New homes: Our pick of the new builds going on sale in London this weekend March 29, 2019 New developments on the market this week The Refinery, Newham From £120,750 for a 35 per cent share of a one bedroom flat Live in the shadow of golden syrup factory Tate & Lyle in an up-and-coming part of east London. Part-buy, part-rent a one, two or three bedroom apartment through Shared Ownership. Sixty homes [...]
Romeo & Juliet: Kenneth MacMillan’s notoriously tricky take on Shakespeare’s classic is brutally beautiful March 29, 2019 Romeo and Juliet Royal Opera House Shakespeare famously trailed his tragic romance with ‘there never was a story of more woe / than this of Juliet and her Romeo”. Big words, Bill. But they hold up in this brutal, speechless version by The Royal Ballet. The Bolshoi Ballet first brought Romeo & Juliet to the [...]
Dumbo review: Tim Burton turns a family favourite into an animal rights advocacy project March 29, 2019 In case you’ve forgotten – it did come out in 1941 – the animated Disney film Dumbo is deeply odd and wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice for a live action remake. There are barely any humans in it, for a start, then there’s Dumbo himself, a doe-eyed, speechless pachyderm who gets bullied for 70 per [...]
At Eternity’s Gate review: A dreamlike and impressionistic portrait of Van Gogh March 28, 2019 In this dreamlike journey through the artist’s later years, American painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel frames the artist as the director wants to see him, keeping his drunkenness, violence and bouts of psychosis somewhere just off-screen. The film presents a fragmented and impressionistic series of vignettes filmed in a drunken POV aspect, as though the [...]
Van Gogh and Britain review: Just how much did London inspire the artist? March 28, 2019 You really don’t need much of an excuse to dust off a collection of Van Goghs, but Tate Britain has reached for one all the same with its latest exhibition of twenty of the man’s works. Van Gogh and Britain contextualises the artist’s output around his few interactions with this country, which amounts to a [...]
Why Reports of Soho’s death have been greatly exaggerated, despite spiralling rents, modern developments and fierce competition March 28, 2019 When Casanova arrived in London in 1763, Soho was his first port of call. It was a place riddled with opium dens and brothels and coffee houses and restaurants, the place you went for cheap rent, good food, great drugs and the best parties. It’s been the go-to place for hedonists and sybarites ever since, [...]
Din Tai Fung Covent Garden review: Precision-engineering these Taiwanese dumplings comes at the cost of soul March 28, 2019 Eight years of writing restaurant reviews has not yet propelled me to culinary stardom. Nobody has asked me to be a judge on Celebrity Bake Off. Masterchef has never called. But I do have one claim to fame: I star in the staff training video for Taiwanese dumpling sensation Din Tai Fung. It happened in [...]
Drawing a crowd: Tate Modern pips British Museum to the post as UK’s most popular visitor attraction March 27, 2019 Tate Modern has knocked the British Museum off the top spot of the UK’s most popular visitor attractions, which it has occupied for a decade. The British Museum welcomed 5.82m visitors through its doors last year, while Tate Modern overtook it with 5.87m people – an increase of 3.7 per cent on 2017. Read more: [...]
Why I’m proud that the art industry has taken a stand against the Sackler family March 27, 2019 When I heard that the Tate Group was following the National Gallery’s example by refusing to take further donations from the Sackler Trust, funded by the Sackler family, I felt a sense of both relief and pride in the arts industry. The Trust has for many years made generous donations to leading artistic and philanthropic [...]
DEBATE: Are galleries and museums like the Tate right to shun donations from the controversial Sackler family? March 25, 2019 Are galleries and museums like the Tate right to shun donations from the controversial Sackler family? Sian Flynn, a curator and museums and galleries consultant, says YES. All publicly funded museums and galleries in Britain need to generate their own income to survive and thrive: this is a fact. They are also guardians of the nation’s [...]
