19th century
Burke and HareWednesday, 27 October 2010
John Landis will always be loved for writing and directing An American Werewolf in London (1981), the definitive horror-comedy. That - and The Blues Brothers, and Trading Places - was reason enough for Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis to agree to star as... Read more... |
Thomas Lawrence: Regency Power and Brilliance, National Portrait GalleryFriday, 22 October 2010
Thomas Lawrence was a child prodigy; from the age of 11 he supported his family by making pastel drawings of the fashionable elite who spent the season in Bath. The next step for an aspiring young artist was to learn how to paint in oils and... Read more... |
Edgar Allan Poe: Love, Death and Women, BBC FourThursday, 21 October 2010
The recurrent image in this somewhat staid documentary is a monochrome photograph of Poe’s moon of a face with its panda-like eye sockets. Occasionally the camera moves in for a close-up on those eyes - perhaps hoping they’ll reveal something that... Read more... |
La Bohème, English National OperaMonday, 18 October 2010
Debuting last February at the height of the economic crisis, Jonathan Miller’s freshly minted Bohème was a timely operatic glance in the social mirror. Almost two years on, and the hardships of his young Bohemians seem no less apt. With fiscal... Read more... |
The Genius of British Art, Howard Jacobson, Channel 4Monday, 18 October 2010
Howard Jacobson, fresh from his Booker Prize triumph, was on an admirable mission last night: to rescue the good name of the Victorians. He wanted us to stop caricaturing our 19th-century forebears as prudish, self-righteous, pompous and... Read more... |
Les Misérables, BarbicanFriday, 24 September 2010
It's the Mousetrap of musicals, the wholly unstoppable show and, to mark its 25th anniversary this year (the 30th, if you date it back to the initial French concept album and Paris production), it will be staged in London at three different venues.... Read more... |
Being a Trock: Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, Peacock TheatreThursday, 16 September 2010
Shortly before he died Merce Cunningham came to see the Trocks’ new parody of his work - he loved the dancing but hated the music. Pace the great man, for most of us watching it Wednesday night the entire thing is a miracle of comedic perception,... Read more... |
Don Pasquale, Royal OperaMonday, 13 September 2010
Anticipating revivals of productions that were hardly vivacious in the first place, you can always find reasons to hope. Perhaps there'll be a dazzling house debut. Maybe someone, preferably the revival director, will bring a more focused individual... Read more... |
Eadweard Muybridge, Tate BritainSaturday, 11 September 2010
Multiple images of silhouetted horses cantering against blank backgrounds in grids of movement are what most people associate with Eadward Muybridge. Made in the late 1880s, they have contributed to his lasting reputation as a pioneer of photography... Read more... |
What I'm Reading: Musician Martha WainwrightFriday, 10 September 2010
Next to tell us about her recent reading habits is singer and songwriter Martha Wainwright, who since the arrival of son Arcangelo last November has been juggling music with motherhood. Born in Montreal in 1976, Wainwright is part of one of North... Read more... |
The Leopard: The Original Film for FoodiesSaturday, 28 August 2010
The Leopard is being re-released by the BFI this week in a new digital restoration. Luchino Visconti’s adaptation of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s great Sicilian novel was first seen in 1963 and went on to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Il... Read more... |
Photo Gallery: A Century Apart, James Ravilious & John Wheeley GutchSaturday, 14 August 2010
Life changes at such speed in cities that it seems as if all the world must move at the same pace. Photographs prove otherwise. Looking at the two portfolios of West Country photographs below, you could surely not readily believe that more than a... Read more... |
