Culture

The Last Cigarette Trafalgar Studio Rookery Nook Menier Simon Gray’s twilight diaries may well be a prose masterpiece. That the stage adaptation hasn’t done them justice is a fact few want to admit. The ‘much-loved’ fallacy has descended over this production for understandable reasons. Gray was a darling of the theatre, and the cast — Felicity Kendal, Jasper Britton, Nicholas Le Prevost — are twinkly-eyed favourites from the national treasure trove. But even buckletloads of affection can’t disguise the mismatch between a meandering first-person narrative and the focused concision of the stage. Gray, a talented playwright, sidestepped the theatre and chose good old prose for his last testament. Strong hint there, I’d say.

Isa Genzken: Open, Sesame! Whitechapel Gallery, until 21 June Passports: Great Early Buys from the British Council Collection Whitechapel Gallery, until 14 June The Whitechapel has just re-opened after a major renovation and expansion, increasing gallery space by 78 per cent, incorporating and transforming the old library next door as part of a Heritage Lottery Fund assisted project. The results are spectacular: the original exhibition spaces which have beguiled generations of gallery-goers are still there, looking better than ever, with the addition of several new areas to discover. As a result, the Whitechapel can offer a range of exhibitions at any one time and will no longer need to be shut for lengthy periods to rehang.

Lloyd Evans charts the death of political satire and looks to where comedy is heading next Live comedy ought to be extinct. For five years the internet has been waving an eviction order in its face, but despite the YouTube menace, and its threat of death-by-a-thousand-clips, live stand-up is blossoming. You’ll have noticed this if you read newspaper adverts. Eighteen months ago they were full of barmy invitations to take out a loan for 10 times the value of your house, or to ‘buy’ (that is rent in advance for 99 years) a room in a boutique hotel in Prague or a glass-box-with-a-view in Abu Dhabi. These schemes have been replaced with full-page ads promoting comedians on nationwide tours. The scale is vast.

Stephen Walt and Dan Drezner each list ten films they think merit inclusion in a Foreign Policy Film Festival since they shed some light, one way or another, upon international relations. Well, that's a parlour game everyone can play. No need to hold tenure! Professor Walt suggests that war movies, spy capers and propaganda films ought to be excluded so, playing only moderately fast and loose with his criteria, here's another list: The Man Who Would Be King (1975): You must have an Afghanistan movie these days and this is the best there is. Kipling's tale of imperial adventure, folly, ambition, lunacy and greed is also a great buddy movie and the only time Connery and Caine appeared on screen together.

Michael Bullivant tells Petroc Trelawny how he became Bulawayo’s chief musical impresario For an extraordinary month in 1953, Bulawayo became the epicentre of culture in the southern hemisphere. In celebration of the centenary of the colonialist and diamond magnate Cecil Rhodes, the Royal Opera House and Sadlers Wells Ballet took up residence. Sir John Gielgud staged and starred in a production of Richard II. The musical programme was left to the Hallé Orchestra, who flew in from Manchester with their music director Sir John Barbirolli and gave 14 concerts.

I am always blown away by the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards. But for some reason, last night's event seemd to throw up an even more astonishing roster of award winners than usual. It was also good that so many were there in person. (In a surreal touch, Paul Staines, aka Guido Fawkes, was also there in person at a table he had bought for the occasion). The Sri Lankan paper, The Sunday Leader, won the journalism award, which was collected by Lal Wickrematunge. Lal explained he and his brother Lasantha had started the magazine 15 years ago on a shoestring budget and distributed it from the back of a car. Unfortunately, Lasantha couldn't be there because he was assassinated in January.

Rodchenko and Popova: Defining Constructivism Tate Modern, until 17 May Art is always at its most dangerous — but perhaps also its most endearing — when it approaches the idealistic. In the wake of the Russian Revolution of October 1917, the group of artists who called themselves Constructivists came to believe that abstraction could transform everyday life. But, unlike many theorists, they weren’t content simply with the idea of art’s revolutionary potential, they longed to put it into practice, and this they proceeded to do. Abstraction is a great tool in applied art, and the Constructivists used it to good effect in posters, books, textiles and furniture. For once, art had a use.