Last updated on October 29th, 2018I would like some of what Philip Glass is on, please. I would like to crawl into his brain for a few hours and see what makes him tick. In the ENO’s production of Satyagraha, the American composer’s operatic masterpiece has been placed in the capable hands of director Phelim…
London Arts and Culture
London Arts and Culture Blog: If culture vulturing is your thing, this is where you'll want to be. Grab a hot seat for the best art and exhibition, opera and classical music, dance and theatre in London. I sometimes head out of of the capital for out-of-town events.
Portrait of an Art Addict
Last updated on April 22nd, 2018One of my recurring fantasies is the Dinner Party where the living and the dead, my gods and goddesses, come together for dream dinner banter. My table is a large one, admittedly, and it includes Peggy Guggenheim. I’m not even sure I would have liked Peggy, but boy did she…
Review: The Birthday Party
Last updated on December 28th, 2023Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party is very, very funny, but it’s also totally doolally. The play had its London premiere at the Lyric Opera House (now the Lyric Hammersmith) in 1958. It was shut down after eight performances, thanks to a raft of disastrous reviews. It’s now considered a classic and has…
I’m MAD AS HELL and I’m not going to take it anymore
Last updated on December 28th, 2023In 1976, a film called Network cleaned up at the Oscars, winning four Academy Awards. Written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by the great, late Sidney Lumet, the black comedy was written and released during the Watergate Scandal and the Vietnam War, poking fun at the lengths to which the…
Venus in Fur at the Theatre Royal Haymarket
Last updated on December 28th, 2023Aphrodite is in the house at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in a hair-raising erotically-charged production of David Ives’s Broadway hit, Venus in Fur. Natalie Dormer treads the boards as the feline Vanda Jordan, and David Oakes of Victoria fame has parked his Prince Ernest to reveal a magnetic Thomas Novachek…
Theatre Review: Labour of Love
Last updated on March 14th, 2018Love is all around us at the Noël Coward Theatre this autumn. It’s Labour intensive and dirty, and you can catch it in James Graham’s latest blockbuster, the political romcom Labour of Love. Starring Martin Freeman and Tamsin Greig, the play is not just a history lesson of the Labour…
Historic House Museums of London
Last updated on December 28th, 2023London has some of the world’s most iconic museums displaying the finest art money can’t buy, but it’s the capital’s little treasures that I want to share with you today. Ensconced in these historical gems, you can amble around at a snail’s pace, savour every museum inch and still have…
A day out at Garsington Opera
Last updated on May 15th, 2022The Chiltern hills in Wormsley are alive with the sound of music. This Buckinghamshire haven, where Garsington Opera has its home, is England at its most seductive, the sort of place where pastoral dreams are made. And the vocal fireworks that burst from Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia last Thursday…
More is More: Miss Hope Springs at Wigmore Hall
Last updated on February 3rd, 2020Miss Hope Springs sashays over to us in ruby red sequins as I arrive in her dressing room, complete with Steinway piano, at the Wigmore Hall. She’s composed and gracious, ready for her premiere on a stage which is world-revered for its classical music repertoire. But today, the Wigmore goes…
Restaurants near the opera in London
Last updated on December 28th, 2023Off to the Royal Opera House or the English National Opera? Whether you’re a Baroque buff or a ‘Norma’ novice, seated in the gods or near the pit, with the children or with your grandmama, it’s always best to take a pew after a proper supper. A night at the…