I had a ticket to the National Theatre's Othello tonight, but circumstances now mean that I'm at home. Which offers the perfect opportunity to watch the online live stream of The Arrest of Ai WeiWei from Hampstead Theatre. The stream is more
I was 16 years old in the summer of 1971. At school I had just taken my O' levels, including English Language and English Literature, for both of which I had been taught by the poet Brian Jones. He told more
There's one straight-up, stand-out recommendation this week, Eric Naiman's lengthy essay for The Times Literary Supplement, When Dickens met Dostoevsky. It's the tale of a notable literary hoax about an alleged meeting encounter between the two authors in more
To Clapham Picturehouse for Manet: Portraying Life, the Royal Academy of Arts exhibition (until 14 April) 'captured for cinema screens worldwide'. That's the claim of Exhibition: Great Art on Screen, a new initiative from more
Let's suppose that Arts Council England employed the critic Andrew Graham-Dixon and a team of researchers and production staff to put together a substantial 3-volume history of the art of the Netherlands. ACE committed, let's say, £300K of public funds more
Here's an intriguing mystery. I have been writing in another context about the ITV company Granada and the benevolent despot who ran it in the 1950s and 1960s, Sidney Bernstein. Bernstein owned a chain of cinemas as more
These past few months I have spent a good deal of time in Stratford-upon-Avon, where I have been exploring further collaborations with the Royal Shakespeare Company. That's how I know that many of the company's leading lights, including artistic director more
So even if you've already seen this, it is worth another watch - it's a brilliant marketing coup for Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum which re-opens this week after a decade of closure. A detail of the painting which it recreates - Rembrandt's more
I am currently watching more television series drama than I have for a long time. Each new episode of Broadchurch on ITV and of both The Good Wife and Nashville on More4 demands a viewing, and Mad Men S6 is just about more
First day at work for new BBC Director General Lord Hall. His morning e-mail to all staff is here. Advice? Well, nurture the arts, please, and perhaps especially performance on television, but other than that I will leave more