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January
Boo! Hiss! 14th January 2008
The role of the struggling actor just got harder
Earlier this week, Arts Council head Peter Hewitt put on the year’s least popular stage show in living memory.

His matinee at the Young Vic in Ken Livingstone’s “We’re Cutting All Your Funding and Spending it on the Olympics” met with a chorus of boos from an audience that included Sir Ian McKellen, Kevin Spacey, Joanna Lumley, Richard Briers, Caroline Quentin, Sheila Hancock and Jonathan Pryce. Sheffield Theatre’s director Sam West even leapt onto stage to express his disapproval.

It’s not just regional theatres that are suffering from the cuts – Richmond’s Orange Tree is losing nearly a fifth of its funding, and The Bush is set to suffer a potentially fatal 40% cut.

And yet… in a couple of weeks, the giant Lyttleton Theatre at the National, a tenth of whose funding would probably keep the Bush going for a decade is to put on a production of Peter Handke’s 'The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other', which they describe as:

“Twenty-seven actors, 450 characters and no dialogue: a play without words by the great experimental figure of European theatre.”

To you this might mean very little: an easy decision to steer well clear of the National Theatre for a month or so and rave reviews in The Guardian and Time Out to read and shake your head at. It’s a little tougher on those of us who occasionally get called upon to write reviews, since there’s always a risk of having to actually sit through the bloody thing, trying to think of something nice to say about it, since it’s clearly Art.

Bur more importantly, this kind of grimly self-important theatrical navel-gazing is a quite extraordinary way to spend a subsidy. No dialogue? 450 characters? Could you not just sit on Eros and watch the tourists bumping into each other around Piccadilly Circus to get that kind of entertainment? And then there’s opera, which currently absorbs about a sixth of London’s arts budget so that fat hedge fund managers can take a break from their mistresses and treat their wives to a night of exquisitely tasteful boredom. Or contemporary dance, which is either dull or pornographic. And while I’m quite happy with the latter, I’m not sure I really need quite so much of my income tax to be spent on it.

The process by which theatres’ subsidies are calculated currently makes about as much sense as a Beckett monologue. I propose a simpler method: for every use of the word ‘abstract’, ‘experimental’, ‘ground-breaking’, ‘avant garde’, or ‘wordless’ in a review of a show, the theatre gets 1% of its subsidy passed on to a smaller venue. And ‘physicality’, ‘serio-comic’ and ‘radical’ count for double. Problem solved.
Off the streets, into the Dungeon!
A controversial idea bandied about for the London Dungeon’s Jack the Ripper show would take reality entertainment to new levels. Think ‘celebrity judge’ Billie Piper, star of ‘Secret Diary of a Call Girl’, think prostitutes on London’s streets, think auditions and you’ve got a ready-made formula or recipe for disaster – yes, that’s right, real-life prostitutes to become the imaginary ones in the show…what is it they say about all publicity being good publicity?
The Art of Shopping
Sometimes it looks as if Selfridges’ famous window displays are works of art and now they actually are. But, of course, the luxury department store’s latest display is nothing to do with publicity and everything to do with the art (spot the cynic). Charitably, they are giving this space, named the Wonder Windows, as a showcase for up-and-coming young artists who might otherwise not get such a prime exhibition spot.
Muscling In
It seems that an ‘alien species’ of mussels in the Thames are flexing their…er, shells and threatening native species. Apart from being surprised that anything can actually survive in the Thames, there has apparently been a zebra mussel invasion, according to the Marine Conservation Society, which is surprising as they come from south-east Russia. The greatest danger from the little blighters is to the depressed river mussel – no wonder they’re depressed!
October 2009
26th October
Posties Strike a Chord
26th October
Frieze Still Pleases
September 2009
26th September
A River Runs Through It
23rd September
Blogging is Best
August 2009
26th August
When Saturday comes
22nd August
Bring on the Bikes
July 2009
27th July
Against the Clock
20th July
View for a thrill
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
18th February
New Photography Laws
12th February
Glitz and the Pitts
January 2009
27th January
Setting the Standard
21st January
Too Much for Posh Nosh?
December 2008
23rd December
January is on the Horizon
20th December
Merry Christmas
November 2008
26th November
All The World's A Stage
20th November
Surviving the Crunch
October 2008
24th October
Boris v Jingjing
17th October
Soaps in Pole Position
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
23rd April
By George
11th April
Back to the 80s
March 2008
February 2008
20th February
Dark, Satanic Turnmills
6th February
A Diamond in the Drink
January 2008
21st January
People Wanted for Plinth
14th January
Boo! Hiss!
December 2007
28th December
Tate That - A Hirst for Art
20th December
Christmas Shopping
November 2007
27th November
Mind the Gap
26th November
London On A Tray
October 2007
26th October
Leaving the Station
14th October
The Sky's the Limit
September 2007
August 2007
24th August
Heathrow under Siege
17th August
Gormless
10th August
Losing Face
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
23rd March
So, Another Magazine
16th March
Avoiding iContact
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
26th May
Curvaceous Border
12th May
Vegging Out
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
20th January
February Sales
20th January
Moby Sick
13th January
Glass Half Full
3rd January
Three Cheers for the Tube Station Workers
December 2005
22nd December
January Bites
16th December
A Remarkable Year
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
29th July
Moving On From 7/7
22nd July
Get loaded in the park
15th July
Victoire!!
June 2005
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April 2005
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January 2005
December 2004
30th December
Party Pooper
23rd December
The Second Battle of Trafalgar
16th December
Sadie's Year
November 2004
28th November
Ripper-Watch
21st November
Kinky Boots
14th November
Smoked out
October 2004
22nd October
Yuppie Meal
15th October
Fines of Fury
8th October
No Twist in the Turner
September 2004
17th September
Battleships, bloodsports and Batman
10th September
Clique Week
3rd September
Return of the Bard
August 2004
July 2004
 
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