London 2012
Jasper Rees
Apparently it’s the taking part that counts, which would explain why recent weeks have brought unseemly howls of protest and threats of litigation from British athletes who have failed to make it into the Olympic squad. You’d like to sit these people with their adamantine sense of entitlement in front of a couple of this week’s releases. One we know all about. Chariots of Fire has jogged back along the beach and onto cinema screens in time to remind us about all our amateur yesteryears. The ageless story of two British sprinters who defied the Establishment, it finds a remarkably good Read more ...
Jasper Rees
This Friday afternoon at five o’clock, the National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke will recite a new poem and initiate a seismic week of Welsh cultural exploration. The inaugural Dinefwr Literary Festival will bring writers and musicians from Wales and beyond to a National Trust house and park in Carmarthenshire. Unlike other literary festivals in Wales – notably Hay and Laugharne – this one will straddle the border between English and Welsh. Joining Clarke on the list of performers is not only the former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion but his Welsh-language equivalent, the current Archdruid of Read more ...
Natalie Shaw
The minister for culture Ed Vaizey has said that London 2012 isn't just about London, but showcasing Britain to the world. This may be true in the simple geographical spread of events leading up to the Olympic Games, but in Derry-Londonderry's case, it ís equally about instilling a sense of civic pride. In 1991, Irish poet and playwright Seamus Heaney adapted Sophocles' Philoctetes as The Cure at Troy. His verse on the timeless qualities of human nature seemed to exist outside the situation Derry found itself in back then, although his words on how the city would "heal" now read like a Read more ...
Jasper Rees
There are of course no superlatives left when it comes to these Venezuelans. And yet last night called on those witnessing the al fresco performance of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra to root around in the store cupboard for a couple more. Coldest midsummer night ever experienced by a South American? No that won’t be it. Wettest? Neither. Most tumultuous celebration of the centrality of music in all our lives to take place in a Scottish field? Certainly.This opening night of the London 2012 Festival – the event was marked elsewhere all over the country, but this was the one on BBC Read more ...
Ismene Brown
The onerous task of recording all 205 national anthems for playing at the Olympics medal ceremonies has fallen on the London Philharmonic Orchestra. An edited group of 36 players has recorded the anthems at the Abbey Road Studios in 60 gruelling recording hours over six days. But which would try their patience most?The anthems - every one known in the world, good, bad and indifferent - have been arranged by British composer and cellist Phillip Sheppard, who did the British anthem arrangement for the Beijing Olympics closing ceremony. Judging from a selection below, he would be giving the LPO Read more ...
Veronica Lee
If Twenty Twelve's creators were looking for inspiration for their mockumentary about those making London 2012 happen, they need have gone no further than reading the headlines (now daily) in London newspapers about Tube drivers demanding more wedge to work during the Games, the Civil Service asking their staff to work from home and the London Mayor's transport officials suggesting that August may be a good time to find an alternative route to work - this after Londoners have put up with years of delays and cancellations while the system was being upgraded not for their benefit, but for Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although focusing on London’s Tube network, Confessions From the Underground brought up issues that aren’t unique to Britain’s infrastructure. Increasing usage versus declining levels of staff. Employees working against targets while being pushed to cut corners. It could have been the NHS or schools, but last night's documentary about the tube allowed the staff of London Underground to raise their concerns.This could have been an eyebrow-raising selection of accidents and near misses that've been hushed up. Instead – apart from a looking into the questionable response to a dust cloud at Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The 2012 Cultural Olympiad has been announced and events will take place throughout the UK from 21 June until the last day of the Paralympics, 9 September. Ruth Mackenzie, director of the Cultural Olympiad, said that many events would be free, and that “the festival will offer a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be inspired by the best in the world”. Events will range across the arts, from music, dance, theatre, opera and film to literature, the visual arts and fashion, and some will include a chance for arts fans to participate in the creation of an artwork.The highlight of the opening events, on Read more ...
graeme.thomson
As it turned out, Irving Berlin's jauntily fatalistic Let’s Face the Music and Dance proved the perfect theme tune for BBC Four's new six-part comedy series. A mock documentary following the people responsible for delivering a successful 2012 London Olympics, the basic premise of Twenty Twelve was simple: give practically any loose coalition of personalities £9 billion to organise an event of global significance and they will almost certainly turn into gibbering idiots. If, indeed, they aren't already.Written by John Morton, the pen behind the fondly recalled People Like Us, Twenty Twelve was Read more ...