Culture

Here he is. One of Britain’s leading young directors. Tall, sturdily built, mid-thirties, with a mop of thick dark hair and a starter beer gut obtruding discreetly beneath the woolly slopes of his green jumper. Ed Hall, son of Sir Peter, is best known as the founder of Propeller, a company that specialises in all-male productions of Shakespeare. He takes a seat opposite me and his shiny popping-out eyes give his round face the genial eagerness of a well-fed spaniel. We tuck into our lunch and he answers my questions with rambling, effusive paragraphs of luvvie-speak which are engaging, easy on the ear and at times faintly earnest.

Some time after 10 p.m. on 28 November 1966 Truman Capote sashayed into the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza Hotel in New York to place himself at the epicentre of New York society. All that autumn New York had speculated about the possible guest list for Capote’s Black and White ball. Capote had nurtured and edited the list as the date drew near, refining a rich blend of Hollywood stars, politicians, designers, tycoons and their wives. The eventual roll-call of 500 was described by the Post as a ‘Who’s Who of the World’: Sinatra and Mia Farrow, Lynda Bird Johnson, Lauren Bacall (of course!), J.K. Galbraith, Joe Meehan, Thornton Wilder, Bill and Babe Paley, and so on.

Although it must be a nightmare to administer a museum in these philistine and turnstile-obsessed times, the nation’s galleries are still doing their best to provide a service of sorts to the minds and hearts of the populace. If there is a perceptible drift towards dead-cert favourites, who can blame the institutions which now have vast bureaucracies to support, as well as lighting and heating bills to pay? So at the National Gallery, hard on the heels of the prestigious Velázquez exhibition, is a display of Renoir’s landscapes (21 February to 20 May). Well, that should keep the crowds happy, but it’s hardly nourishing fare — spiritually, intellectually or aesthetically.

Mary Wakefield talks to Craigie Aitchison about Bedlingtons — and about his painting By five o’clock last Thursday evening, Craigie Aitchison and I had been talking about dogs for nearly an hour. It was grey outside but, inside, the pink walls of Craigie’s sitting room glowed in the orange light of an electric fire, and I glowed, too, warmed by whisky and by the pleasure of a shared obsession. Mostly, we discussed Bedlingtons, the woolly, lamb-like terriers Craigie has owned and painted for more than 35 years, but Cairn terriers got a look in (‘My parents had them, but I never really liked them’) as did beagles (‘They make beagles smoke, don’t they? It’s a scandal!’).