In her photographs, the multiple Tony-winner Audra McDonald looks nothing like Billie Holiday. But when she appears at Wyndham’s Theatre in Lanie Robertson’s Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill wearing a slinky white dress, and, later, pins a gardenia to her hair, she is the spitting image of the drink-and-drugs victim who was one of the great jazz singers ever. What’s more, the … [Read more...]

  There is usually something unsatisfactory about productions of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. The story is just plain weird: a ditsy, tiny young woman is found on the banks of a pond in the forest by a “giant” man. The next thing you know they are married, living in his ancestral castle presided over by his grandfather, the bride rapidly falls in love with her husband’s younger … [Read more...]

  At Flowers Gallery, 21 Cork Street in London until 15 July is a stunning show, Work of Five Decades, of “paintings” by an old friend, Richard Smith (1931-2016). The scare quotes are there to note that several of the works have sculptural qualities and ambitions. Some are mobiles, and some extend and stretch the canvas in ways that make the picture plane three dimensional – a practice … [Read more...]

  Here we are, in an enormous converted hen-house, sitting in plush red velvet seats. They are a tiny bit too small for 21st century bums, and they are numbered with gold-coloured tabs – a dead giveaway that they have been salvaged from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.  The man in the pit, Anthony Negus, is the UK’s most eminent Wagnerian. We are about to witness a performance of … [Read more...]

photo by Mark Douet Our more or less local country house summer opera season has started with a pair of pieces at Garsington Opera at the gorgeous Getty estate, Wormsley. There’s something magic about the location, with its long, long drive to the ever more comfortable “temporary” auditorium, and the view from it over the landscaped pond. This is an area we know well. Here Paul Getty tried, and … [Read more...]

Reading the news I learned that our former MP and PM, David Cameron, and his wife, Sam, had been holidaying at one of the resorts designed by Jaime Parladé. And that reminded me that the obituary of him  I wrote for one of the British national newspapers, the Telegraph, was never published. I knew Jaime slightly, and liked him, and it is sad that this fascinating man's life has not been remembered … [Read more...]

Among the dramatis personae in Tony Kushner’s two-play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes are a couple of non-fictional characters, Roy Cohn and Ethel Rosenberg. Cohn (1927-1986) was one of the most morally reprehensible characters in American history. I am old enough to remember him as chief counsel to Joe McCarthy’s Senate subcommittee “investigating” Communist influence and … [Read more...]

  The hottest new play in London has got the maximum 5-star rating from half a dozen of the national newspapers; its West End transfer was assured before it even opened. There hasn’t been a theatrical event like this since – well, since the same playwright’s Jerusalem, Jez Butterworth’s “state of the nation” play about England. The Ferryman details the state of another part of the United … [Read more...]

Nina Raine’s new drama, Consent, can now be seen in a stunning in-the-round production at the National Theatre’s small Dorfman auditorium – but the play is so good (and has been so well reviewed) that it will not be surprising if it transfers to the West End. Or even to Broadway, despite its essential Englishness. American audiences will have no difficulty with its themes of rape (thus the … [Read more...]