from eight to midnight!’ When I got home I checked the Radio Times: she was looking forward to Embarrassing Teenage Bodies, Big Brother, Ugly Betty and finally Skins. Only Ugly Betty could be called a programme for grown-ups, and opinions might differ on that. Thank heavens, there is still some non-teeny-telly left. Much of it is on BBC4.
Corot to Monet National Gallery, until 20 September In the basement of the Sainsbury Wing is a free exhibition of paintings subtitled ‘A Fresh Look at Landscape from the Collection’. I always enjoy the rehanging of old favourites in new combinations because it not only reminds us of why we liked them in the first place but often allows us to see them in a new light, too. Different paintings hung together can arouse unaccustomed resonances, but it has to be done well, or the eye can be overwhelmed and the intended effects spoiled. Although this show contains many fine things, it projects a feeling of clutter, an air of academic overkill. I wanted to enjoy it more than I did, but with over 90 exhibits there were simply too many pictures.
Michael Henderson has been to 100 operas by Wagner. He wasn’t always an admirer of the music When sceptics ask how I ‘found’ the music dramas of Richard Wagner there is an obvious, contrary answer: I didn’t; he found me. As a young music-lover I was certainly no Wagnerian in the making. Although I had always had a love of the orchestra, and slipped easily into the initially perplexing world of opera, I had little knowledge of Wagner, and no desire to find out. If anything I felt hostile. A master at prep school had entertained some of us 12-year-olds one Sunday afternoon, and popped on an LP called, improbably, Wagner’s Greatest Hits. One day, he counselled, as we tittered, we would grow out of pop, and open our ears to other kinds of music.
A shocking hiatus had turned this weekly tour along the dirt tracks of American folk and country music into just a more-or-less-weekly series. But we're back this week and back with a good 'un. I can't believe it's taken this long to get round to featuring Alison Krauss and her band Union Station. I know there are some people who find Krauss's crossover appeal irritating and who'd prefer her to return to her bluegrass roots. But her collaborations with the likes of Robert Plant are interesting and just another string to her fiddle. Heck, AKUS are so good they can make even Genesis songs sound good. But here they are performing the great Every Time You Say Goodbye in concert last year a few years ago*... *Thanks, Tal.
Il barbiere di Siviglia; Tosca Royal Opera House The Royal Opera hasn’t had much luck or judgment in recent years in presenting Verdi, though, for various reasons, some of them interesting, his operas do seem to be at the present time recalcitrant to great productions, or for that matter good recordings. Pre- and post-Verdi Italian opera, or to be accurate Rossini and Puccini, have been faring rather better, and the round-up of Italians with which the season has concluded has landed one triumph and another near-triumph, though both have the disability of annoying sets and not particularly helpful producers. The first night of the revival of Il barbiere di Siviglia has already passed, and rightly, into operatic history.
This weekend I shall be conducting the winning entries in a new composition competition, to be broadcast at a future date on Radio Three’s Early Music Show, from York Minster. This weekend I shall be conducting the winning entries in a new composition competition, to be broadcast at a future date on Radio Three’s Early Music Show, from York Minster. Why it is thought appropriate to air the works of a 16- and 23-year-old on this particular show beats me, except that they will be sung by the Tallis Scholars and are written for unaccompanied voices. Still, whatever the forum, I am glad the competition is receiving this kind of exposure since the original entries, from all over the country, were of an encouragingly high quality.
Looking back it was a nuts idea, to attempt to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade and bring him back safely, as JFK declared on 25 May 1961. And even more incredible that the Americans actually achieved it, on schedule in July 1969 while engaged in a costly war in Vietnam and Cambodia. But when the Soviet Union laid down the challenge by launching Yuri Gagarin into space on the jolly ship Sputnik, the Americans had to think of something they could achieve first. Nasa’s rocket programme was nowhere near ready to launch manned flights into space, and so it was out of desperation rather than from calculation that President Kennedy’s advisers came up with the idea of sending a man to the moon and bringing him back again.
Poor Michael Jackson. I know he was (probably) a kiddie fiddler and his music was crap, but that didn’t stop me empathising when watching Michael Jackson’s Last Days: What Really Happened (Channel 4, Sunday). Poor Michael Jackson. I know he was (probably) a kiddie fiddler and his music was crap, but that didn’t stop me empathising when watching Michael Jackson’s Last Days: What Really Happened (Channel 4, Sunday). Give or take the odd nose, skin-whitening operation, lurid court case, moon walk and dwindling multimillion-dollar fortune, there but for the grace of God went most of us.
Richard Long: Heaven and Earth Tate Britain, until 6 September The title of this exhibition may not be exactly modest, but then there is a god-like aspect to all artistic creativity, particularly when it operates in the domain of Land Art. Some practitioners of this genre have literally made the earth move in their excavations and reshapings of nature, others keep their human interventions to a minimum. Richard Long (born 1945) is one of the latter, confining his activities principally to walking and to making tracks in the wild, or leaving behind him cairns of stones.
Do we really have any idea of how serious this is about to become? As I sat watching BBC 2's recesion drama Freefall tonight I realsied that we are beginning to get an inkling. This was a quick-hit drama intended as an immediate response to the recession and it was very rough at the edges, but it showed how quickly the culture has grasped that this getting very grim indeed. It was a conventional enough story of an aspirational family wanting to move to a new private housing estate, but it sent a chill through these bones. There was a fascinating set of statistics in Nick Cohen's Observer column this weekend, which should send a chill through everyone's bones.
Henrietta Bredin talks to Ruth Wilson about her role as Stella in the Donmar’s Streetcar If Ruth Wilson doesn’t very soon become a major force to be reckoned with, as an actress, director, producer, screenwriter (probably all four), I’ll eat my entire, quite extensive collection of hats. She is bursting with talent and possesses a gleefully voracious appetite for a challenge. This is probably just as well as she is about to take on the role of Stella at the Donmar Warehouse in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. ‘I love Stella,’ she says, leaning back in her chair and gulping a mug of tea. ‘I think she’s quite an opportunist, very modern and forward-thinking.
Forbidden Broadway Menier Chocolate Factory Dr Korczak’s Example Arcola High hopes at the Chocolate Factory. The Southbank’s liveliest producing house has a great record for taking shows into the West End. Musicals are a speciality and the latest has just arrived from New York. Forbidden Broadway was created nearly three decades ago by rookie writer Gerard Alessandrini who hoped it might earn him some hackwork as a lyricist. The show ran for 27 years. In this version, spruced up and adapted for London, every aspect of theatre gets a splattering. Costly tickets, tacky souvenir shops, greedy impresarios, the glut of film revivals and the use of video projections instead of real sets.
In Britain we seem to like success but are fascinated by failure. This is reflected in our popular television. We loved a failed manager (The Office), a failed hotelier (Fawlty Towers), failed totters (Steptoe and Son), failed human beings (Hancock’s Half Hour). Admittedly, comedy is about the gap between aspiration and achievement, and that means failure, yet the Americans, who adore success, manage to find humour in largely functional characters. Frasier might have been clownish, but he was an esteemed psychotherapist. Cosby was a thriving doctor, and the various Friends had decent jobs, most of the time. Even Joey, the only idiot among them, starred in a daytime soap. It’s not just comedy.