It was once a cacophonous pleasure zone with brothels, bear-baiting, gaming dens and four Tudor theatres: The Globe, The Rose, the Swan and the Hope. Shakespeare and Dickens lived here. Samuel Pepys watched the Great Fire light up the London sky from here in 1666. So, if you’re visiting London, make sure you visit Bankside…
The Lehman Trilogy – National Theatre
It’s a familiar story of bucks to bankruptcy, but this one is on a scale that shook the financial world to its core and affected ordinary mortals across the globe. Stefano Massini’s The Lehman Trilogy has been given a Sam Mendes and Ben Power makeover at the National Theatre, with Simon Russell Beale (King Lear …
Art Review – Modigliani at Tate Modern
I am doing something remarkable. I am a voyeur in an artist’s studio in Paris – in Montparnasse to be exact – for a full six and a half minutes. But, I am actually in London. I am gazing out of Amedeo Modigliani’s studio window, towards the smoky chimney tops and listening to the drizzling,…
I’m MAD AS HELL and I’m not going to take it anymore
In 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 networks would go to get…