From Winchester’s New Minster charter, which dates back to 966 and shows King Edgar worshipped alongside Christ by adoring angels, to Henry VIII’s personal psalter, complete with illustrations of the hirsute king posing as David, these manuscripts admirably achieve their aim – …]]>

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by...

This season, the British Library is all about the manuscripts. The gorgeous artworks in ‘Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination’ – its big winter exhibition charting 800 years’ worth of illuminated medieval and Renaissance manuscripts collected by English kings and queens –bring a feast of glimmering gilt, holy lapis lazuli and rich royal crimson into a grey January.

From Winchester’s New Minster charter, which dates back to 966 and shows King Edgar worshipped alongside Christ by adoring angels, to Henry VIII’s personal psalter, complete with illustrations of the hirsute king posing as David, these manuscripts admirably achieve their aim – which is to dazzle us with the magnificence of the monarchy whilst furthering its religious, political and social ends. The exhibition is the result of three years’ research undertaken by the Library in collaboration with the Courtauld Institute of Art on 2,000 ancient handwritten books, which give deep insight into the motivations, aspirations and imaginations of our ancestors. Its stated aim is to “to make them as well known as landmark medieval buildings linked to the monarchy, such as the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey and Windsor Castle”.

Seriously stirring stuff.

But when you’ve finished marveling at these parchment peacocks, don’t hit the Euston Road straight away. Our In Residence series is all about uncovering some of the best artistic gems nestling in the permanent collections of London’s museums and galleries – gems that are totally free to visit and prone to be overlooked in the age of the expensive blockbuster show.

So before you head back out into the rain, take a detour to the Sir John Ritblat Gallery on the Library’s upper ground floor and seek out an altogether less flashy manuscript. This book more closely resembles something you might have made for a school project: pages stained with tea, edges crisped on the hob, ye olde calligraphy carefully pressed on in sepia Letraset. But to me it is more moving and magnificent than the finest bestiary.

CONTINUE READING AT LONDON CALLING…

But when Tim Plester premiered Way of the Morris, his documentary about “the origins and impulses behind Morris dancing and its place within enchanted England’s ongoing story”, alongside the Jake Gyllenhaal thriller Source Code …]]>

Way of the Morris

It was an unlikely pairing. You wouldn’t expect the sort of edgy, urban international hipsters that attend SXSW – the music, film, and technology festival and all-round trend-spotting mecca that sprouts from the desert of Austin, Texas each year – would have much interest in a bunch of bobbing blokes from a small Oxfordshire village with bells on their legs and hankies in their hands.

But when Tim Plester premiered Way of the Morris, his documentary about “the origins and impulses behind Morris dancing and its place within enchanted England’s ongoing story”, alongside the Jake Gyllenhaal thriller Source Code and Jodie Foster’s The Beaver, their reaction suggested quite otherwise.

“We certainly didn’t come close to breaking any box-office records,” Plester laughs, “but we did succeed in attracting several small but perfectly formed audiences who, I hope, left the screenings with their notions of Old Weird Albion sufficiently shaken and stirred.” The film want on to scoop awards for ‘Best Independent Documentary Feature’ and ‘Best Documentary Film’ at the 2011 Southern Appalachian International Film Festival, was selected by the UK Film Focus as one of their ‘Breakthrough’ British films of the year, and both the British Library and The British Film Institute requested copies of the film for their archives.

Plester’s success is not as surprising as you might think, and not just because nostalgia for the bucolic good life is a timeless cultural trope. A new strain of gritty, unsentimental and forward-looking rusticity has been bubbling away over the past five years or so. And to its disciples – in music, fashion and technology, as well as film – native traditions are a way into the future, not a relic from the past.

CONTINUE READING AT FUTURESPACE…

A century and a half later, we’re still deluding ourselves. A recent survey shows that four out of five people will fail to keep their vows of self-improvement over the next twelve months, but we don’t need ‘research’ to tell us that New Year’s resolutions suck. Just maybe, if the calendar year started in spring, we would be up for abstinence and avocado; as it is, our serotonin-starved brains …]]>

2012: Year of the Novel

“Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions”, wrote Mark Twain in Nevada’s Territorial Enterprise on January 1, 1863. “Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

A century and a half later, we’re still deluding ourselves. A recent survey shows that four out of five people will fail to keep their vows of self-improvement over the next twelve months, but we don’t need ‘research’ to tell us that New Year’s resolutions suck. Just maybe, if the calendar year started in spring, we would be up for abstinence and avocado; as it is, our serotonin-starved brains are still craving carbs, cashmere and television programmes featuring either Benedict Cumberbatch, a Labrador, or both.

This does, however, make January the perfect time to upgrade your literary habits. Now is not the time for Norovirus-marinated gyms and desperate two-for-one bars. Now is the time for a quiet night in with a book, while grazing on leftover pigs-in-blankets and coffee creams. It’s frugal, it’s carbon neutral, it’s retro, it’s smug: in short, it’s so 2012.  Anyway, according to the British Liver Trust detoxing in January is futile, and Antony Horowitz’s new Sherlock Holmes novel is even better when you’ve got half an unfinished bottle of Advocaat propped beside the armchair.

So, what will yours be?

To come up with mine, I started by looking at what did and didn’t work last year. In my January 2011 Bookdiva column, I vowed to escape my fiction comfort zone and explore books I don’t naturally gravitate towards – more American and Japanese writers, more biographies, more debut novels and more science. Have I succeeded? Sort of. I’ve certainly scaled up my debut reading – Justin Torres’ We The Animals and Karen Russell’s Swamplandia! have been two of my recent favourites. I also did well with the Americans, once Franzen and Egan got me started on a transatlantic roll. And I’ve gorged on neuroscience – David Eagleman’s Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain rather appropriately blew my mind. But Japanese writers and biographies? Not so much. Although Christopher Ross’s Mishima’s Sword: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend looks good, so maybe I can make up for both shortfallings in one go.

CONTINUE READING AT BOOKDVIA…

Admittedly, the RSC’s new winter show, The Heart of Robin Hood, had signalled from the start that we weren’t in for wholesome derring-do amid dappled sunshine. Within the first few minutes our ungallant hero had shot dead a monk with an arrow through the eye. Shortly after, soldiers threatened two blubbing children under the revolving toes of their hanged father. A realistic decapitation drew a few gasps but was swiftly topped by a brutal de-tonguing, in which the ravaged appendage was gaily waved about as the victim’s mouth frothed with …]]>

The Heart of Robin Hood. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

It was the blow job joke that did it.

Admittedly, the RSC’s new winter show, The Heart of Robin Hood, had signalled from the start that we weren’t in for wholesome derring-do amid dappled sunshine. Within the first few minutes our ungallant hero had shot dead a monk with an arrow through the eye. Shortly after, soldiers threatened two blubbing children under the revolving toes of their hanged father. A realistic decapitation drew a few gasps but was swiftly topped by a brutal de-tonguing, in which the ravaged appendage was gaily waved about as the victim’s mouth frothed with blood. But it was when King John started to make bobbing hand gestures, pantomiming his lascivious nature, that I saw several adults around me pursing their lips.

The kids, of course, were oblivious – and ecstatic. And so they should have been. Gísli Örn Garðarsson’s deliciously visceral production rips through the cliches of our over-worn national tale to touch its anarchic, acrobatic and deeply moving heart. It feels far more authentic than the versions of Flynn, Costner and co, and full of the morbid weirdness that characterises old British myths.

But some grumblings surfaced among the parents as we filed out into the night. Wasn’t it, well, a bit much? There is a “suitable for age seven +” disclaimer on the RSC website, but this is being touted as a family show and there were many under-sevens in the audience. “It was the same with Toy Story 3,” said one mother. “That bit in the oven. It was far too scary for me, let alone her.”

This response amazes me. Don’t grownups remember what it’s like to be a child? The success of the Horrible Histories franchise reminds us that kids love bloody, messy nastiness, but the Histories are pure Blyton compared with the best of children’s literature. From the moment we’re introduced to the kinky cruelties of the Brothers Grimm, things get dark. Then come Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, Alan Garner … these are the twisted keepers of our childhood imaginings. Even JK Rowling’s Death Eaters tap into the tradition.

CONTINUE READING AT THE GUARDIAN…

Back in May, the Guardian’s Stephen Moss asked ‘Is the blockbuster exhibition dead?’, citing the Tate’s recent Gaugin exhibition – which took record sales …]]>

Giovanni Bellini, Madonna del Prato, 1505

Perhaps the recession makes us eager to feel we’re getting more for our money. Perhaps James Cameron, Peter Jackson and the other masters of the CGI epic have led us to expect nothing less. Or perhaps the arts marketing industry has simply got really good at fuelling the hype machine. Whatever the reason, we are most definitely in the era of the arts blockbuster, where every new exhibition has to come packaged as this year’s ‘major event.’

Back in May, the Guardian’s Stephen Moss asked ‘Is the blockbuster exhibition dead?’, citing the Tate’s recent Gaugin exhibition – which took record sales but suffered brutal overcrowding – and the National Gallery’s current star show Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, for which the number of admissions has been reduced from 230 per half-hour slot to 180. He was responding to comments by Colin Tweedy, the chief executive of the Prince of Wales’s charity Arts & Business, who in March called on gallery bosses to innovate new, less troublesome models for showcasing great artists.

It seems that nobody was listening. Right now we have, to name but a few, John Martin: Apocalypse for Tate Britain and Gerhard Richter’s Panorama for Tate Modern, both pulling in breathless critical acclaim as well as ticket sales; Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement at the Royal Academy of Arts trying to reinstate the painter as a revolutionary rather than a sentimental obsessed with little girls; and Grayson Perry’s joyful, subversive and sprawling The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, a curation of objects for the British Museum. And in the run up to the Olympics we are being promised a slew of blockbusters that will demonstrate London’s cultural greatness – even though all they may end up demonstrating is our lack of decent crowd control.

CONTINUE READING AT LONDON CALLING…

Ian Rickson‘s new Hamlet at the Young Vic contained a lot of firsts for me. It was the first time I’ve been scared in the ghost scene. Thefirst time I’ve felt genuine danger in the Players’ mouse-trap play. The first time I’ve believed that Hamlet was a neuron-flick from suicide, not just once but several times. The first time I’ve given a shit about Ophelia.

It made me realise how much I put up with in other Hamlets. And this has been a glorious decade for the Dane; Simon Russell Beale, Sam West and  

James Clyde as Claudius and Michael Sheen as Hamlet © Simon Annand

Ian Rickson‘s new Hamlet at the Young Vic contained a lot of firsts for me. It was the first time I’ve been scared in the ghost scene. Thefirst time I’ve felt genuine danger in the Players’ mouse-trap play. The first time I’ve believed that Hamlet was a neuron-flick from suicide, not just once but several times. The first time I’ve given a shit about Ophelia.

It made me realise how much I put up with in other Hamlets. And this has been a glorious decade for the Dane; Simon Russell Beale, Sam West and Rory Kinnear are just three who have hit my solar plexus hard. But I have always assumed that even a fantastic Hamlet necessarily contains moments of slackness and snooze. Who can make every one of those lines matter in such a dense play? Don’t we all know that the Ophelia madness stuff is just a bit, well, embarrassing? Isn’t Horatio basically a prop? And doesn’t all that introspection, now and then, even with the best actors, tip into over-familiar emo whining?

So it’s a very rare Hamlet that makes you resent the interval.

Rickson sets his production inside a secure mental institution; a bleak 1970s hellhole complete with stained carpet tiles, guttering strip lights and clanking metal security doors. Burly guards in velcro shoes strip-search newcomers. The court converse on a circle of wipe-clean chairs like a therapy group. Bodies are discreetly slipped into a sandy pit beneath the floor. James Clyde’s Kilroy-Silk Claudius, a menacingly smooth supervisor and jailor in his blue three-piece and bouffant hair, smiling slips pills into palms.

But is Claudius really in control? Are the others really the victims? Rickson’s conception has divided the press, with many critics finding it gimmicky or reductive. I feared, before I saw it, that I would share their view. In fact, I think they’re mad.

Yes, Rickson takes a stance. And boy, does that stance illuminate the play with new urgency. Every mention of madness (and you realise how many there are) shines anew. The sense of human instability, threat and vulnerability animates every moment with an almost unbearable tension and poignancy. The stakes are heaven-high.

But the ambiguity remains. It is uncertain whether Michael Gould’s nervy Polonius, armed with a dictaphone yet apt to moments of paralysing confusion, is Claudius’s crony or captive. When Hamlet himself transforms into his father’s brutal, enraged ghost with the help of a coat, a knife and some seriously good acting, we are unsure whether this is a collective hallucination, a bout of schizophrenia or a piece of genuine demonic possession. We are still not entirely sure whether all of them or none of them or some of them are mad. The context makes us question their insanity as much as accept it, and highlights how ordinary emotion makes nutjobs of us all. This could be a dream; a suggestion; a reality. Whatever it is, it works.

Taking one stance does not destroy the others inherent in the play.  All the other possible interpretations of Hamlet are layered behind this production like shadows, as they always are. But what this thoroughly conceived vision does for sure is make every image and every word dagger-sharp and new. It made me realise how bored I am of the humble, white-space, the-verse-makes-the-imagery productions I thought I loved.

Fuck it. Let’s be bold.

And Sheen carries it all with heartfelt originality, scrubbing at his corkscrew curls as if he can draw his thoughts to the surface for examination. Manic, he is a brilliantly funny, physically explosive Rik Mayall. Depressive, he is a coiled snake, flicking his tongue to taste the bitterness of the world and staring out from the prison of his consciousness with over-bright, yearning eyes.

This show deserves queues round the block akin to Rickson’s other big theatrical statement currently playing in London, Jerusalem. Get in line.

Postscript

There is a fantastic episode of Radio 4′s Great Lives in which Sheen describes the influence of Philip K. Dick on his performance. Well worth a listen. Thanks to the lovely Toby Field, the producer, for pointing me to it.

Weakened by the prospect of the dark days ahead, I immediately booked a table and have been foraging for just the right down-at-heel-bombshell outfit to wear. Cointreau have picked their moment wisely; winter is …]]>

69 Colebrook Row. Try the Spitfire.

The envelope was black, the address handwritten in silver calligraphy. Inside nestled a small, shining graphite key on a thin black cord. This was, the accompanying letter told me, my access-all-areas bracelet to the Cointreau Privé, “London’s most exclusive speakeasy”: a three-week pop-up bar and restaurant designed by Dita von Teese that promises “the ultimate in decadent drinking and dining, French mystique and illicit entertainment”.

Weakened by the prospect of the dark days ahead, I immediately booked a table and have been foraging for just the right down-at-heel-bombshell outfit to wear. Cointreau have picked their moment wisely; winter is the season when the speakeasy comes into its own. An urban December – chilling, monochrome and smogged in damp misanthropy – cries out for the cosy camaraderie, belly-warming cocktails and hedonistic escapism that exemplifies a true ‘blind tiger’.

“Traditional glamour seems to be making a comeback on the London party scene”, says Alvin Saal, Cointreau Brand Manager at First Drinks Brand Limited. ”This leads itself to the decadence and luxury of a pop-up speakeasy; the perfect place for social, charismatic and stylish people to frequent. The Cointreau Privé is a great example of bringing the golden age of glamour to a modern audience.”

The pop-up is modelled on von Teese’s LA home, including signature vintage furniture and items from her shows, with food from renowned chef Laurent Michel and bespoke cocktails. Von Teese launched the pop-up with a VIP cabaret performance on November 29th. It all sounds delicious, but the glamour and gourmet booze that we now associate with speakeasy style would have been unrecognizable to their original patrons. Born out of prohibition in 1920s America, the original bars were deeply insalubrious saloons, often controlled by organized crime gangs.

CONTINUE READING AT FUTURESPACE…

In theory, it is a pretty simple process. First find something to say. Then – to paraphrase Coleridge – put the best words in the best order. And boom. Hello, Booker.

But for a first time novelist sat in front of their laptop, this simple process quickly takes on a paralysing complexity. How to plot; even whether to plot. Where to find ‘your voice’ and how to recognise it when it appears. Whether to revise as you go or plough unjudgementally through the first draft.  When to share; who to consult; what instincts to trust. …]]>

Hunter S Thomson c.1976. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

How does a novel happen?

In theory, it is a pretty simple process. First find something to say. Then – to paraphrase Coleridge – put the best words in the best order. And boom. Hello, Booker.

But for a first time novelist sat in front of their laptop, this simple process quickly takes on a paralysing complexity. How to plot; even whether to plot. Where to find ‘your voice’ and how to recognise it when it appears. Whether to revise as you go or plough unjudgementally through the first draft.  When to share; who to consult; what instincts to trust. When your oeuvre to date consists solely of articles, poems and short stories, writing a full-length novel can feel like attempting to run the Marathon des Sables in a pair of flip-flops.

It doesn’t help that the writing process is couched in myths, superstitions and euphemisms. Still in thrall to the classical concept of a creative ‘daemon’ or ‘genius’, not to mention that fickle bitch Muse, we are encouraged to believe that truly great prose is bestowed from without; cue generations of hacks watching Jeremy Kyle in their pyjamas while waiting for the elusive ‘inspiration’ to strike.

A linked narrative is that of the writer as tortured genius, in which transcendent talent can only be found through a legacy of childhood abuse, extreme pallor and a copious supply of Jim Beam. Sitting through Bruce Robinson’s recent film adaptation of The Rum Diary, watching Johnny Depp stagger from typewriter to moonshine and back again, I found myself wishing that it were in fact that easy. Kubla Khan has a lot to answer for.

CONTINUE READING AT BOOKDIVA…

We First is the new book by Aussie brand man (and, I’ve found out this week at the WOMMA Summit, thoroughly nice chap) Simon Mainwaring, in which he sets out a vision for sustainable capitalism through ‘contributory consumption.’ Whatever you think of the idea, the video is worth watching for the use of language alone. Tingly.

What do you think? Awesome idealism or a naive rehashing of old power structures? I err towards the …]]> I know, it all sounds a bit heavy. But what with all the Occupy stuff, this is a very interesting proposition.

We First is the new book by Aussie brand man (and, I’ve found out this week at the WOMMA Summit, thoroughly nice chap) Simon Mainwaring, in which he sets out a vision for sustainable capitalism through ‘contributory consumption.’ Whatever you think of the idea, the video is worth watching for the use of language alone. Tingly.

What do you think? Awesome idealism or a naive rehashing of old power structures? I err towards the former, but then I am a naive idealist and a sucker for wordplay to boot. I’ve just started the book so I’ll let you know how my opinion evolves. Share your thoughts…

On a global level, we’re realising that our consumer greed has real consequences. Two episodes into the BBC’s Frozen Planet, and the image of David Attenborough pulling a not-angry-but-disappointed face has started popping into our heads every time we reach for …]]>

The Contemporary London Editions

Investment pieces: we all know the theory. On a personal level, the interminable recession is forcing us to reassess our throwaway attitude to fashion. As tempting as we find the new Versace diffusion range for H&M, we know we should be shelling out for an immaculately and ethically made Stella McCartney cashmere coat rather than stockpiling scraps of sweatshop jersey.

On a global level, we’re realising that our consumer greed has real consequences. Two episodes into the BBC’s Frozen Planet, and the image of David Attenborough pulling a not-angry-but-disappointed face has started popping into our heads every time we reach for a Primark blouse. Nowadays, a legacy of pesticide-drenched land, energy-eating factories and polyester waste mountains just doesn’t feel sexy.

But the idea that we should only adorn our bodies with beautiful, well-crafted and mindfully produced garments isn’t just about redistributing cash from the high street to couture; it is ushering in a whole new hybrid industry. What do you get when you combine fashion with sculpture, exclusivity with accessibility and environmental awareness with financial sense? Welcome to the world of ‘wearable art’.

Artists and architects across the globe are increasingly applying their skills to clothes. We get unique, ethical statement pieces that work as both instant hit and heirloom; they get mainstream exposure and the challenge of adapting their art form to the unruly dynamism of the human body.

CONTINUE READING AT FUTURESPACE…