Posts Tagged Stage
The Observer Summer Arts Calendar
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on April 30, 2011
Our critics pick the season's highlights: From Lady Gaga to Harry Potter, Coppélia to Tony Cragg, this summer has something for all
MAY
4 FILM The Tree of Life
The much-delayed fifth feature from director Terrence Malick, snapped up by Icon for UK release ahead of its Cannes showing, is a multi-generational drama featuring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn – and, reportedly, dinosaurs.
5 CLASSICAL From the House of the Dead
Opera North's production of Janáek's final work, directed by John Fulljames and conducted by Richard Farnes. Stars Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts, Alan Oke and Roderick Williams. Leeds and touring
DANCE By Singing Light/Romance Inverse
National Dance Company of Wales bring Stephen Petronio and Itzik Galili's arresting double bill to Dance City in Newcastle, with the former set to the poetry of Dylan Thomas.
6 THEATRE Shrek
Nigel Lindsay plays the lime-coloured, lovelorn ogre, with Amanda Holden as Princess Fiona and Nigel Harman as Lord Farquaad, in this Anglo-American production at Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
CLASSICAL The Damnation of Faust
Ex-Python Terry Gilliam takes on the devil as director of this ENO staging of Berlioz's masterpiece, conducted by Edward Gardner and starring Peter Hoare, Christine Rice and Christopher Purves.
7 CLASSICAL Steve Reich at 75
UK premiere of Steve Reich's WTC 9/11, part of the two-day Reverberations festival at the Barbican. Then toured by the Kronos Quartet in Glasgow (13 May) and Norwich (17 May).
10 THEATRE The Cherry Orchard
Zoe Wanamaker stars; Howard Davies, who has excelled in the staging of Russian drama, directs in the National's Olivier, with a design by Bunny Christie and a translation by Andrew Upton.
11 FILM Cannes film festival
Robert De Niro heads the jury at Cannes this year, casting his eye over eagerly awaited films by Lars von Trier, Pedro Almodóvar, Lynne Ramsay and Woody Allen, whose Midnight in Paris opens the competition.
13 DANCE Royal Ballet
The season's penultimate triple bill at the ROH includes the Royal Ballet premiere of Balanchine's Ballo della regina and a new work, Live Fire Exercise, from Wayne McGregor, set to a score by Sir Michael Tippett.
FILM Attack the Block
The debut feature from Joe Cornish, of Adam and Joe fame. A "hoodie horror" about aliens landing in south London and teenage gangs uniting to fight them.
14 ART Tate St Ives
Treats at the Cornish gallery's Summer Exhibition include late paintings by Agnes Martin, installations by Martin Creed and sculpture by Naum Gabo.
16 POP Kate Bush: Director's Cut
While fans await an album of new material, the fabulously eccentric Bush has chosen to rework a selection of older songs: "The Sensual World" gains a new title and lyrics from Ulysses.
THEATRE Much Ado About Nothing
Hotly anticipated. David Tennant and Catherine Tate play the sparring lovers at Wyndham's in London. They are directed by Josie Rourke, who takes over as artistic director of the Donmar next year.
18 ART Tracey Emin: Love is What You Want
Tracey Emin needs no introduction, and quite possibly no huge solo retrospective, but this show of sculptures, photographs, films and drawings at the South Bank's Hayward Gallery will no doubt thrill her fans and infuriate her detractors alike.
19 THEATRE Lord of the Flies
William Golding's savage fable, adapted by Nigel Williams, plays in the open air until 18 June at Regent's Park theatre, which is enjoying its most imaginative era for decades.
21 ARCHITECTURE The Hepworth Gallery
The second David Chipperfield-designed gallery in two months. The Hepworth promises to be as good as the first, the Turner Contemporary in Margate. No beach in Wakefield, but a fine permanent collection of Barbara Hepworth's sculpture.
23 POP Lady Gaga: Born This Way
Two taster tracks have overtly recalled Madonna, both musically ("Born This Way") and irreligiously ("Judas"). But the proper follow-up to Monster remains this year's most eagerly awaited pop release.
27 POP Take That
Britain's best-loved manband have sold out 27 nights at the UK's vastest stadiums, with the Pet Shop Boys supporting.
JUNE
2 DANCE Un peu de tendresse bordel de merde!
Dave St-Pierre is the enfant terrible of Canadian dance and has provoked comparisons with Pina Bausch. In this production at Sadler's Wells, his 20 performers are literally and figuratively stripped naked.
3 ART The Government Art Collection
Discover which works of art your government owns; which Lowrys, Turners and Bridget Rileys hang in Downing Street. All is revealed at the Whitechapel Gallery.
4 ART Venice Biennale
Quite simply the most important international art event in the world; 82 artists in the official Giardini pavilions, with many more off site at the Arsenale. Until 27 November.
7 ARCHITECTURE Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
Usually less stuffy than its art counterpart; curated this year by a stylistic odd couple of the flamboyant postmodernist Piers Gough and the more restrained Alan Stanton.
8 DANCE Coppélia
Peter Wright's production of Coppélia with the Birmingham Royal Ballet is a funny, occasionally spooky, family ballet, set to Delibes's irresistible score. At the Lowry, Manchester, and touring.
10 POP Meltdown
Former Kink Ray Davies is this year's curator at the South Bank, recreating 60s TV show Ready Steady Go!, and springing surprises such as the Fugs. But will the Kinks reform?
CLASSICAL Aldeburgh festival
Opens with Simon Rattle and the CBSO. Premieres by Elliott Carter and Harrison Birtwistle , as well as Netia Jones's site-specific Everlasting Light, set in Sizewell. Runs until 26 June.
15 FILM Edinburgh film festival
Instead of an artistic director, EIFF has appointed guest curators, including Isabella Rossellini and Gus van Sant, who should make this year's event particularly interesting.
21 ARCHITECTURE Transport Museum Glasgow
Zaha Hadid now has several UK works to her name, but this will be her biggest public work to date, pending completion of the Olympic aquatic centre.
22 THEATRE Ghost: the musical
Matthew Warchus's production of the 1990 movie moves from Manchester to London's Piccadilly, with music by Dave Stewart. Stars Richard Fleeshman.
POP Glastonbury festival
Barring any mishaps, U2 finally lead the charge at Worthy Farm, with Beyoncé, Coldplay, the Chemical Brothers and Morrissey providing backup. NB: Dengue Fever are a band on the bill, not this year's health scare.
24 CLASSICAL Two Boys
ENO premiere of Nico Muhly's co-production with the New York Metropolitan Opera about a teenage stabbing. With a libretto by Craig Lucas, directed by Bartlett Sher and conducted by Rumon Gamba.
FILM The First Grader
When the Kenyan government introduces free primary schooling, a former Mau Mau fighter, now in his 80s, applies for an education. Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl) directs, Naomie Harris co-stars in this British film which won an audience award at Tribeca.
ART Magritte: The Pleasure Principle
Still the best of the surrealists, with this first show in a generation focusing on eroticism, visual revelation and the influence of commercial design. More than 100 paintings at Tate Liverpool.
FILM Bridesmaids
In this female riposte to the stag-party-gone-wrong subgenre, produced by Judd Apatow, Saturday Night Live regular Kristen Wiig (who co-wrote the script) plays a lovelorn maid of honour ill-equipped to organise her best friend's pre-wedding rituals.
29 POP Arcade Fire
First, the Texan/Haitian/Canadian indie wunderkinder took London's O2 Arena. Now, they are taking Hyde Park, with help from Mumford & Sons, Beirut and the Vaccines.
30 ART Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography
Brassaï, Robert Capa, André Kertész, László Moholy-Nagy: more than 200 works showing the astonishing impact of this single country on photojournalism, documentary, fashion and art photography. At the Royal Academy until 2 October.
THEATRE Manchester international festival
The flourishing festival will include Robert Wilson's The Life and Death of Marina Abramović and Victoria Wood's The Day We Sang, inspired by Manchester Children's Choir. Runs until 17 July.
JULY
1 ARCHITECTURE Serpentine Gallery Pavilion
Every year the Serpentine asks a famous architect to design the gallery a temporary pavilion. This year it has lured Peter Zumthor out of his Alpine lair.
3 POP Ke$ha
America's second-most outrageous starlet is back on our shores. Ke$ha's Get $leazy world tour is oversexed and over here until 13 July.
5 DANCE Sylvie Guillem
New contemporary works by William Forsythe, Mats Ek and Jiří Kylián performed by the celebrated ballerina. Essential. To 9 July at Sadler's Wells.
6 ART Thomas Struth
One of Germany's most praised photo artists comes to Whitechapel Art Gallery. Includes the celebrated Museum series and recent installations of Cape Canavarel and the Korean shipyards.
7 ART Glamour of the Gods
Hollywood portraiture from the industry's golden age, 1920-60. From Greta Garbo to Audrey Hepburn, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe: portraits that transformed actors into international style icons. At the National Portrait Gallery.
8 THEATRE Double Feature
Four new plays by Sam Holcroft, DC Moore, Prasanna Puwanarajah and Tom Basden - all writers new to the National Theatre - are staged by a new ensemble in the Cottesloe.
FILM Jack Goes Boating
Philip Seymour Hoffman makes his directorial debut and stars in this tale of lost souls and confused love lives in snow-bound New York. It's based on a 2007 play in which he also appeared.
12 THEATRE A Woman Killed With Kindness
In what promises to be a radical production, Katie Mitchell directs Thomas Heywood's celebrated but rarely seen play. The domestic tragedy, written in 1603, will be staged in the National's Lyttelton.
15 FILM The Deathly Hallows: Part Two
After 10 years the Harry Potter franchise reaches its denouement with a film set to keep box-offices busy.
CLASSICAL The Proms
The BBC Proms opening fortnight includes Havergal Brian's mammoth "Gothic" symphony, new conductor Juanjo Mena, soloist Steven Osborne and pianist Lang Lang. To 10 September.
POP POP Latitude
The headliners may be iffy – the National and Paolo Nutini – but Latitude in Suffolk is a sublime antidote to the mud and mayhem of other festivals. And Alan Hollinghurst is in the Lit Tent.
POP Snoop Dogg
The lazy drawl of Calvin Broadus has long been eclipsed by the rapper's multiplatform media career. It's worth savouring, as he performs 1993's Doggystyle at Manchester international festival and Lovebox Weekender.
20 DANCE Roland Petit
Triple bill of works by the French choreographer, Margot Fonteyn's lover and husband of Zizi Jeanmaire. Includes the sexy, existentialist Le Jeune Homme et la Mort. ENB at the Coliseum.
FILM Nader and Simin, A Separation
Winner of the Golden Bear award at Berlin in February, Asghar Farhadi's fine film explores class tensions in present-day Iran as a middle-class couple on the verge of separation battle over the care of an elderly relative.
26 CLASSICAL St Endellion festival
An ambitious festival in north Cornwall (stars perform for no fee). Includes Wagner's Die Walkure with Susan Bullock (30 July), which then goes to Truro's Hall for Cornwall (2 Aug).
POP Womad
Womad's organisers are on solid ground with headliners such as Baaba Maal and Rodrigo y Gabriela, but the splendour of Womad is always in the discovering.
29 FILM Horrid Henry
The popular series of children's books about a troublesome pre-teen gets the 3D treatment, with Theo Stevenson as Henry, and Anjelica Huston and Richard E Grant among the adults.
30 ART Tony Cragg
Huge retrospective for Tony Cragg, senior British sculptor, with an emphasis on the cast-art of the last decade. At the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art to 6 November.
To see a PDF of the page as it appeared in the print edition click here
Shakespeare: Stratford. London. Gdańsk?
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on April 5, 2011
Four centuries on, Poland is rebuilding its Shakespearean theatre
In a wind-blasted former car park outside Gdańsk's historic city centre, Professor Jerzy Limon is marking out a theatre. "The main stage," Limon says, indicating the rubble-strewn ground, "will be here, and the box stage here." We both squint at a perilous-looking ditch. "The audience sits there."
We're having to use our imaginations, but in just over two years' time this nondescript corner will be transformed into a £20m theatre designed by architect Renato Rizzi, which will be home to the city's annual Shakespeare festival – one of the world's largest – as well as a year-round programme.
But the really fascinating thing about the site where we are standing is its past. Just a few metres below our feet lie the remains of another theatre, this one four centuries old. Remarkably, it was built not for Polish actors, but for English ones, making Gdańsk the site of the only Shakespearian playhouse to have been constructed outside England during the Bard's lifetime.
Limon, 60, who teaches at the University of Gdańsk, relates the tale over lunch. "During Shakespeare's time, competition between theatre companies was growing, and many actors found themselves unemployed. So they travelled." From the 1580s onwards, English troupes – initially performing in their native tongue, then offering German translations of plays by Marlowe, Shakespeare and many others – acted in Leiden, Frankfurt, Vienna, Prague, even reaching Riga in winter 1647 (they wrote to the authorities moaning about the snow). A troupe performed at Helsingør (Elsinore) in 1586, raising the intriguing possibility that Shakespeare heard about the setting for Hamlet from colleagues who had seen it firsthand.
They also visited Danzig (Gdańsk), then one of the wealthiest cities in Europe. Actors first arrived as early as 1587, and continued coming until the 1650s; after about 1600 they performed in their own purpose-built playhouse, modelled on the Elizabethan Fortune theatre in London. "Spreading culture was not the aim," explains Limon. "But English drama percolated around Europe. Poland became a haven."
Wandering among Gdańsk's meticulously restored townhouses, you find marks of this intriguing theatrical past. Next to an ornate Renaissance gate, the hall where the "English comedians" first acted still stands. But the theatre was lost: probably destroyed in the early 19th century, its site reused for a synagogue, then, after the Nazi occupation, for housing. More recently it performed the exalted role of car park for the ABW, the Polish MI5. The idea of restoring it struck Limon while he was doing his PhD thesis in the late 70s, but it wasn't until the fall of communism that the idea of digging for the old theatre – and raising a new one – became thinkable. "Initiatives appeared everywhere in Poland," he smiles, ruefully. "There was a lot of energy and enthusiasm. And naivety."
It has been an arduous battle: private philanthropy was unheard-of, state bureaucracy has weighed heavy, and the project seemed impossible until European funds became available in 2007. Even now, the foundation behind the Teatr Szekspirowski (Shakespeare theatre) has only enough cash to build the basic structure, which will protect and display the archeological dig; it is still fundraising for stage equipment. Yet, 20 years on, things are at long last moving. When builders moved in a few weeks ago, it was marked in flamboyant Polish style with a commissioned "dance" for the diggers by director Robert Florczak, whose audacious multimedia Macbeth debuted at last year's Shakespeare festival.
Gdańsk is, indeed, undergoing a second renaissance – in addition to the festival, now in its 15th year (Limon is behind this too), the city bustles with energy. During my visit I saw newly commissioned dance at the city's opera house, snuck inside the Two Windows theatre, a tiny pop-up space within a former shop, and nosed around the Wyspa institute, a hip contemporary art gallery that will soon open in refitted premises. Across town, builders are finishing off a £170m football stadium for next year's European championships. Even Gdansk's dockyards – made famous by Lech Wałęsa and his Solidarity party – are being rebuilt as the "Young City", a glossy development of waterside apartments, offices and cultural spaces.
Though Limon is modest about his brainchild, he admits it is a metaphor of sorts. "Historically, Gdańsk was a miniature of the united Europe, an affluent society living in peace. The project is a symbol of England's contribution to European culture." And surely of Poland's, too? He grins. "Of Poland's, too."
• For details, and to offer your support, see: www.teatrszekspirowski.pl
Royal Shakespeare theatre complex, Stratford-upon-Avon
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on November 28, 2010
The revamped RSC showcase has its faults, but it will make watching Shakespeare a more rewarding experience
Can you spend a hundred million pounds on nuance? Or, rather, can you justify it? Should such sums be shovelled at achieving intangible effects, which might otherwise help house the poor or save sports programmes in schools? Or, next to the billions vanishing into faceless corporations under the private finance initiative, or bailing out Ireland, might it not be money well spent?
This is the question raised by the revamp of the Royal Shakespeare theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, where the main consequence of £113m of expenditure is a difference measured in yards in the position of actors relative to the audience. Its success will be defined by the timbre they feel able to adopt and the detail of their expressions observable by spectators.
To be sure, the tab covers other useful things: better access, less cramped foyers, bars, a rooftop restaurant, new dressing rooms with a view of the river Avon. It includes the cost of building the temporary Courtyard theatre to house performances during building works. Of the money spent, £40m is not public, but from benefactors led by Lord and Lady Sainsbury of Turville. But, ultimately, the main object was to replace the 1932 auditorium, designed by Elisabeth Scott, with another that would work better, while retaining and modifying the rest of the building.
Scott's space, at the request of her clients, mimicked the then-ascendant medium of cinema. It fanned out from a proscenium, widest where it was furthest from the stage, meaning that generations of school parties would be introduced to Shakespeare as the distant oscillation of smudges. The new theatre has a thrust stage and a very thrusting one at that. It projects the action deep into the auditorium, with the audience stacked around it in stalls and galleries, in conscious imitation of the courtyards and high-sided theatres where Shakespearean drama was first performed.
It is, says the Royal Shakespeare Company's artistic director, Michael Boyd, "a one-room space for performing Shakespeare, rather than one lot of people in one room looking at another lot of people acting in another room". The new theatre is smaller than the old one, with 1,040 rather than 1,400 seats, but the maximum distance of spectator from stage is down from 27 metres to 15 metres.
The acoustics, fine-tuned with the help of experience from the temporary Courtyard theatre, promise to be immaculate. A basement, expensively wrested from the Avon-soaked mud beneath the theatre, and a fly tower filled with a "wedding cake" of gear, will lay on a director's dream of potential effects. The bare boards of the stage are deceptive, sustained as they are by bionic infrastructure.
The RSC have bet heavily that the thrust stage will be the way of the foreseeable future. They already had one, in the much-loved 1980s Swan theatre, which lies end to end with the new auditorium, and has been little changed by the new works. Sir Peter Hall has muttered that they're overdoing it. Boyd retorts that the new theatre is sufficiently adaptable to achieve Hall's preferred form, which is a more shallow thrust.
What the RSC is not now trying to achieve is a theatre that can do everything. A decade ago, a previous attempt was made, by the then artistic director Adrian Noble and the flamboyant architect Erick van Egeraat, to create a place that could handle both proscenium and thrust. Hugely complex, this would have obliterated all the theatre's existing buildings and some of the open space around them. Eventually, the scheme crashed and burned, to be replaced by the more sober project we have now.
The new work is collaborative and consensual to a fault. The RSC says it chose Bennetts Associates, the architects, because they were good at the workshops they arranged between potential architects and theatre people. Rab Bennetts, the leader of the practice, stresses the importance of "managing meetings and being consultative". His interventions are commonsensical, deferring to both the drama of performance and the retained parts of Elisabeth Scott's art-deco building. They help the building to flow better inside and to connect better with the surrounding town.
The play's the thing, in other words, and the ensemble counts for more than the star. If there's one character in the team who is more equal than the others, it's Michael Boyd, who, in contrast to his cautious colleagues, declaims to the press with actorish fluency and flourish. His vision of performance drives everything; the architecture serves to achieve it.
But there's something missing. Architecture and theatre are rivalrous companions, in that each proposes a universe into which the inhabitant or spectator is invited to enter. Modern architecture also favours the honest exposure of the stuff of which it is made – plain steel and bricks – which is at odds with the illusion and greasepaint of theatre. To say a building looks like a stage set is usually an insult. The very best theatres, old or new, give due prominence to the stage while also conjuring in the auditorium and foyers their version of Prospero's cloud-capp'd towers and gorgeous palaces, which can be done as well by the gilt and cherubs of an Edwardian music hall as by the rough walls of a converted warehouse.
Bennetts's theatre doesn't do this. He uses handsome steel and untreated oak, but their qualities are muddied by the low light of the auditorium and you have to look hard to notice them. In the foyer, a distressed wall of the old building has been left fashionably exposed, but it doesn't join up with the other surfaces to make a coherent space. Architectural expression is largely outsourced to the theatre's new 36-metre campanile, a slightly gawky assembly of brick and glass.
Problem-solving and process over-dominate. The theatre is what the RSC call "an optimal environment for experiencing Shakespeare", a phrase that could only make the Bard cringe. Contemporary architecture tends to oscillate between the iconic and the efficient and the RSC, in going from van Egeraat to Bennetts, has experienced both. Given that choice, it has made the right one, but it has missed out something else, which is the making of places with their own identity and life, complementary to that of the drama.
For all that, the main aim has been achieved. Subtlety and spectacle and the wrapping together of audience and action will all be possible as never before. Is this worth £100m? If the arts are worth investing in at all, and if that investment should support the best possible realisation of art, then the answer has to be yes.
The thrust of the problem for the RSC’s new stage
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on November 24, 2010
The renovation of the Royal Shakespeare Company's main theatre in Stratford brings the audience closer to the actors. The big question is whether it will help them hear
Like Jonathan Glancey, I welcome Stratford's architectural transformation. I toured the new complex a couple of months ago and found it both inspirational and user-friendly. But in praising the new, I think we should be wary of accepting popular myths about the old. The problem with Elisabeth Scott's original auditorium was never audibility; it was remoteness. I sat in the back row of the Stratford balcony in the 1950s many times to see Olivier's Macbeth and Titus, Gielgud's Lear and Prospero and heard every syllable. What was disconcerting was the sense of distance from the stage.
The new, more intimate house addresses that problem brilliantly. The big test is whether it aids audibility. During the RSC's occupation of the temporary courtyard, with a thrust stage that offers a rough prototype for the new theatre, I have received a number of readers' letters complaining about actors not making themselves heard. And when I interviewed Peter Hall recently, he wisely pointed out that "the thrust stage is difficult for complicated words". In any thrust stage there is, in fact, a classic trade-off: what the audience gains in closeness, it loses in always seeing actors' faces and hearing every word. The real challenge for the RSC in its new house lies in overcoming that dilemma.
The other big issue is that the 450-seat Swan theatre has provided, as Glancey rightly points out, a model for the new main house. Since the Swan is one of the best theatres in Britain, that seems logical enough. But will they be too similar in style – in effect a Swan One and Two? And will designers have scope for the kind of long-distance pictorial perspective provided by proscenium stages? Again, only time will tell. So, while I welcome the new Stratford complex and eagerly look forward to seeing how it works in practice, we should acknowledge that it won't solve at a stroke all the problems inherent in staging Shakespeare. It simply creates fresh challenges for future generations of actors, designers and directors.
Shakespeare shake-up: the new-look RSC HQ in Stratford
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on November 24, 2010
The Royal Shakespeare theatre complex on the banks of the Avon has undergone a £112m revamp. Take a look inside
Royal Shakespeare Theatre: All’s well …
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on November 24, 2010
. . . that ends well. At last, writes Jonathan Glancey, Stratford-upon-Avon finally has a theatre worthy of Shakespeare's name
When the renovation of the Royal Shakespeare theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon was first announced, someone asked why the number of seats was to fall by 400. Surely this was against the notion of "accessibility" or "art for all"? Michael Boyd, artistic director of the RSC, boomed: "This isn't football – you're meant to be able to hear what the actors are saying."
The sheer scale of the old theatre had long been a problem. So great was the distance between the proscenium stage and the back row that even the stormiest Lear was all but inaudible to those seats. "It might be apocryphal," says Rab Bennetts of Bennetts Associates, the architects behind the newly unveiled £112m revamp, "but one actor claimed that reciting from the old stage was like addressing Calais from the white cliffs of Dover."
Although the adjoining Swan theatre has also been given a spruce-up, the most fundamental change to this much respected, if not always loved, theatre complex on the banks of the Avon has been to the main theatre: the 1,400-seat art deco auditorium, designed by Elisabeth Scott in 1927, has been demolished, and replaced with what is intended to be a stage in the style of Shakespeare's day, but brought up to date. So brick and concrete co-exist, as well as timbers that are both ancient and freshly sawn. There's also a thrust stage jutting into the audience. Actors on the new stage are now about 15 metres, rather than 27, from the back row, so it's goodbye to that declamatory performing style.
"Although it was listed," says Bennetts, "the old theatre was strangely remote and uninviting. It turned its back on the town, showing a tough brick face to the streets. Locals called Scott's building the Jam Factory, and, despite its distinguished art deco lobbies and rooms, it did have the look of an industrial building of the 1930s."
The complex has a complicated history. Called the Shakespeare Memorial theatre when it opened in 1879, it was a flamboyant piece of Victorian gothic until fire struck in 1926. Scott's art deco theatre was built into those parts that survived. For more than two decades now, the complex has also been home to the much-feted 450-seat Swan theatre, created within fire-damaged walls. Used for productions of Shakespeare's more intimate plays, and those of his contemporaries, the Swan has been the model for the reconstructed Royal Shakespeare theatre.
The RSC had planned to demolish the whole caboodle and build afresh. But in 2003, times, finances, aspirations and artistic and architectural direction changed as Boyd took over. A more "as you find it" experience was chosen: a pair of Shakespearean theatres linked together with a weave of empathetic new architecture, creating a convincing and effective whole. More than this, the old theatres would be made to address the town, and open themselves up to the public whether they were coming to sit through King Lear or not.
The Scott building has been stripped of all later accretions and given a new public entrance that stretches into a broad, bricked arcade linking it with the older building. A new restaurant now tops the Scott section, which boasts a 36-metre lift and viewing tower, faced in handmade brick. This urban eyecatcher acts, Bennetts says, as "an anchor, mooring a fleet of theatrical buildings". It also serves as a giant mast or flagpole, proudly drawing attention to the RSC's home. Views from the top, through glass louvres, are of four counties and every local site associated with Shakespeare himself.
The new entrance, by the base of the tower, leads visitors and theatregoers into Bennetts's arcade and into the original art deco entrance lobby, now an airy bar. These spaces flow seamlessly into a second lobby. Here you walk on teak planks taken from the old stage, meaning you tread the very boards that Olivier trod years ago.
The Royal Shakespeare theatre itself – the heart of the project – feels impressive and likable. Three tiers of upholstered red seats surround the thrust stage. The feeling is both grand and intimate, exciting and stark, what with those riveted steel joists and unpolished timber. Sound and sensation are all. We will, though, have to wait until next spring, when plays are first performed in here, to judge it properly.
Backstage is enormous, with smart dressing rooms overlooking the Avon, their balconies softening that hard brick exterior. In fact, the complex, especially its tower, has the picturesque quality of some half-imagined Italian town, where the action of some Shakespeare play might take place: two theatres of Verona, if you like. The grouping of the buildings works well; that arcade has power and charm. The complex feels like a town in itself, one that now reaches out to its surroundings.
Bennetts and his team have done well to bring so many styles – gothic, art deco, Modern – into a cohesive whole, especially one with riveted steel, rusted steel and steel as smooth as lacquered wood. Great things deserve to happen here, and great Shakespearean speeches given. And now you'll even be able to hear them from the cheap seats.
‘This is not criticism in a vacuum’
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on October 28, 2010
From demolishing Alice in Wonderland to deciphering Macbeth, our young readers bowled over the judges with their wit
Fresh bands, young directors, hot new actors and artists straight out of college are the lifeblood of the arts. And, to ensure that criticism doesn't get stale, it's essential that their generation is represented in our reviewers. The Guardian's annual young critics competition is designed to ensure that arts criticism can reflect the voices of a younger arts audience. That said, youth alone is not enough. These days, it's easier than ever to find a platform on which to voice your opinions – by blogging, tweeting, or posting on comment threads – but with all that competition, it's more essential than ever that you have something worthwhile to say.
The entries confirmed that there are 10-18-year-olds out there with perceptive, funny things to convey about subjects ranging from the Selfridges building in Birmingham to tattooed LA rockers Buckcherry. What's more, the best of our critics seemed to be predominantly female – of the 14 finalists, only three were male. There were eight categories and two age groups in each: under 14s and 14-to-18s, though not all art forms had enough entries to qualify. Classical music critics aged under 14 are still thin on the ground.
The overall winner, 15-year-old Rebecca Grant, won the judges over with her demolition of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which she described as a "beautifully eccentric odyssey" reduced to "disgusting dregs". "She managed to be witheringly critical without sounding as if she was grandstanding," said Liz Forgan, the chair of Arts Council England. Rebecca will win a trip to a film screening with a Guardian film critic, and get the chance to write about it in g2.
All runners-up get a £25 book token, and have their review published on guardian.co.uk today. Two were highly commended. Pandora Haydon's review of All My Sons at the Apollo theatre, London, "brilliantly captured the taut physicality of David Suchet's performance", said Andrew Dickson, our online arts editor. Frances Myatt – a winner in the under-14s dance category last year – impressed dance critic Judith Mackrell once again with her review of Mutatis Mutandis at the Macrobert theatre in Stirling.
Yinka Shonibare – the artist who put a ship in a bottle on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square – judged the visual art category with the Guardian's chief art critic Adrian Searle. Twelve-year-old Mark Hardy won the under-14s category with a review of Fiona Banner's installation of two fighter jets at Tate Britain. Jo Waugh, 15, won the 14-18 category with a sophisticated review of Recollection Has Not Been Mentioned by Tony Swain. "This is not criticism in a vacuum," Shonibare said. "I like the way the work is contextualised in relation to modernism, surrealism and Kandinsky. She also describes the ambiguity in the art world very well."
The winner of our architecture category, India Miller, was also prepared to look beyond the work and discuss its significance in the wider world. Her review of Selfridges in Birmingham impressed architect Amanda Levete, whose practice Future Systems designed it. "She sets the context of a 'city left in tatters', and alludes to the paradox of the democracy of impact that the building has had on Birmingham in becoming symbolic of the city while at the same time representing a 'bubble of wealth'," said Levete.
Sasha Millwood, 18, won the classical music category with a fluent review of the National Youth Orchestra conducted by Semyon Bychkov at the Royal Albert Hall. Ella McCarthy, 13, won the under-14s theatre category for what the Guardian's Michael Billington termed a "graphic account" of Macbeth in Regent's Park.
Two entries stood out in the TV category. Seventeen-year-old Lilith Johnstone's review of Mo "showed good awareness of the context, and of the elements that were generic and original," said critic Mark Lawson. A special mention should go to Nathan Ellis, who was a winner in the same category last year, and whose review was enjoyed by Lawson's fellow judge Fearne Cotton. "He gets straight to the point with his slick, humorous and analytical review. Rounded off nicely with a heartfelt quip, it didn't drag."
There was only one winner in the pop category – Fin Murphy, 17, for his Buckcherry review. Michael Hann, the editor of the Guardian's Film&Music section, said it had "a good opening that tricked me into believing I was going to read a string of cliches, then undercut expectations". His fellow judge Tinchy Stryder was moved to check out Buckcherry's music online "in spite of the genre not being my kind of thing" – or the review being all that positive. It was a reminder that reviews can expose you to art you wouldn't otherwise have considered or known about – and that's something valuable whether you're 10 or 80.
• This article was amended on 21 October 2010. The original misspelled the name of the winner of the classical musical category as Sasha Millward. This has been corrected.
Noises off: Buildings can be the brains behind theatre
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on October 7, 2010
Bloggers debate whether conventional theatres can be spaces to 'think with', while the American actors' union comes in for criticism online
In his recent tribute to Michael Grandage on this blog, Michael Billington suggested that directors only really make their mark by running buildings. "Think of Stanislavski in Moscow, Brecht in Berlin, Joan Littlewood at Stratford East, George Devine at the Royal Court," he wrote. "In running a building, directors make a definite artistic statement – they choose the plays, shape the policy, determine casting and get to promote the next generation."
This has provoked a fascinating response from Chris Goode where he describes his own time running the Camden People's Theatre . His experience ran the gamut from fixing toilets to working with and encouraging young artists, and now he is no longer doing it, he misses it. Specifically, he says, he misses "the sense of belonging so wholly and unreservedly to a project that there isn't a part of your waking life (and often your dream-life too!) that isn't up to its neck in it".
Yet this nostalgia leads him on to a wider point about the importance of theatre buildings. They can, he says, "be what we use to think with". Despite the current excitement that exists around the creating of work in non-traditional spaces, what he is really interested in at the moment is working out how a theatre building might be able to "respond, sensitively and nurturingly and challengingly and ambitiously, to an artform that wants to be all the things that buildings, and especially big theatre buildings, often can't be: fleet, acute, unorthodox, dissident, liquid, ticklish, erotic, hopeful". In other words, a theatrical revolution shouldn't be about getting rid of buildings, but changing them profoundly.
In other news, it is often said that one of the key barriers to creating theatre in the US is the lack of public subsidy. But as Matt Freeman suggests this week, there is another less obvious, but equally significant problem which faces American theatre makers: the actors' union Equity (AEA). AEA has significantly more power than British Equity, but , claims Freeman, it has a tendency to exercise this power over its own members rather than over the big producers.
Freeman provides an example of this with a story he heard recently: "about a company… that was told [by Equity] they could not use live video feed of the actor's on stage (not recording the actors, live video feed) for a Showcase Code production. This included, oddly enough, Non-Equity Actors." It is difficult to know what is more extraordinary here – the fact that the union is behaving in a way that affects the artistic integrity of the production itself, or the fact that it is trying to exert influence over people who are not even members. Freeman makes the point that he is absolutely not anti-Union in general. The sad thing, he comments, is that in this particular case: "in an effort to protect the interests of a few, AEA is stifling the very industry that could and should be growing in New York City."
Finally, whilst artists in the UK continue to protest against the coming arts cuts theatre makers in Toronto have a rather more pleasant battle on their hands. Praxis Theatre is reporting on a recent debate organised by ArtsVote, which brought together a number of the prospective mayoral candidates for Toronto to discuss their arts policies (it even graded the quality of each of the candidate's approach. What is remarkable is that most of these candidates have pledged to increase arts funding from $18 to $25 per head, despite the tough economic climate. Again it is difficult to know which is more extraordinary – politicians making public pledges to increase arts funding, or the very fact that several candidates agreed to attend a debate devoted solely to this subject. Perhaps when Boris and Ken are slogging it out in 2012 we can get them on stage at the National to make their case for the arts in London.
Video | Open up Oikos: Britain’s first recycled theatre
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on October 6, 2010
Behind the scenes at the construction of a remarkable piece of 'junkitecture', a 120-seat pop-up theatre in south London hosting specially commissioned plays by Simon Wu and Kay Adshead
What to see in the arts this autumn
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on September 14, 2010
There's a double helping of the Dane, Wall Street returns, Wallace and Gromit take up presenting – and Robyn goes for broke. Our critics pick this autumn's hottest shows
Theatre
Hamlet
Prepare for the latest battle of the princes. John Simm is first in the field at the Sheffield Crucible; then Rory Kinnear enters the running in a Nicholas Hytner production for the National Theatre. It's not, of course, a contest – but comparisons will be inevitable. Crucible, Sheffield (0114-249 6000), from 16 September; and Olivier, London SE1 (020-7452 3000), from 7 October.
The Thrill of it All
Forced Entertainment continues the British experimental tradition with an evening of vaudevillian capers, Japanese lounge music and tarnished sequins. Nuffield, Lancaster (01524 594151), 12-13 October. Then touring.
Tribes
Nina Raine follows her impressive debut play, Rabbits, with a drama about an unconventional family that has its own private language and rules. At its centre is Billy, who is deaf and desperately wants to get a word in edgeways. There will be both captioned and sign-language performances. Royal Court, London SW1 (020-7565 5000), from 20 October.
Love Steals Us from Loneliness
Playwright Gary Owen grew up depressed and suicidal in Bridgend. Now he returns to the town that's seen more than 20 suicides in recent years, to explore what's gone wrong and what's going right. Hobo's Rock Club, Bridgend (029-2064 6900), 7-16 October.
The Lady from the Sea
David Eldridge unveils a new version of Ibsen's tale of watery passion. Sarah Frankcom directs a production the Royal Exchange calls "Anna Karenina meets The Piano". Royal Exchange, Manchester (0161-833 9833), 13 October to 6 November.
The Picture
Jacobean dramatist Philip Massinger's play revolves around a Bohemian knight who sets off to war with an enchanted image of his wife that changes colour according to her fidelity, or lack thereof. Philip Wilson transposes the action to the mid-19th century, at the time of the birth of photo-graphy. Playhouse, Salisbury (01722 320333), from 4 November.
King Lear
Derek Jacobi teams up again with director Michael Grandage for a King Lear that will both tour nationally and be broadcast to more than 20 countries. Donmar Warehouse, London WC2 (0844 871 7624), from 7 December.
Beasts and Beauties
This blissful take on fairytales, drawn from Carol Ann Duffy's poetry, was first seen at the Bristol Old Vic in 2004 and is now being remounted in Hampstead. Hampstead theatre, London NW3 (020-7722 9301), 10-31 December.
Film
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Just as the financial world goes into meltdown, Michael Douglas's Gordon Gekko is back with a sinister new plan to make more money and to destroy more lives. He's desperate to be reconciled to his environmentalist daughter, played by Carey Mulligan; she's engaged to a idealistic young Wall Street trader, Shia LaBeouf, who falls under Gekko's awful spell. Released on 6 October.
Eat, Pray, Love
Julia Roberts stars in this showy journey of personal growth, based on the bestselling memoir about a newly single woman finding herself. Reportedly, Roberts converted to Hinduism as a result of this film. Released on 24 September.
Made in Dagenham
Sally Hawkins stars in this real-life drama, based on the 1968 strike by women workers at the Ford Dagenham plant, who object to getting paid less than their male counterparts. A star-studded British cast includes Bob Hoskins, Rosamund Pike and Miranda Richardson as Barbara Castle. Released on 1 October.
The Kids Are All Right
This easy-going comedy has won hearts and minds across America. Julianne Moore and Annette Bening are a gay couple who have had children through artificial insemination – one each, from the same father. Now teenagers, these kids wish to contact their father; the parents have no choice but to agree. Released on 29 October.
Countdown to Zero
This terrifying documentary by British film-maker Lucy Walker assembles an impressive array of talking heads, including Gorbachev and Tony Blair, to talk about the real danger of a nuclear explosion by accident, or from committed terrorists. A cautionary tale for anyone who thinks that a nuclear catastrophe is something we don't need to worry about. Released on 12 November.
Architecture
RIBA Stirling prize 2010
The 15th instalment of British architecture's answer to Big Brother. A coterie of architects attends a gala dinner at London's Roundhouse (shown live on BBC2) to select the best building from a shortlist of six. The winner gets £20,000. Bookies' favourites are Zaha Hadid's Maxxi gallery in Rome and David Chipperfield's revamp of the Neues Museum in Berlin. 2 October. Details: architecture.com
World Architecture festival 2010
More than 1,000 architects from around the world will converge on Barcelona for this festival, at which an expert panel will name the world's best new building. Last year, the award went to the Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre, by Peter Rich Architects, which was built in South Africa on a confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo rivers. Barcelona, Spain, 3-5 November. Details: worldarchitecturefestival.com
Comedy
Tommy Tiernan
This is the first UK tour for the 1998 Perrier award winner since he got into hot water last year for Holocaust material in his native Ireland. (His Canadian tour was cancelled as a result.) A comic, said Tiernan in reply, has to be "reckless and irresponsible". Expect more saying of the unsayable, in a lyrical Donegal lilt. Sheffield Memorial Hall (0114-2789 789), 6 October. Then touring.
Tim Minchin
Having written his musical of Roald Dahl's Matilda for the RSC, which premieres in November, the shock-haired Australian troubadour Minchin returns to live comedy. His UK tour promises new songs, old favourites – and a 55-piece orchestra. Birmingham NIA (0121-780 4141), 8 December. Then touring.
Josie Long
Before this year's Edinburgh festival fringe, Josie Long's standup was big on crayons and kookiness but low on bite. Her fringe set retained the idealism but added sass, sharp teeth and a rousing call to political arms. Now she takes her message to the nation. The Stand, Edinburgh (0131-558 7272), tomorrow. Then touring.
Armstrong and Miller
Perrier nominees in 1996, Armstrong and Miller's TV fortunes were flatlining until they found mid-career success with their BBC1 sketch show. Now they take those popular primetime characters – including their toff-but-common RAF pilots – on the road. Bristol Hippodrome (0844 847 2325), 23 September. Then touring.
Dance
Nearly Ninety
Merce Cunningham created this, his final work, just months before his death last summer. For all the poignancy surrounding its UK premiere by his dance company, it's also a piece alive with invention, fusing dance, music, video and a futurist set. Barbican, London EC2 (020-7638 8891), 26-30 October.
Cinderella
A new staging of Prokofiev's fairytale score from Birmingham Royal Ballet mixes darker themes of loneliness and loss in among the tinsel. Hippodrome, Birmingham (0844 338 5000), 24 November to 12 December.
Iphigenie auf Tauris
In the months following Pina Bausch's death, her work has enjoyed a rich showing in the UK, culminating with this London premiere of Iphigenie auf Tauris, her 1973 staging of Gluck's opera. Sadler's Wells, London EC1 (0844 412 4300), 27–31 October.
The Nutcracker
English National Ballet celebrate their 60th anniversary with a fresh take on the Tchaikovsky classic. Where the last version had a cartoon-coloured tone, this will be Victorian picture-book pretty. Coliseum, London WC2 (0871 911 0200), 10-30 December. Then touring.
Classical/Opera
Promised End
English Touring Opera premieres what composer Alexander Goehr says will be his last opera: a Noh-style treatment of King Lear. Linbury, London WC2 (020-7304 4000), 9-16 October. Then touring.
Nine Rivers
Scotland's greatest living composer, James Dillon, finally gets proper recognition in his homeland with the first complete performance of his magnum opus. Rolf Gupta conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. City Halls, Glasgow (0141-353 8000), 14 November.
Rebecca Saunders
The expat British composer is in residence at the Huddersfield Contemporary music festival, bringing with her a whole sheaf of UK premieres as part of the festival's rich spread of new music. Various venues, Huddersfield (01484 430 528), 19-28 November.
Tannhäuser
The Royal Opera's final new show of 2010 brings Wagner's "grand romantic opera" back to Covent Garden after more than 20 years, in a production by Tim Albery. Semyon Bychkov conducts. Royal Opera House, London WC2 (020-7304 4000), 11 December to 2 January 2011.
Visual arts
Brighton photo biennial 2010
This city-wide survey puts photo-graphers such as Robert Mapplethorpe alongside counterparts from across the globe.Venues around Brighton, 2 October to 14 November. Details: bpb.org.uk
Paul Gauguin
France's quintessential bohemian painter hasn't had a UK show this large in 50 years. This one leads us from Brittany to Polynesia, where Gauguin died in 1903. Tate Modern, London SE1 (020-7887 8888), 30 September to 16 January 2011.
British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet
The five-yearly whip through what's hip in art will be inspiring and annoying in equal measure. Venues around Nottingham, 23 October to 9 January 2011, then touring. Details: britishartshow.co.uk
Ai Weiwei in the Turbine Hall
The first non-western artist to take on the space, Weiwei is an outspoken critic of the Chinese government. How far will he go here? Tate Modern, London SE1 (020-7887 8888), from 12 October.
Move: Choreographing You
Explores 50 years of interaction between art and dance. Could be fascinating. Hayward Gallery, London SE1 (0844 875 0073), 13 October to 9 January 2011.
Pop
Robyn
Swedish starlet Robyn is as fiercely individual as it's probably possible for an unabashed pop star to be. Her latest venture involves releasing three albums in one year (a reaction to touring her last record for five years). Expect the highlights, from foul-mouthed hip-hop to sparkling electropop. O2 ABC, Glasgow (0844 477 2000), 18 October. Then touring.
LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip
Spectacularly good value: James Murphy's outfit on (apparently) their final lap, with Hot Chip, touring their career-best album One Life Stand. Cardiff International Arena, 12 November. Then touring. Details: livenation.co.uk
Vampire Weekend/Janelle Monáe
Vampire Weekend, whose bookish, Afro-influenced indie really comes to life on stage, make an intriguing choice of support for their final tour date: the year's breakout soul star. Alexandra Palace, London N22 (0844 277 4321), 3 December.
Suede
Briefly the Indie Band Most Likely To (before they were swept away by the less complex pleasures of Oasis), Suede parlay the momentum from their reunion concert for Teenage Cancer Trust earlier this year into a huge London show. O2 Arena, London (0844 811 0051), 7 December.
Arcade Fire
Arcade Fire's burgeoning success suits their music: what can sound a bit overinflated on record makes perfect sense booming around stadiums with crowds singing along en masse. LG Arena, Birmingham (0844 338 8000), 8 December. Then touring.
Television
The Special Relationship
Michael Sheen steps back into Tony Blair's shoes for the third time in a new feature-length drama from screenwriter Peter Morgan. These are Blair: The Action Buddy years, as he enters centre-left on the world stage to find Bill Clinton – his husky sincerity nailed by Dennis Quaid – waiting with open arms. BBC2, this Saturday.
Community
Joel McHale (host of E!'s sarky entertainment news show The Soup) plays a dodgy lawyer sent back to college to get the degree he's been pretending he's had for years. Viva, October.
Any Human Heart
This adaptation of William Boyd's novel promises to be one of the season's classiest offerings. Jim Broadbent, Matthew Macfadyen and Sam Claflin take turns to play writer Logan Mountstuart, who tumbles through the 20th century while crossing paths with Jackson Pollock, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and a succession of lovers. Channel 4, November.
The Walking Dead
Andrew Lincoln (Egg from This Life) plays a police officer who wakes up after an accident to find himself in the middle of an undead apocalypse. Based on the cult graphic-novel series, The Walking Dead could be the moment zombies get a True Blood-style makeover. FX, November.
Wallace and Gromit's World of Invention
Well-loved duo try out TV presenting for this six-part series, celebrating the mothers and fathers of scientific invention – as well as quirkier projects that never got beyond the drawing board. BBC1, November.
World music and jazz
AfroCubism
The original idea for Buena Vista Social Club is revived, uniting Malian stars including Toumani Diabaté with Cuba's finest. Barbican, London EC2 (020-7638 8891), 21 November; Usher Hall, Edinburgh (0131-228 1155), 2 December.
Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares
This all-female Bulgarian choir return to the UK for the first time in more than a decade. Queen Elizabeth Hall, London SE1 (0844 875 0073), 2 November. Then touring.
Vandermark 5/Atomic
Chicago saxophonist Ken Vandermark references everything from Sun Ra to rock; the Norwegian/Swedish Atomic ensemble splices old and new with ferocious vivacity. Vortex, London N16 (020-7254 4097), 16 September. Then touring.
London jazz festival
Includes Herbie Hancock's Imagine Project and shows by Sonny Rollins and Brad Mehldau. Various venues, London, 12-21 November. Details: londonjazzfestival.org.uk
Books
Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
Franzen's first novel since 2001's The Corrections is getting rave reviews. 23 September.
Jump! by Jilly Cooper
The bonkbuster queen returns to what she does best: sex among the horsy set. 16 September.
Conversations With Myself, by Nelson Mandela
Mandela's collection of private letters, diaries, doodles and conversations has a foreword by Barack Obama. 12 October.
Map of a Nation, by Rachel Hewitt
The story of the Ordnance Survey map, from the 18th-century adventurers who slogged up hill and down dale, right up to today's digital database. 7 October.
• Chosen by Michael Billington, Peter Bradshaw, Andrew Clements, Robin Denselow, Alison Flood, John Fordham, Lyn Gardner, Jonathan Glancey, Brian Logan, Judith Mackrell, Alexis Petridis, Adrian Searle and Richard Vine.
• This column was amended on 14 September 2010. The original gave the opening date for Hamlet at the Crucible, Sheffield as 22 September. This has been corrected.