Liz Anderson

Saturday

Liz Anderson

Liz Suggests

A few years ago I was given the Rough Guide to Shakespeare by Andrew Dickson. If you, like me, need to be reminded of the plot of some of Shakespeare’s plays it is an invaluable guide, giving a synopsis, a history of adaptations, further reading material and a list of filmed versions. And this summer the book has proved indispensable as there seems to be more than the usual number of Shakespeare plays being performed in London, the hot ticket being the Donmar West End’s Hamlet with Jude Law. All’s Well That Ends Well is at the National and has had great reviews (the Sunday Times called Marianne Elliott’s production ‘an irresistible blend of magic, psychological insight and moral judgment’).

Saturday

Liz Anderson

Liz suggests | 21 February 2009

Film There’s been a rush of good movies recently — Rachel Getting Married (with Anne Hathaway) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, to name just two — and coming up is The Class, winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, which opens on 27 February. It’s based on an autobiographical novel by a French schoolteacher and centres on a class of 17/18-year-olds, I would guess, from racially diverse backgrounds in a poor suburb of Paris. It focuses on teacher-pupil relationships, with all the problems and misunderstandings that different cultures and languages can create in everyday classroom life. This documentary-style film is made with humour and compassion, and, though I thought it half an hour too long, is well worth seeing.

Saturday

Liz Anderson

Liz suggests | 10 January 2009

Circus Cirque du Soleil has taken a surreal turn with its latest show, Quidam, at the Albert Hall: a headless man with an open umbrella, a crowd of people wearing white protective overalls doing, well, nothing much ... but it’s the acts what count. Most are thrilling: a couple lift, stretch and contort themselves in slow motion into anatomically-unbelievable positions; four Chinese girls looking about 12 years old spin their diabolos; and other members of the company skip, somersault, tumble and chuck one another high into the air. Lots more good stuff and, thank heavens, no tedious clowns — there’s only one, and he’s actually quite funny. Film Critics have been rather dismissive about Australia, Baz Luhrmann’s new film.

Friday

Liz Anderson

Deserves to be preserved

It’s a real shame that Frank Gehry’s pavilion next to the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park has just been demolished. It was England’s first built project by this great Canadian-born architect and was a terrific addition to the park. During its three-month lifespan the huge wooden and glass structure was a place for live music and performances, as well as a place to wander through and admire. Perhaps the whole building could be rebuilt and sited elsewhere. Any suggestions?

Monday

Liz Anderson

Not just bad but offensively bad

Liz Anderson It  beggars belief that anyone – particularly the artist himself — could have thought that a bronze frieze of a commuter falling in front of train driven by the Grim Reaper would be appropriate for St Pancras station. While the banal sculpture of a man and woman embracing, also by Paul Day, is just bad the suicide sculpture is shocking. Now, after complaints from the Samaritans, train drivers and families of people who have killed themselves, the frieze will not be installed.

Wednesday

Wednesday

Liz Anderson

A neglected near-masterpiece

Michael Tanner calls it a ‘neglected near-masterpiece’. So what is ‘it’? Answer: Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, a one-act opera about a blind princess, which is now on at Opera Holland Park. I was lucky enough to see it yesterday evening, and was completely enchanted by the entire production. Michael’s review will be on the website tomorrow.  Do check it out.

Saturday

Liz Anderson

Liz suggests

MUSIC Proms: Get booking now for this two-month season (18 July to 13 September). Highlights include the Berliner Philharmoniker with Sir Simon Rattle (Brahms and Shostakovich) on 3 September; Handel’s Belshazzar conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras (16 August); Daniel Barbenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra playing Haydn, Schoenberg and Brahms (14 August); plus endless other goodies. For tickets tel: 0845 401 5040 or book online www.bbc.co.uk/proms OPERA Opera Holland Park is always a challenge at this time of year — will it rain or not? On opening night (Il trovatore) it poured — but nobody seemed to mind much. Other operas include Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment and Mozart’s Magic Flute. For tickets tel: 0845 230 9769 or online www.rbkc.gov.

Liz Anderson

Drawing a blank

I can’t remember. How many times have we all made a similar response and thought no more about it? But what if those three words start to recur rather more often? Panic. And what if you are under 60 years of age and you know that a family member has already been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s (EOA)? Total panic. The Story of Forgetting is surprisingly upbeat considering that dementia — and the early-onset type, too — is at the heart of the story.

Thursday

Liz Anderson

The books that made an author

Sebastian Faulks has named 40 books which "shaped his writing". He’s picked works by Tolstoy, Stendhal, Iris Murdoch (one of only five women — no Jane Austen), Solzhenitsyn, Colin Thubron, J.D. Salinger, Philip Larkin… To see who’s on the list and who’s missing, head over to the Waterstones website.

Friday

Liz Anderson

Weekend art

The Chinese are coming — or, rather, they’ve come. China Design Now at the V&A is the latest arrival in the China Now Festival — a nationwide celebration of all things Chinese, leading up to the Olympic Games.  It kicks off tomorrow – and runs until 13 July – but I was lucky enough to go to a special preview yesterday.  The show, sponsored by HSBC, explores China’s ‘creative landscape’, focusing on three cities: Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.  Posters, photographs, architectural models (including one of the new airport in Beijing), clothes and other design-oriented items can be seen in the stylishly arranged rooms at the V&A (the shop has some rather nice goodies, too).  Well-worth a visit.

Monday

Liz Anderson

Facing down Facebook

I always knew I was right not to be one of the 59 million (7 million in the UK) people who have joined Facebook, and Tom Hodgkinson’s article in today’s Guardian has confirmed my prejudice. He makes an extremely convincing case for not wanting to be part of Facebook’s ‘heavily funded programme to create an arid global virtual republic, where your own self and your relationships with your friends are converted into commodities on sale to giant global brands’. Read it — and sign off.

Thursday

Liz Anderson

All the fun of the fair?

I was bicycling to work along the south side of Hyde Park, admiring the last of the autumn colours, when, glancing to my left, I saw an enormous Ferris wheel. I know I am strictly a fair-weather cyclist and this week has been a rain-filled one, but this huge machine has sprung up near Hyde Park Corner without anyone — all right, me — knowing anything about it. Who put it up? When will it start working? How long is it there for?

Monday

Liz Anderson

There is nothing like a pair of Dames

A pair of dames made last night’s new television adaptation of Mrs Gaskell’s Cranford. Dame Judi and Dame Eileen played the two sisters Matty and Deborah Jenkyns in this terrific 19th-century drama. Eileen Atkins had some wonderful one-liners: ‘Speculation is the enemy of calm’; and ‘Clearly they are not carriage people’, as she saw a family new to the town step down from a hired coach. The rest of the starry cast includes Michael Gambon (yet to be seen), Francesca Annis, Julia McKenzie and Jim Carter and will run on BBC1 for the next four weeks. The period detail, the witty dialogue, the costumes and the sets, plus the top-class acting make this compulsive Sunday-night viewing — a real treat.

Saturday

Liz Anderson

Property porn

I need help. I’ve got an addiction. It’s reading property magazines and newspaper supplements and watching property programmes on television. I’m not looking for a new flat or house to buy so there’s really no excuse for this time-consuming passion. The compulsion started some two years ago when I was looking for a flat to buy. So, like many addictions, mine started through necessity but has grown into something uncontrollable. It took me more than six months to find my flat (on the internet) and in that time I had become an expert on reading floorplans, unravelling estate-agent-speak and knowing the minimum square footage I could live in.

Thursday

Liz Anderson

Torn about the ending

ITV’s three-parter Torn came to an end last night. This drama by Chris Lang about an abducted child was one of the most gripping television plays I have seen for ages. Holly Aird, playing the child’s mother, was terrific, as were all the cast. More, please. Note to Radio Times: don’t give away the ending in your blurb next time.

Liz Anderson

A portrait of the artist

An exhibition of self-portraits by members of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters has opened at the Bulldog Trust, 2 Temple Place, London WC2, and runs until 10 October. The Trust, which was started in 1983, supports selected charities, such as Hampshire Hospices and the Prince’s Trust, and gives advice as well as money. Rolf Harris has a self-portrait in the show, as do some 50 other artists, including Michael Noakes (pictured). The winner of the first Bulldog Bursary worth £5,000 is Joseph Galvin (31), who says he will move from Wales to London for a year.

Liz Anderson

An award winning life

A huge screen behind the stage at the Dorchester Hotel yesterday showed Montserrat Caballé singing for a hot-dog in a café. Sadly, she wasn’t there in person to collect the Lifetime Achievement award at the Classic FM Gramophone Awards. Neither was Steven Isserlis present, but his friend Barry Humphries — in the wittiest speech of the lunch — collected the Instrumental award on his behalf for his Bach Cello Suites (Hyperion). Other winners included the violinist Julia Fischer (Artist of the Year) and Vasily Petrenko (Young Artist Award), Principal Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Friday

Liz Anderson

You’ll be laughing presently

Present Laughter opens at the National Theatre next week and I went to a preview last night. Theatre-goers are in for a treat. Alex Jennings is a terrific Garry Essendine (a part Noël Coward himself played), and the set by Tim Hatley is wonderfully evocative of a Thirties drawing room. Altogether a hugely warm-hearted, witty production.

Thursday

Liz Anderson

BT need to be more broad minded

Success – of a sort. I first contacted Virgin Media seven weeks ago as I wanted to change from dial-up to broadband. Yesterday (after some five weeks of almost daily nagging) I was sent a text message that my ‘Virgin broadband service is now active’. Why the delay? Virgin blamed BT, and BT wouldn’t speak to me as I was not a retail customer. During the five-week impasse, I asked BT – retail sales division — how long it would take to set up its broadband on my (BT) telephone line. Five working days, I was told. If BT can fix broadband for its own customers so quickly, why not for Virgin’s? Time to end BT’s effective monopoly on telephone lines, I reckon. Why not total success, therefore?