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button. Financial Times | Arts & Weekend
Lunch with the FT: Sigrid RausingThe Tetra Pak heiress and owner of Granta talks about her decision to cut commercialism from the British literary magazine and why saving it is, in itself, a philanthropic act - 22 hours ago
FT's art critic turns curator
Being a 'discerning eye' for an annual event gave Jackie Wullschlager a chance to play fantasy collector – and to be judged by display of her chosen pieces - 13 hours ago
Ludovico Einaudi, crossover star
The Italian pianist and composer is one of the world's most succesful musicians – and a bundle of contradictions, writes Laura Battle - 13 hours ago
History's mark on Tunisia
John Julius Norwich takes a tour through silent medinas, temple ruins and a museum of magnificent mosaics, all of which bear the memory of the Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans and finally, the French - 13 hours ago
Book extract: Viral Loop
Made possible by cheap video cameras and powerful software, the democratisation of online content is influencing brands and helping increase sales, writes Adam L Penenberg - 22 hours ago
The emergence of eastern European designers
From Tallinn to Dubrovnik, a new generation of fashion design talent is finding local ways of expressing itself and making a mark in the west - 13 hours ago
And the wall came tumbling down ...
John Lloyd reviews a flood of new books that marks 20 years since the fall of the Berlin wall. Each one, in varying degrees of detail, considers the logic of the wall, both before and after it was built The Fall of the Berlin WallBehind the Berlin WallThe Year that Changed the World1989The Berlin Wall - 13 hours ago
Unnatural disaster
Harry Eyres finds evidence that New Orleans was a human and political disaster. Understanding the nature of the Big Easy's wounding helped him understand the wounding of the world - 13 hours ago
Extreme sailing at the iShares Cup
Richard Donkin goes on a fast catamaran sprint with Mike Golding, better known for his round-the-world exploits, in the event that is becoming sailing's Formula 1. For video footage of the sailors in action at the iShares Cup in Almeria click here - 20 hours ago
Daily Telegraph | Arts
Harry Patch: the reluctant heroIn an exclusive extract from his new biography Peter Parker charts the remarkable life of Britain's last World War One veteran Harry Patch. - 18 hours ago
The Last Veterans: Harry Patch and the Legacy of War by Peter Parker: review
Simon Heffer admires Harry Patch and the Legacy of War by Peter Parker a moving account of the last survivor of the First World War - 2 days ago
Invisible by Paul Auster: review
Jane Shilling finds Paul Auster in playful mood in his latest novel Invisible - 2 days ago
Joe Allston's Literary Diary
Our literary insider gets the gossip on Aravind Adiga and next year's literary heavyweights including Ian McEwan and Life of Pi author Yann Martel - 2 days ago
Genevieve Fox's Book Club
The Outcast by Sadie Jones may be on David Cameron's shelf but what does Genevieve Fox's book club say about it? - 2 days ago
The Running Set review
Ashley Wass piano Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra cond James Judd Rating: - 19 hours ago
Purcell: The Food of Love review
Paul Agnew tenor AnneMarie Lasla bass viol Elizabeth Kenny theorbo guitar Blandine Rannou harpsichord organ Rating: - 20 hours ago
Britten: The Beggar's Opera review
Soloists City of London Sinfonia cond Christian Curnyn. Rating: - 20 hours ago
Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin review
Alina Ibragimova violin Rating: - 21 hours ago
Jonathan Harvey interview
Mystically inclined British composer Jonathan Harvey on his journey from choir to Buddha . - 22 hours ago
Guardian | Theatre
Julian Ovenden: 'The iPhone is surely the must-have gadget' | Celebrity squares<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/17098?ns=guardian&pageName=Julian+Ovenden%3A+%27The+iPhone+is+surely+the+must-have+gadget%27+%7C+Celebrity+%3AArticle%3A1301722&ch=Technology&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Technology%2CiPhone%2CTheatre&c6=Stuart+O%27Connor&c7=09-Nov-06&c8=1301722&c9=Article&c10=Interview&c11=Technology&c13=Celebrity+squares&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FTechnology%2FiPhone" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Actor <strong>Julian Ovende</strong>n loves his iPhone, but wishes the browser was faster</p><p><strong>What's your favourite piece of technology, and how has it improved your life?</strong><br />Well, that's a difficult one for me as I am a self-confessed gadget anorak, but it has to be the iPhone – surely the must-have gadget of the last few years.</p><p><strong>When was the last time you used it, and what for?</strong><br />I'm using it now to do this Q & A.</p><p><strong>What additional features would you add if you could?</strong><br />I suppose to be picky I would want faster browsing speed. The wealth of applications one can access ensures that it updates itself over and over again.</p><p><strong>Do you think it will be obsolete in 10 years' time?</strong><br />The iPhone revolutionised the mobile industry, rather like the iPod before it with the personal music player. The iPod seems to still rule the world, so why not the iPhone?</p><p><strong>What always frustrates you about technology in general?</strong><br />It's more a frustrating trait of mine when buying technology. I am always buying things with features which I know I will never use, but you trick yourself into thinking you need them.</p><p><strong>Is there any particular piece of technology that you have owned and hated?</strong><br />A PC. We just didn't hit it off.</p><p><strong>If you had one tip about getting the best out of new technology, what would it be?</strong><br />Wait to buy for a while and see whether it's still around in six months. This is something I never do myself by the way.</p><p><strong>Do you consider yourself to be a luddite or a nerd?</strong><br />Nerd.</p><p><strong>What's the most expensive piece of technology you've ever owned?</strong><br />I suppose the hybrid system in my car – Lexus RX 400h – counts as technology, then it's that.</p><p><strong>Mac or PC, and why?</strong><br />Mac. Ease of use. Compatability. Quality.</p><p><strong>Do you still buy physical media such as CDs and DVDs, or do you download? And what was your last purchase?</strong><br />I still buy CDs and DVDs, but generally for more obscure material. I download TV shows more and more especially from the US. My last purchase was a DVD of East of Eden with James Dean.</p><p><strong>Robot butlers – a good idea or not?</strong><br />Terrible.</p><p><strong>What piece of technology would you most like to own?</strong><br />I read recently of the advent of a completely wireless house. Having just moved house and being drowned in billions of cords and cables that sounds like a great thing to have.</p><p>• <em>Julian Ovenden is starring in Annie Get Your Gun at the Young Vic theatre in London</em></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/iphone">iPhone</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatre">Theatre</a></li></ul></div><div class="guRssAdvert"><a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Technology&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647728791059779502360408"><img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Technology&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647728791059779502360408" border="0" /></a></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/stuartoconnor">Stuart O'Connor</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> - 21 hours ago
Shazia Mirza: On the offensive
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/4390?ns=guardian&pageName=Shazia+Mirza%3A+On+the+offensive%3AArticle%3A1299383&ch=Life+and+style&c3=Guardian&c4=Life+and+style%2CComedy+live+%28Stage%29&c6=Shazia+Mirza&c7=09-Nov-07&c8=1299383&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Life+and+style&c13=Shazia+Mirza+%28Weekend+column%29&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FLife+and+style%2FComedy" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Why do some people take offence so easily? Well, they can just sod off, if you ask me</p><p>I was performing at a small pub in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidderminster" title="Kidderminster">Kidderminster</a> last week. After the show, a young white man approached me. He said, "I really like you – will you come out for a drink with me?"</p><p>He looked like a teenager, so I said, "How old are you?"</p><p>He said, "Twenty-three."</p><p>I was about to decline, when he said, "Don't worry, I've lived in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dudley" title="Dudley">Dudley</a>, I can speak Asian."</p><p>A woman standing nearby turned to me and said, "Are you offended?"</p><p>I said, "No, I thought it was hilarious." That's like me saying to <a href="http://www.ainsley-harriott.net/" title="Ainsley Harriott">Ainsley Harriott</a>, "Will you make me dinner tonight? Don't worry, I've lived in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brixton" title="Brixton">Brixton</a>, I can speak African."</p><p>The next night, I performed in <a href="http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/" title="Newcastle">Newcastle</a> to 300 lesbians at a comedy night called Lesbolicious. I walked on stage and said, "Good evening everyone, good evening lesbians." After the show, a very irate gay man stormed up to me and shouted in my face, "You've offended me! How dare you come on stage and say, 'Good evening lesbians.' I'm a gay man, and you didn't acknowledge me." There were 300 women in this room and five men, all of them sitting at a table in a dark corner at the back. If I had to acknowledge every group of people to avoid offending anyone, I'd be there all night saying hello to all the ginger fat people.</p><p>But he was offended, so I said, "Well, what do you want me to do about it?"</p><p>He didn't know what to say and just walked off.</p><p>Of all the things I said that night that could have offended him – <sup> </sup>paedophilia, anal sex, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chrisevans/" title="Chris Evans">Chris Evans</a> – he was offended by what I didn't say, which was obviously, "Hello, gay man sitting at table 42."</p><p>The next day, a tabloid newspaper rang my manager to ask her, "Is Shazia offended by <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/24/i-met-queen-shazia-mirza" title="Prince Philips remark about the surname Pate">Prince Philip's remark about the surname Pate</a>l?" Why should I be offended? My name's not Patel and I've actually been called worse. But the man persisted: "Are you <em>sure</em> she's not offended?" I am now being provoked into being offended about things I really don't care about and there are people out there waiting to be offended on my behalf. If these people are so enthusiastic to help me, I'd rather they just came round to my house and washed my car.</p><p>Another woman approached me after a show in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester" title="Leicester">Leicester</a> last weekend. "I work for the <a href="http://www.met.police.uk/" title="Metropolitan Police">Metropolitan police</a>," she said. "I suggested you as entertainment for our recent conference, but my boss said no, we couldn't have a comedian – people will get offended."</p><p>I said, "What do you think people will be offended by?"</p><p>"Making jokes about serious subjects," she replied.</p><p>"That's comedy," I said.</p><p>"No, you can't do that, people will get very upset and we will get lots of complaints."</p><p>It then occurred to me that this wasn't about being offended, it was about processing complaints. This woman was offended in advance, on behalf of an audience, by material she had never heard.</p><p>Offence has become contagious; each week brings more new cases than swine flu. I am starting to get really annoyed. Being offended is not like having cancer or rabies; people don't die of offence. At most, your feelings will be wounded, you will feel displeased or angered, but have a cream cake and watch some <a href="http://xfactor.itv.com/2009/" title="X Factor ">X Factor</a> and it will all be OK.</p><p>Being offended is losing its impact. When that gay man in Newcastle complained, I really don't know what he expected me to do. I couldn't give him a pill to make his anger go away. If I apologised, would that really have helped? Or was he just one of these people who looks for things to be offended about?</p><p>We should go back to the good old days of moaning to strangers at bus stops and writing letters to local papers, instead of just accosting people face to face and shouting, "I'm offended, but I don't know why, I just feel I should be."</p><p>Offence is like the pound: its value is collapsing. Once people used to be offended by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial" title="Holocaust deniers">Holocaust deniers</a>. Now they're offended by cartoons. What next? Men in cycling shorts?</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/comedy">Comedy</a></li></ul></div><div class="guRssAdvert"><a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Lifeandstyle&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647743759184309596066431"><img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Lifeandstyle&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647743759184309596066431" border="0" /></a></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/shaziamirza">Shazia Mirza</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> - 12 hours ago
This week's dance previews
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/92215?ns=guardian&pageName=This+week%27s+dance+previews%3AArticle%3A1301276&ch=Stage&c3=Guardian&c4=Dance%2CStage%2CCulture+section&c6=Judith+Mackrell&c7=09-Nov-07&c8=1301276&c9=Article&c10=&c11=Stage&c13=&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FStage%2FDance" width="1" height="1" /></div><h2>Yorke Dance Project: Grace, <em>On tour</em></h2><p>Founded 10 years ago by ex-Rambert dancer Yolande Yorke-Edgell, this formerly Los Angeles-based company makes its first UK appearance since relocating to Cornwall. The programme is dedicated to the work of women choreographers, and features a new commission from Cholmondeleys and Featherstonehaughs director Lea Anderson, a revival of Recuerdo (1990) by the late, distinguished American choreographer Bella Lewitzky and two pieces created by Yorke herself, the 1940s-set Divisions On A Ground, featuring English folk songs, and Strandgade 30, inspired by the life and works of Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi. Yorke's fine company of dancers includes Sarah Warsop, Pari Naderi and Ben Ash. Also included in the evening is rare archive footage of Lewitzky Dance Company.</p><p><em>Merlin Theatre, Frome, Sat; The Tabernacle, W11, Wed to 15 Nov</em></p><h2>Akram Kahn: Gnosis, <em>Eastleigh</em></h2><p>For his latest work, Khan returns to his Kathak dance roots, working with longstanding collaborator Gauri Sharma Tripathi on a narrative solo performed by Khan himself with a five-strong ensemble of musicians. The work explores the idea of blindness – physical, moral and intellectual – which is presented through five characters, drawn both from contemporary comic books and from the Hindu epic, The Mahabharata. This preview showing of Gnosis celebrates phase three of the radical refurbishment of The Point's performance and rehearsal space, and prior to a UK and international tour will be followed by an outing at Sadler's Wells on 16 Nov as part of the Svapnagata Festival, which elsewhere takes in Khan's Confluence, a collaboration with acclaimed composer Nitin Sawhney.</p><p><em>The Point, Fri</em></p><h2>Ephemera: An Intimate Evening Of Dance, <em>Ipswich</em></h2><p>Jerwood DanceHouse, the UK's latest purpose-built dance venue, celebrates its launch with a splashy one-night gala. Performed in its intimate theatre space, Ephemera is introduced by the Ballet Boyz and includes star names from across the dance world. There are two commissions: a classical Kathak solo performed and choreographed by Akram Khan and a duet for Royal Ballet principals Leanne Benjamin and Edward Watson created by Liam Scarlett. Also in the programme are two pieces by Russell Maliphant: Two, the 1997 solo, performed by Sylvie Guillem and Maliphant's signature work Shift. An extract from Wayne McGregor's Dyad 1909 and a duet by Rafael Bonachela also feature, along with Richard Alston's Blow Over, set to Philip Glass's Songs From Liquid Days.</p><p><em>Jerwood DanceHouse, Sat</em></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/dance">Dance</a></li></ul></div><div class="guRssAdvert"><a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Theatre&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647756691099844396746829"><img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Theatre&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647756691099844396746829" border="0" /></a></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/judithmackrell">Judith Mackrell</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> - 12 hours ago
This week's comedy previews
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/70861?ns=guardian&pageName=This+week%27s+comedy+previews%3AArticle%3A1301261&ch=Stage&c3=Guardian&c4=Comedy+live+%28Stage%29%2CStage%2CCulture+section&c6=James+Kettle+%28contributor%29&c7=09-Nov-07&c8=1301261&c9=Article&c10=&c11=Stage&c13=&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FStage%2FComedy" width="1" height="1" /></div><h2>Louis CK, <em>London</em></h2><p>Every so often, Ricky Gervais takes it upon himself to damn the state of British comedy and complain how far our local talents lag behind their peers in the States. The visit of Louis CK for a brace of dates in London offers us the chance to judge for ourselves what Gervais regards as the right stuff. CK is one of The Office star's favourite comics, and was picked by him for a role in recent film The Invention Of Lying. The two have a little in common – like Gervais, CK delights in sneakily anti-PC humour, frequently pushing his audience's boundaries and showing off an audacious speed of obscene invention. Where they differ is that the American is happier to bring things closer to home. Much of his act is viciously personal, exposing his feelings about himself and his family in a way that's bleak and misanthropic, but also often gaspingly funny. CK's new DVD, Chewed Up, is out on Monday, a set which gets an airing on Comedy Central this Friday.</p><p><em>The Bloomsbury Theatre, WC1, Fri to 14 Nov</em></p><h2>Closet Reading, <em>Book</em></h2><p>Another offshoot of the absorbing TV Cream website, here Phil Norman offers a comprehensive survey of a particular kind of toilet humour. Rather than a history of scatological gags, this is in fact a compelling survey of those disposable comedy books churned out every Christmas to keep the British public amused, and which typically end up among a miniature library in the smallest room. TV comedies and their manifold tie-ins have made a rich contribution to this unlikely genre, and Norman's book features great stories about the making of classic comedy reads such as The Brand New Monty Python Bok and The Goodies File, while also showing how they stem from a comic tradition that dates back to the 14th century. It's a best-of-both-worlds book: for the casual reader, this has much to offer as a wittily written curio, and to hardcore comedy fans, it's a definitive reference work.</p><p><em>Gibson Square, £9.99</em></p><h2>Terry Alderton, <em>On tour</em></h2><p>The concept of the tortured comedian must be about as old as the knock-knock joke. Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Peter Cook were all oft-anointed geniuses who battled with inner demons throughout their lives. Terry Alderton's masterstroke has been to take this traditional struggle and play it out on stage – his act revolves around a dialogue between two exaggerated parts of his personality. Facing the audience, he's an eager-to-please, cheerfully geezerish kind of guy. But then he turns to face the back curtain, and an altogether different Alderton takes over – a ludicrously malicious, self-sabotaging persona that's equal parts monster from the id and pantomime villain. It's a raucously engaging show, capable of keeping a broad Saturday night audience entertained while also offering comedy that's original and properly three-dimensional.</p><p><em>Glee Club, Birmingham, Wed; Glee Club, Cardiff, Thu; King's Lynn Arts Centre, Fri</em></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/comedy">Comedy</a></li></ul></div><div class="guRssAdvert"><a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Theatre&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647772696625253208195389"><img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Theatre&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647772696625253208195389" border="0" /></a></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/james-kettle">James Kettle</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> - 12 hours ago
Benjamin Britten and WH Auden
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/52084?ns=guardian&pageName=Benjamin+Britten+and+WH+Auden%3AArticle%3A1300340&ch=Culture&c3=Guardian&c4=Culture+section%2CAlan+Bennett+%28Playwright%29%2CWH+Auden+%28Author%29&c6=Philip+Hensher&c7=09-Nov-07&c8=1300340&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Culture&c13=&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FAlan+Bennett" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Alan Bennett's new play imagines a meeting between Britten and Auden 25 years after they fell out irrevocably. But why did their creative relationship go wrong?</p><p>This is a sample of the writing Benjamin Britten set to music in his first opera, <em>Paul Bunyan</em>: "Let the dog who's the most sentimental of all / Throw a languishing glance at the hat in the hall / Struggle wildly to speak all the tongues that he hears / And to rise to the realm of Platonic ideas."</p><p>And here is a fair sample of the writing he commissioned, set and seems to have thought adequate in his last opera, <em>Death in Venice</em>, 34 years later: "Mysterious gondola / a different world surrounds you / a timeless, legendary world / of dark lawless errands / in the watery night. / How black a gondola is – / black, coffin-black, / a vision of death itself / and the last silent voyage."</p><p>Britten is always said to have been a sophisticated admirer of poetry, and to have exercised a connoisseur's pleasure in setting it. The claim seems plausible, apart from one thing. His first opera's libretto was written by WH Auden, who now clearly seems the greatest poet in English since Tennyson. After <em>Paul Bunyan</em>, Britten chose as his librettists Montagu Slater, Eric Crozier and, no fewer than three times, Myfanwy Piper, the author of the hopeless fourth-form effusions of the <em>Death in Venice</em> libretto. When a more distinguished writer such as William Plomer was engaged – for <em>Gloriana</em> and the three church parables – his work was not permitted to display its usual mordant originality.</p><p>Auden's relationship with Britten – the subject of a new play by Alan Bennett – was at its most creative and fervent for the five years after 1936 or so, resulting in half a dozen major works and a substantial body of songs. It occurred, however, at the very beginning of Britten's career, and at a brilliant-prodigy stage of Auden's. After 1947, they hardly even spoke, and Auden was accustomed to say that Britten was the only friend he had ever had with whom he had subsequently irrevocably quarrelled. (Bennett's new play, <em>The Habit of Art</em>, imagines a meeting between the two some 25 years later.) For Britten, on the other hand, it was a different matter; he made quite a career out of casting those who had committed some blunder into the outer darkness. Their collaboration in the late 1930s was fiery and produced some thrilling objects. Yet Britten used different, and lesser, writers to create his best operas; Auden rose to the challenge and worked with a much more important composer than Britten – Stravinsky – to write one of the two or three greatest operas of the century, <em>The Rake's Progress</em>.</p><p>Britten and Auden were brought together in 1935 by a very 1930s organisation, the General Post Office Film Unit, which was devoted to producing documentary films about modern-day life. Both at the time had a mild sort of devotion to communist causes. Britten wrote in his diary that summer about a performance of Elgar's first symphony: "I swear that only in imperialistic England could such a work be tolerated." Auden was coming to the end of what might be termed his Pylon Period, the style which would see him praise industrial landscapes in "Letter to Lord Byron".</p><p>Auden's Oxford tutor, Nevill Coghill, had observed that "Auden is in the imperative", meaning the human being rather than the poet. In 1935 he was a commanding presence across the English-speaking world. Britten was a mere boy, though one of evident enormous gifts. Auden was to observe that he had never seen such "extraordinary musical sensitivity in relation to the English language" as in Britten. The GPO unit set them to work together, Britten setting the beautiful Auden lyric "O lurcher-loving collier, black as night" for a documentary, <em>Coal Face</em>, writing music for other GPO Auden-scripted films, such as <em>Negroes</em> ("Chorus: Beside the long Niger they lost their freedom . . ."), <em>The Way to the Sea</em> and the great <em>Night Mail</em>, still unsurpassed as a marriage of film, music and poetry ("This is the Night Mail crossing the border / Bringing the cheque and the postal order . . ."). Britten was so inexperienced with that last one that he forgot to leave a pause for the rhythmic speaker, Stuart Legg, to breathe, and the recording had to be manipulated as far as the rudimentary technology allowed.</p><p>Clearly, from Auden's point of view, Britten's fascination was not just that of a marvellous musical prodigy. As Peter Parker has demonstrated in his life of Christopher Isherwood, Auden occupied the place of plain best friend in that relationship, always having to settle for the boys Isherwood wasn't interested in. Without conventional good looks, he had always relied on his amazing conversation to get his way. Whether startling the mothers of his college friends when staying with them ("Mrs Carritt, this tea tastes of tepid piss") or, no doubt, explaining to new chums why homosexuality was the only rational choice to take, he had always won others over through his powers of speech.</p><p>For a while, Britten formed a kind of project for Auden and his entire group. Isherwood took Britten in 1937 to the notorious Jermyn Street Turkish Baths. "Well," the film director Basil Wright asked Isherwood afterwards, "have we convinced Ben he's queer, or haven't we?" A glance at Britten's diary, had it been available, would have demonstrated what the problem was. "Very pleasant sensation," Britten wrote of the visit. "Completely sensuous, but very healthy. It is extraordinary to find one's resistance to anything gradually weakening."</p><p>Britten's unswerving attachment to the "healthy" comes out in his private reflections. He wrote of an old schoolboy acquaintance, David Layton, that "he is a very good sort – clean, healthy living and balanced". More experienced boys knew exactly how to write to Britten to get a result. Wulff Scherchen, whom Britten met at 14 and pursued more seriously at 18, was to inspire <em>Young Apollo</em> and the most frankly erotic of the <em>Les Illuminations</em> song cycle of 1939. Replying to Britten's speculative letter, he gets straight to the point. Yes, he remembers Britten from four years ago, he writes: "I was in shorts and sandals (as I am now) and it started to rain. I got thoroughly wet . . ."</p><p>Whether by luck or calculation, or just by calling up in the composer's mind the image of a wet 14 year old, Scherchen could effortlessly hit the note to get a response from Britten. Auden's approaches, on the other hand, reflected his highly didactic personality. They were almost comically unlikely to get results, and not just because Auden was seven years older than Britten, then in his early 20s. But his obsession with leading Britten into bed did result in a series of poetic masterpieces. The lyric "Underneath the abject willow", from March 1936, is addressed to Britten: "Walk then, come / No longer numb / Into your satisfaction." Britten wrote in his diary only of a "bad inferiority complex in company of brains like Basil Wright, Wystan Auden and William Coldstream". In May, another poem seems to relate to a rejection by Britten of Auden – "You love your life and I love you / So I must lie alone."</p><p></p><p>At this period, it is sometimes hard to distinguish, in Auden's writing on music, whether the subject is the art of music or specifically Britten. "There is no creature / Whom I belong to, / Whom I could wrong . . . I shall never be / Different. Love me," Music says in Auden's <em>Hymn to St Cecilia</em>, wonderfully set by Britten in 1942 as their friendship was coming to its end. His sonnet "The Composer", one of a series of speculations on particular or generic artistic figures, suggests he had recently spent a certain amount of time mooning over one composer; the lines "Only your notes are pure contraption / Only your song is an absolute gift" are ironic, considering how very literary a composer Britten turned out to be. There may even be a small dig, in one of the charming cabaret songs, at Britten's taste for what Auden called, in a fateful letter, "thin-as-a-board juveniles"; Britten set it to music, and it was performed at a riotous party to bid farewell to Auden and Isherwood, on their way to the Sino-Japanese war in 1938. Britten may not have noticed that the comic song began with the line "Some say that love's a little boy . . ."</p><p>In 1939, Auden and Isherwood performed their famous bunk to America, and shortly afterwards Britten and his new friend, soon to be his lover and lifetime partner, Peter Pears, followed them. It was not the same. By the time of Britten and Pears's arrival, Auden had met <em>his</em> lifetime partner, Chester Kallman. They all lived together for a time in a celebratedly bohemian household at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn, along with Paul and Jane Bowles, two or three of the Mann children (Auden dashingly married Erika at one point), Carson McCullers and Gypsy Rose Lee. Sheryl Tippins wrote an enjoyable book about the bizarre ménage, capturing the highly tiresome tone of the public exchanges between Auden and Kallman: "'I am not your father, I'm your mother!' 'You're not my mother! I'm your mother! . . . You're my father!'"</p><p>Auden, too, was a notoriously slapdash housekeeper. Years later, Vera Stravinsky found a bowl of brown water abandoned on the floor of the bathroom during an Auden-Kallman dinner party, and flushed it away; she later discovered she had thrown away the pudding for the evening. Could it possibly have been the state of the house in Middagh Street that led to unmeltable frostiness between first Pears and Auden, and subsequently Britten and Auden too? Certainly, in later life, a question about Middagh Street to Pears could always set off a fit of eye-rolling.</p><p><em>Paul Bunyan</em>, Britten and Auden's largest collaboration, is one of those works that one wants to be a masterpiece, and has a lot to be said for it; the poetry represents Auden at his two extremes, the brilliantly clever merchant of paradoxes and rhyming games, and the author of exquisitely framed conversational simplicities. The music is deft and often memorable; the idea of the little opera, of an unseen giant Paul Bunyan and the founding of a community at America's birth, ought to work perfectly well. But the American critics poured scorn on it at its premiere in May 1941, perhaps irritated by two chic English draft-dodgers taking on a heroic American national myth. Britten never sought to have it performed again in his lifetime.</p><p>Shortly afterwards, Auden dealt the relationship a fatal blow by yielding to his didactic urge, and writing the sort of letter which no one should write to a friend, putting him straight about a number of defects in his character: "I am certain too that it is your denial and evasion of the demands of disorder that is responsible for your attacks of ill-health . . . you are and probably always will be surrounded by people who adore you, nurse you and praise everything you do . . . you are always tempted to make things too easy for yourself in this way, ie to build yourself a warm nest of love . . . by playing the loveable talented little boy."</p><p>After that letter of January 1942, the relationship was more or less over. Auden tried to persuade Britten to set one last thing, his great "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio". But as any reader could have told him, this long poem does all the music itself. It was in no need of an orchestra and chorus to add to the splendid effects of the verse.</p><p>There are a surprising number of scores in the Auden-Britten catalogue – Clive James once said the results of the encounter were meagre, but Donald Mitchell, in a book on the subject, thought it might, in the end, amount to more than the Brecht-Weill collaborations. Many of them are brilliantly clever – the cabaret songs are irresistibly good; the allegorical treatment of prewar international politics, <em>Our Hunting Fathers</em>, still startles with its brief flash of terror as the medieval catalogue of hawks' names comes down at the end to just two – "German. Jew." <em>Paul Bunyan</em> will always be revived as an occasional curiosity. Edward Mendelson observed that in the 1930s <em>King Arthur</em> – the 1691 opera by Purcell and Dryden – "was the first and still the only libretto written by a major English poet for a major English composer. <em>Paul Bunyan</em> would be the second."</p><p>In the end, Britten's subsequent career showed that he worked best with people not quite up to his level. Auden's career as a librettist displayed, in the magnificent <em>Rake's Progress</em>, that he needed an artist on the scale of a Stravinsky to deal with his invention. For a few years the two came together; they were never truly compatible, artistically or as people, and their joint products are tantalising rather than fulfilled. But they were exceptional creative figures, and if they went wrong, they did so in a lastingly interesting way.</p><p><em>The Habit of Art</em> is at the Lyttelton Theatre, London, until March. Box office: 020 7452 3000.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/alanbennett">Alan Bennett</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/whauden">WH Auden</a></li></ul></div><div class="guRssAdvert"><a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Culture&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647805806749221694793295"><img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Culture&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647805806749221694793295" border="0" /></a></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/philiphensher">Philip Hensher</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> - 12 hours ago
Letters: Shakespeare is still relevant in schools
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/29392?ns=guardian&pageName=Letters%3A+Shakespeare+is+still+relevant+in+schools%3AArticle%3A1301928&ch=Culture&c3=Guardian&c4=William+Shakespeare%2CCulture+section%2CRoyal+Shakespeare+Company%2CStage%2CEducation%2CGCSEs&c6=&c7=09-Nov-07&c8=1301928&c9=Article&c10=Letter&c11=Culture&c13=&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FCulture%2FWilliam+Shakespeare" width="1" height="1" /></div><p>While it's not our place to say what exams people take, we do believe a meaningful introduction to Shakespeare should be part of every student's cultural life (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/nov/04/igcse-international-gcse-state-schools" title="State schools are barred from offering elite International GCSE">State schools are barred from offering elite International GCSE</a>, 5 November). There is a reason why Shakespeare is the only compulsory writer on the secondary English curriculum. While we can understandably be accused of bias in this area, we know (because teachers and students tell us and evaluators document it) that when students engage actively with the plays, when they are up on their feet saying the words and making choices about character motivation and setting, they are also exploring living dilemmas about democracy, leadership, family loyalty, love and power. They increase their confidence, self-esteem and communication skills in the process.</p><p>In a culture of teaching and learning that is driven by exam results, our recent KS3 experiences have shown that if there isn't a test on it, it's less likely to get taught. And pupils are less likely to see the relevance of it. Until we rethink the curriculum and the relationship that examinations and tests have to the range of learning experiences we know young people need, there is a danger in saying OK to optional Shakespeare. It may mean a generation of young people leaving school with at best a vague memory of one or two plays and at worst no connection with Shakespeare at all. Young people don't have to like Shakespeare, but they do need to be given the chance to make an informed decision about his work.</p><p><strong>Jacqui O'Hanlon</strong></p><p><em>Director of education, </em><a href="http://www.rsc.org.uk/home/default.aspx" title="Royal Shakespeare Company"><em>Royal Shakespeare Company</em></a></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/rsc">Royal Shakespeare Company</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/gcses">GCSEs</a></li></ul></div><div class="guRssAdvert"><a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Culture&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647854835221598393444539"><img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Culture&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647854835221598393444539" border="0" /></a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> - 12 hours ago
From the archive: Peter Brook's King Lear at Stratford
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/8615?ns=guardian&pageName=From+the+archive%3A+Peter+Brook%27s+King+Lear+at+Stratford%3AArticle%3A1301644&ch=From+the+Guardian&c3=Guardian&c4=Theatre%2CBallet&c6=&c7=09-Nov-07&c8=1301644&c9=Article&c10=&c11=From+the+Guardian&c13=From+the+archive+%28series%29&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FFrom+the+Guardian%2FTheatre" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Originally published on 7 November 1962</p><p>Why mince words? This is an exceptionally fine production – the most moving performance of the play I have seen since the war.</p><p>Immediately I must add that it carries in it a defect which seems to me personally a serious one; Mr Paul Scofield does not touch my heart through my ear. What a musician would call phrasing is largely absent, and this actor has no crescendo, only loud or soft, with the words issuing at times in groups and at dictation speed. The curses thus lose some of their power; so do Lear's moments of majesty. But in the storm and in the hovel and especially in the exchanges with the superb Fool of Alec McCowen, a quite magnificently worked out piece of support and the best since Stephen Haggard, Mr Scofield moved me by the sheer sincerity and intelligence of his reading of the part: the desolation of the old man's realisation of how he has betrayed himself. This is a deadness of belief and it is without self pity.</p><p>Peter Brook's production at first moves at a Wagnerian deliberation of speed, which pays off in that the hieratic preliminaries and the whole curve of the play – man subject and counter-subject – are wonderfully clear; and then how rich is the chord that is struck. I have seldom noticed so many points intelligently taken.</p><p>His design,too, like Bayreuth's, is abstract, highly suggestive and reaching a real triumph in the storm scene with King and Fool staggering about a grey wilderness of stretched canvas under the throb of three huge thundersheets which hang above them. But sheer theatrical vitality informs scene after scene. Besides Mr Scofield and Mr McCowen, fine acting in uniformity of style is elicited by this producer from Tom Fleming as Kent, James Booth as Edmund, Brian Murray as Edgar, and from the daughters – Irene Worth, Patience Collier, and Diana Rigg.</p><p><strong>Philip Hope-Wallace</strong></p><p><strong>Fonteyn and Nureyev.</strong></p><p>It was Fonteyn and Nureyev again last night at Covent Garden; the ballet was "Les Sylphides," a work so familiar, so seldom performed adequately. In its insidious way it finds out the dancer who, for all his or her technical strength, lacks quality of movement and sensibility of temperament. Last night's performance with Nureyev instead of a regular member of the company was about as good as the Royal Ballet can achieve. It was the sort of performance which reminds the old fogies that this is one of the greatest ballets of them all.</p><p><strong>Our ballet critic</strong></p><p><em>These archive extracts are compiled by John Ezard: john.ezard@guardian.co.uk</em></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatre">Theatre</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/ballet">Ballet</a></li></ul></div><div class="guRssAdvert"><a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yes&site=News&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647898270997452159667091"><img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yes&site=News&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647898270997452159667091" border="0" /></a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> - 12 hours ago
This week's theatre previews
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/20999?ns=guardian&pageName=This+week%27s+theatre+previews%3AArticle%3A1301190&ch=Stage&c3=Guardian&c4=Theatre%2CStage%2CCulture+section&c6=Lyn+Gardner%2CMark+Cook&c7=09-Nov-07&c8=1301190&c9=Article&c10=&c11=Stage&c13=&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FStage%2FTheatre" width="1" height="1" /></div><h2>Pub, <em>Manchester</em></h2><p>The Exchange has transformed its studio space into a working boozer for a month-long celebration of pub culture. Audiences will be able to drink real ale, have a game of darts or play fruit machines as the performance takes place around them. First up is Pub Quiz, taking the form of a real quiz during which a love story emerges. You Do It All Again looks at the effect of alcohol on relationships, while A Free House considers the pub as a neutral meeting place for fathers and sons.</p><p><em>Royal Exchange Studio, Wed to 5 Dec </em></p><p><strong><em>Lyn Gardner</em></strong></p><h2>Words & Pictures, <em>Leeds</em></h2><p>Revivals of Third Angel's earlier work were a big hit at Forest Fringe this summer and now there's a change to see a new piece, a co-commission between Off The Shelf and the Leeds Met Gallery & Studio Theatre. It takes the form of a book reading for a book that's not yet published but which lives in the imaginations and memories of its creators. It sounds like an intriguing show from a company that's been around a long time but which is still forward-looking.</p><p><em>Workshop Theatre, University Of Leeds, Wed & Thu</em></p><p><strong><em>Lyn Gardner</em></strong></p><h2>Public Property, <em>London</em></h2><p>The world of spin and PR is now so woven into our consciousness – and often so transparent with the likes of Jordan and Peter – that we almost take it for granted. Public Property is a dark new comedy by Sam Peter Jackson about a publicist whose client is caught in a sexual scandal. Nigel Harman, formerly of EastEnders, who acquitted himself well on his last West End appearance in Richard Greenberg's Three Days Of Rain (although rather less so in BBC1's seriously ropey drama Hotel Babylon), plays the publicist, Larry, who is required to get a newsman (Robert Daws) out of trouble when he is caught in a compromising situation by photographers. As the two struggle with excrement coming into collision with cooling machinery, the question arises: is all publicity good publicity? Hanna Berrigan directs. <em>Trafalgar Studios, SW1, Tue to 5 Dec</em></p><p><strong><em>Mark Cook</em></strong></p><h2>I Found My Horn, <em>London</em></h2><p>It sounds a bit like something that Kenneth Williams might have done back in the 1960s. In fact, I Found My Horn is based on a book by journalist Jasper Rees, a partly autobiographical mid-life crisis tale of his stumbling into the attic and fingering an instrument (ooh, matron!) that he'd abandoned decades earlier – his French horn. Having uncovered said instrument, his life-affirming aim was to play a Mozart concerto for a paying audience. This one-man play has been adapted from the book by Rees himself alongside actor-writer Jonathan Guy Lewis, a similarly lapsed horn player who was in Hampstead Theatre's production of Michael Frayn's Alphabetical Order earlier this year. Here, Lewis also plays the wannabe horn player, his old school conductor and Mozart, among others.</p><p><em>Hampstead Theatre, NW3, Tue to 28 Nov</em></p><p><strong><em>Mark Cook</em></strong></p><h2>Natura Morte, <em>Glasgow</em></h2><p>The Arches has a bit of a coup here with this collaboration between two companies with cult followings and its own Conflux project, a new initiative aimed at giving a higher profile to physical theatre, circus and outdoor work in Scotland. It features Russian-German dance company Derevo, led by Anton Adasinsky, and the St Petersburg-based Akhe, which can create images of great beauty and can also scare the life out of you. Together they'll be taking over the main spaces of the Arches and also running wild in the maze of basement spaces to create a promenade piece of crazy theatre set in a world devoid of time and place. Expect to be plunged into darkness and have your conception of theatre, and perhaps even your very soul, shaken and stirred.</p><p><em>The Arches, Tue to 14 Nov</em></p><p><strong><em>Lyn Gardner</em></strong></p><h2>Nora, <em>Colchester</em></h2><p>Ingmar Bergman's pared-down version of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House puts the focus very much on Nora, the wife of a rising banker who discovers that the past has come back to haunt her just at the moment when she thought that she and her family were about to be financially secure. First performed in Germany in 1981, Bergman's version very much concentrates on Nora's personal journey as she starts to realise that she has never had a real identity of her own and that only by discovering herself can she be a wife and a mother. Mercury associate Sue Lefton directs a story that, more than a century after it was written, still raises issues of what women want, what we settle for, and how we can make our escape. The cast includes Mercury stalwarts Ignatius Anthony, Kate Copeland, Roger Delves-Broughton and Ben Livingstone.</p><p><em>Mercury Theatre, to 21 Nov </em></p><p><strong><em>Lyn Gardner</em></strong></p><h2>The Pros, The Cons And A Screw, <em>Derby</em></h2><p>Well here's a compilation musical with a difference, featuring songs by everyone from the Beatles and the Who through to Stereophonics and Snow Patrol, with a bit of Alice Cooper and Bruce Springsteen thrown in for good measure. A world premiere by local writer Tim Elgood, it breathes life back into the old Derby Playhouse – now rebranded as Derby Theatre – with the story of Kieran O'Connell, a celebrated songwriter banged up for perjury in prison, who discovers that fame on the outside counts for nothing on the inside. At odds with both the screws and the inmates, life for Kieran looks bleak, but the prison rock group in the education unit may be his salvation – or possibly his doom. There's already been one pretty successful prison musical in Bad Girls, perhaps this will make it two. Steven Dexter directs a cast headed by Stephen Gray.</p><p><em>Derby Theatre, to 21 Nov </em></p><p><strong><em>Lyn Gardner</em></strong></p><h2>The Fever Chart, <em>York</em></h2><p>American playwright Naomi Wallace is a great writer, author of powerfully political plays including One Flea Spare and The Trestle At Pope Lick Creek. She is a writer who sees clearly and who writes about what she sees with an austere poetry and questing intelligence. Already produced in New York last year, The Fever Chart looks at how humanity can be found in the most inhumane places. Taking the audience on a journey from a zoo in Rafah, Palestine to a hospital in Tel Aviv and then to a yard in Iraq, the play offers three separate but interlinked stories about people caught up in political tensions and war, and dealing with love and life in the midst of death.</p><p><em>Theatre Royal, to 14 Nov </em></p><p><strong><em>Lyn Gardner</em></strong></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatre">Theatre</a></li></ul></div><div class="guRssAdvert"><a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Theatre&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647916005977811532572546"><img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Theatre&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647916005977811532572546" border="0" /></a></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/lyngardner">Lyn Gardner</a></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/markcook">Mark Cook</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> - 12 hours ago
Uncle Vanya | Bristol Old Vic
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/74174?ns=guardian&pageName=Uncle+Vanya+%7C+Bristol+Old+Vic%3AArticle%3A1301860&ch=Stage&c3=Guardian&c4=Theatre%2CStage%2CCulture+section&c6=Lyn+Gardner&c7=09-Nov-06&c8=1301860&c9=Article&c10=Review&c11=Stage&c13=&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FStage%2FTheatre" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Bristol Old Vic</p><p>The sky is eggshell blue and goes on for ever. The birds are singing. There is jam for tea. "A lovely day for hanging yourself," says Simon Armstrong's Vanya. There are times when Andrew Hilton's revival in Stephen Mulrine's dry-as-a-martini translation feels like 19th-century Russian Beckett. At others, it's like a mad farce where everybody is vying to be top of the class in unhappiness. Indeed, Paul Currier's Astrov, with his clipped tones, can be a little precious – like a precocious prep-school boy. The men are big babies in need of the soothing ministrations of Nanny (Jacqueline Tong), or hankering after the beautiful, unattainable Yelena (Alys Thomas) – a woman who, like a sly cat, knows her own power but is incapable of using it wisely. "She's so lovely," says Vanya as if he wants to gobble her up like jam.</p><p>A few first-night uncertainties of tone and timing aside, this production has all Hilton's hallmarks of simplicity and clarity, and sits beautifully on the Old Vic stage that has been extended outwards, as in Georgian times. The result, aided by Harriet de Winton's breathtakingly simple design, is so direct that I started to feel as if this play was being performed just for me.</p><p>Hilton's production is also very funny because it is so unnervingly merciless. He gives us the characters warts and all, allows us to see them in all their absurdity and self-absorption. There is nothing kind about his approach, and because it is so unsparing, you hardly notice the moment when laughter dies and farce turns to the tragedy of long lives lived entirely without hope.</p><p><em>Until 21 November. Box office: 0117-987 7877.</em></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatre">Theatre</a></li></ul></div><div class="guRssAdvert"><a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Theatre&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647963530683683689497478"><img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Theatre&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960647963530683683689497478" border="0" /></a></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/lyngardner">Lyn Gardner</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> - 13 hours ago
Gilbelt Is Dead | Theatre review
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/34150?ns=guardian&pageName=Gilbelt+Is+Dead+%7C+Theatre+review%3AArticle%3A1301792&ch=Stage&c3=Guardian&c4=Stage%2CTheatre%2CCulture+section&c6=Michael+Billington&c7=09-Nov-06&c8=1301792&c9=Article&c10=Review&c11=Stage&c13=&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FStage%2FTheatre" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Hoxton Hall, London</p><p>Robin French made his mark five years ago with a short Royal Court play, Bear Hug, about a couple who greet their son's transformation into a bear with perverse optimism. His new play also deals with man's relation to the animal kingdom. Though it is staged in a jewel-like Victorian music-hall and has a modicum of high spirits, it strikes me as a muddled affair: an attack on anti-Darwinians that veers between satirical spoof and melodramatic mystery.</p><p>French's hero, Lucius Trickett, is Victorian London's leading taxidermist. Following his wife's death, he lives in seclusion with his daughter, who uses a wheelchair, and resists all attempts to reopen his museum. The reason, it transpires, is religious. He is awaiting the return of explorer Gilbert Shirley who will give him permission to exhibit the recently discovered ghost loris: a death-seeking mammal that supposedly refutes Darwin's theories about the unstoppable animal urge to mate, eat and move. Gilbert's monkey-like animal will, it is argued, chalk up a victory for God in the battle against evolution. But who is Gilbert, and is he dead or alive?</p><p>I am all for a play about the intellectual conflicts of Victorian England, but French's play whimsically loads the dice. The idea that the discovery of one atypical animal would undo Darwinian theory is absurd: it's what you might call the origin of the specious. And, although French might argue that his hero is meant to be mad, that doesn't reinforce his argument. The best way to attack an idea is at its strongest point, not its weakest. If French wanted to expose Darwin's critics, he should have chosen not a dotty taxidermist, but one of the physicists or engineers, such as William Thomson or Fleeming Jenkin, who raised reasoned objections to The Origin of Species.</p><p>French's saving grace is his madcap humour. It's hard to resist a scene where Queen Victoria ends an interview at Osborne with Gilbert Shirley by crying, "Footman, my ukulele!" And, when someone asks whether it is natural for a 16-year-old girl to be stuffing animals (with reference to Trickett's daughter), it raises a wry smile.</p><p>Robert Wolstenholme has assembled a strong cast for this Shiningman production. Ronan Vibert exudes warped fervour as the museum owner, and William Chubb as his doctor is all baffled concern. I was never bored, but the Darwinian debate deserves less eccentric treatment and, for me, the evening's main discovery was not so much French's wild farrago as this hidden Shoreditch theatre.</p><p><em>Until 29 November. Box office: 0844-771 000.</em></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatre">Theatre</a></li></ul></div><div class="guRssAdvert"><a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Theatre&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960648007110846707320533161"><img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yes&site=Theatre&spacedesc=rss&system=rss&transactionID=12575960648007110846707320533161" border="0" /></a></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaelbillington">Michael Billington</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> - 14 hours ago
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