John Wyver writes: With the 1956 BBC production of Arthur Benjamin's commissioned opera Mañana currently and pleasingly on BBCiPlayer, I have written blog posts about the backstory to the project and about the production as television. This more
John Wyver writes: In a previous post I sketched the backstory of the BBC-commissioned opera Mañana, composed by Arthur Benjamin and produced for television in February 1956. Thanks to the seventieth anniversary, a digitally restored version of this more
John Wyver writes: An inconsequential observation, and as such one that hardly warrants its own post. But I was at Tate Britain this morning, among crowds attracted by the final days of Lee Miller (until 15 February) and more
John Wyver writes: Late on Sunday night, BBC Four brought to the screen the 1956 BBC production of Arthur Benjamin's 75-minute opera Mañana. The transmission was 70 years to the day after its television premiere, and the recording is now more
John Wyver writes: Over the past five years, at the online Arts & Design pages of The New York Times, Jason Farago and colleagues have been reinventing visual arts criticism. Their latest offering in the series of interactive animated more
John Wyver writes: Slightly late posting this today, but offered now in the hope you'll find it interesting and useful. Asd ever, it's a miscellany of stuff that I found valuable and engaging over the past seven days. The appropriately more
John Wyver writes: The final screening in the BFI Southbank season linked to the publication of Magic Rays of Light: The Early Years of Television in Britain is on Saturday afternoon at 15.00. The oddball programme pairs more
John Wyver writes: The earliest programme to be featured in BBC iPlayer's treasure trove of Henrik Ibsen plays and documentaries is the production of The Lady from the Sea, first shown in May 1953. Seen initially in the more
John Wyver writes: To Chichester by train last Saturday for a visit to Pallant House Gallery, both to see the current William Nicholson exhibition (on until 10 May) and to have lunch at Pallant Café, which for me more
John Wyver writes: As we recover from the centenary, today's post is just a single link to a piece I published on The Conversation yesterday: The BBC once made the arts ‘utterly central’ to television – 100 years later they’re more