Feb 3, 2020 | Blog
THE BOTTLE On Thursday, 23rd January, we had a small party at Millwood Farm. Though as it happened all our guests had our recovered good health to celebrate, that was not the reason for the gathering. Our excuse to dine on foie gras, tomato salad and burrata, and...
Nov 28, 2019 | Blog
A scene from My Brilliant Friend Part 1, image by Marc Brenner As I’ve relished all four volumes of the identity-mysterious Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, I was more than willing to sit through the four/five hour double-bill of the National Theatre’s production...
Nov 22, 2019 | Blog
Jean Giraudoux’ 1935 play’s title in English claims “The Trojan War Will Not Take Place,” but his tragedy’s use of the future tense is actually a denial of Cassandra’s prophecy – in the face of all the evidence that an even worse war was to begin shortly. For the...
Nov 4, 2019 | Blog
ENO revives Jonathan Miller’s 1986 Mikado <image001.jpg>Sir John Tomlinson as the Mikado photo by Genivieve Girling Despite some newsworthy casting, there don’t seem to have been many reviews of the current revival of Sir Jonathan Miller’s bankable production of...
Oct 23, 2019 | Blog
Anita Gillette photograph: Brasserie Zédel How often do we go to cabaret or a jazz club in London? In truth, not often, as the schlepp is the same as going to the theatre or opera. But I’ve been twice in the last year, to catch an autobiographical musical gig by the...
Oct 14, 2019 | Blog
This is a slightly expanded version of the Telegraph obituary of Myles Fredric Burnyeat by Paul Levy Myles Burnyeat, who has died aged 80, was voted by his peers in a 2016 poll to be the greatest post-War scholar of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy in the...
Oct 14, 2019 | Blog
This is a version of the obituary that appeared in The Daily Telegraph by PAUL LEVY Eva Yvonne Chadwick, who has died aged 85, was known for her astute management of the estate of her late husband, the celebrated sculptor Lynn Chadwick (1914-2003), whose saleroom...
Aug 15, 2019 | Blog
Photograph by Derry Moore It’s difficult to remember when I first met Iris and John – in my experience, they were inseparable. I am certain we met in the late summer of 1968 at the Oxford house in Charlbury Road of Lord and Lady David Cecil– though it’s just possible...
May 3, 2019 | Blog
Are you green with envy at James Lasdun’s long account of chasing and experiencing the Northern Lights in Norway and Finland in the 29 April 2019 New Yorker? I could certainly have done with the commission –thirty-five years ago. But I have to allow that it was purely...
Apr 15, 2019 | Blog
John Cornford Understand the Weapon, Understand the Wound: Collected Writings Edited by Jonathan Galassi Fyfield Books, Carcanet, 238pp., $14.99 The Spanish parliament voted in September 2018 to exhume the remains of Francisco Franco, and to remove the remains of the...
