Culture

Lucia di Lammermoor Coliseum Gentle Giant Linbury Studio Despite two attempts, I haven’t managed to see ENO’s new production of Lucia di Lammermoor with its announced cast. My first try was sabotaged, as so many plans are, by Network Rail, which is still after 12 years working on ‘essential maintenance’ of a ten-mile stretch of track between Stevenage and Cambridge, so that the last train from King’s Cross leaves at 21.52, compelling me to leave before Act III. On my second try the Lucia and Enrico were both too ill to sing, and indeed the replacement Lucia was ill too, but womanfully sang despite that. Operatic love-duet singing is a high-risk occupation when there are chest infections around.

The Other Boleyn Girl 12A, Nationwide The Other Boleyn Girl, based on the bestselling historical romance by Philippa Gregory, stars Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn and Scarlett Johansson as the other girl, her ‘plainer’ sister Mary, which, considering Scarlett Johansson has just been voted the most beautiful woman in the world, must be a lesson in Hollywood logic in and of itself. Still, do not despair, at least not until you are ten minutes in, at which point, if you are still awake, you will be despairing like crazy while wishing you’d stayed in.

Melancholy is a peculiarly English malady; almost you might say a national characteristic, born out of our long, dark nights and grizzly, indecisive weather. That dampness of the soul and ambient miserableness is almost like a national uniform; just think of late-Seventies rock or the Jacobean poets, the Brontë novels or Francis Bacon. The Swinging Sixties, those bouncy lyrics and bright, clear, linear fashions, were not a true expression of English character. Quite the reverse; they were an aberration, the exact opposite of what we’re really and truly comfortable with being. The heartless sophistication of that super-hyped new TV series Mad Men, could only have come out of America; our own networks could never have produced such sharp-suited, slick-talkin’ anomie.

Margot at the Wedding Nationwide, 15 Margot at the Wedding is one of those unsettling and bothersome films which will bother and unsettle you during, afterwards and possibly for much of the next day, like a flea in the ear. If this is your sort of film, then you will like it and if you don’t — if you like to put a film behind you the moment you leave the cinema, and go for chips — then you probably won’t. I’m not saying one sort of film is better than the other, just what this is, so you know. And now you know that?

Brief Encounter The Cinema Haymarket The Homecoming Almeida Under the Eagle White Bear Bit of a spoiled brat, the Cinema Haymarket. Can’t decide what it wants. Originally built as a theatre, it defected to the movies for many years but having tired of hosting popcorn blockbusters it’s now receiving plays again. Lovely auditorium, though. Wide comfy seats arranged with such a steep rake that you can see perfectly even if the chap in front of you is Lennox Lewis in a top hat. This new phase of its life begins with an update of Brief Encounter. Like the venue, the show isn’t certain quite what it wants to be. The classic storyline is supplemented with heaps of visual effects, snatches of music-hall pastiche and enough Noël Coward songs to qualify as a tribute show.

The Lady’s Not For Spurning (BBC4, Monday) was ostensibly about Margaret Thatcher and the baleful influence she had on the Conservative party after 1990. It was actually about Michael Portillo’s long quest for redemption. This has been going on since May 1997, when he lost his seat. As he pointed out in this documentary, which he scripted and presented, ‘Were you up for Portillo?’ became a national catchphrase. It was, as he said with grim relish, later voted by viewers the third favourite TV moment of the century. What most people said was, ‘Did you see the look on Portillo’s face?’ Seeing it again, I thought the look was rather dignified.