19th century
Watercolour, Tate BritainTuesday, 15 February 2011
Does watercolour painting suffer from an image problem? Do you think of the wild, vaporous seascapes of Turner, or Victorian ladies at their sketchbooks dabbing daintily at wishy-washy flower paintings? Do you associate the medium with radical... Read more... |
Die Fledermaus, Welsh National Opera, CardiffSunday, 13 February 2011
Those WNO regulars who remember the company’s last Fledermaus (directed nine years ago by Calixto Bieito) with a shiver of horror can rest assured that its replacement contradicts it at almost every point. John Copley, past-master of Texttreue (... Read more... |
Faulks on Fiction, BBC Two/ Birth of the British Novel, BBC FourTuesday, 08 February 2011
London’s literary world must be as small as it was in the 18th century. Or at least that’s the impression you get when you watch book programmes on the BBC, for it’s the same old characters that keep cropping up. Martin Amis, Will Self, Jenny Uglow... Read more... |
The Painter, Arcola TheatreMonday, 17 January 2011
Joseph Mallord William Turner - Billy to his intimates, such as he had - is the notional centre of The Painter, a snapshot of the great British landscape artist as a young iceberg. Toby Jones is the main draw in this world premiere of Rebecca... Read more... |
Lark Rise to Candleford, BBC OneSunday, 09 January 2011
Few would dispute the supremacy of Cranford and Lark Rise to Candleford among the BBC’s current fleet of costume dramas. Measured, domestic and infinitely gentle, there are no Machiavellian footmen or illicit trysts here, just wholesome country... Read more... |
Wolfgang Holzmair, Imogen Cooper, Wigmore HallTuesday, 14 December 2010
The last time I saw Wolfgang Holzmair in concert (at last year’s Oxford Lieder Festival, delivering one of the finest live performances of Winterreise I have heard) the silence that followed the cycle lasted almost 30 seconds – an absolute age where... Read more... |
The Three Musketeers and the Princess of Spain, Traverse, EdinburghSunday, 05 December 2010
So this is Christmas, a time to seek comfort in traditional nourishment both culinary and cultural. In Edinburgh, the King’s Theatre has been home to mainstream panto - the equivalent of serving up a hearty turkey with all the trimmings – since time... Read more... |
Ian Hislop's Age of the Do-Gooders, BBC Two/ The Art of Germany, BBC FourTuesday, 30 November 2010
There is probably only one thing that Ann Widdecombe and I have ever agreed upon: we both think it might be a really good idea to stick William Wilberforce on the Fourth Plinth. Why not? It’s nice to have contemporary art in Trafalgar Square, of... Read more... |
Relics of Richard II, National Portrait GalleryThursday, 18 November 2010
The National Portrait Gallery is a national treasure. Not because it has nice pictures (although it does have that too), but because it has the most amazing archive. An archive that is, almost literally, a treasure trove. It is, of course, out of... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Yasnaya Polyana: The Lost Centenary of Tolstoy's DeathSunday, 14 November 2010
Russia marks the centenary of the death of Leo Tolstoy on 20 November – but the level of local tribute to one of the country’s greatest writers seems markedly muted for a figure two of whose novels, Anna Karenina and War and Peace, are regularly... Read more... |
Cézanne's Card Players, Courtauld GalleryFriday, 29 October 2010
Give me a small side order of Cézannes over a great feast of Gauguins any day. This small, perfectly formed survey will surely be noted as one of the best exhibitions this year, the type of exhibition at which the Courtauld Gallery clearly excels:... Read more... |
Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys 1880-1900, Royal AcademyThursday, 28 October 2010
If you'd been a painter at the time of Impressionism, what would you have done? Rushed to Paris to become a disciple of Manet or Monet? Taken the Symbolist route with Odilon Redon or headed to Brittany to whoop it up with Gauguin and co? No, the... Read more... |
