Christmas
Canterbury Cathedral, BBC TwoSaturday, 13 December 2014
Attracting over one million visitors each year, Canterbury Cathedral is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country. With its picturesque location and very nice, very white staff, the cathedral offers an easy metaphor for the version... Read more... |
Edward Scissorhands, New Adventures, Sadler's WellsThursday, 11 December 2014
For those who’ve seen one too many Nutcrackers, nothing says Christmas better than a Matthew Bourne production at Sadler’s Wells. A man whose mantelpiece is overflowing with Tony and Olivier awards is a safe bet for entertainrment – even when... Read more... |
CD: Earth, Wind & Fire - HolidayWednesday, 10 December 2014
Can Christmas spirit be bottled? Well, there are certainly some songs that can effectively make us drunk on goodwill rather than gin and sherry. Paul McCartney’s “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time” and the whole of A Christmas Gift for... Read more... |
White Christmas, Dominion TheatreFriday, 14 November 2014
What ought to be a featherweight holiday confection emerges as a charmless slog in the belated West End bow of White Christmas, a title that at this point in November may induce panic in those playgoers who haven't begun to think about holiday... Read more... |
Downton Abbey Christmas Special, ITV / The Trachtate Middoth, BBC TwoWednesday, 25 December 2013
A year ago it was all so different. Lady Mary gave birth and on his way home from the delivery suite Cousin Matthew steered his vintage soft-top into a tree trunk. There's rather less to report from Downton Abbey (***) this Christmas and the Daily... Read more... |
Yuletide Scenes 6: Journey of the MagiTuesday, 24 December 2013
It was the fate of Benozzo Gozzoli (c 1422-1497) to be a contemporary of the immortals. A merry journeyman dauber, his talents were overshadowed in his lifetime and are overlooked now. He had a good start in life, working for both Fra Angelico and... Read more... |
Christmas Oratorio, Trinity College Choir, OAE, Layton, St John's Smith SquareMonday, 23 December 2013
Not every Yuletide fixture need be commercial and routine. Certainly St John’s annual Christmas Festival packs them in, but why wouldn’t it when the voices for the last two events, backed up by no less than the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment... Read more... |
Yuletide Scenes 5: WinterMonday, 23 December 2013
Russia is the largest country on earth, unimaginably vast. Its people naturally have a great attachment to their country – and its landscape – in spite of their turbulent history, and in the late 19th century painters portrayed with deep feeling... Read more... |
Listed: The 12 Derangements of ChristmasSunday, 22 December 2013
We at The Arts Desk are as fond as the next person of swans-a-swimming, partridges and pear-trees, not to mention gold rings, but be honest: 'tis already the season to be jolly sick and tired of all those knee-jerk compilations of Slade, sleighbells... Read more... |
Yuletide Scenes 4: Nursery (Christmas Stockings)Sunday, 22 December 2013
Even by his own eerie-peculiar standards, this is a perturbingly odd painting by that gifted English eccentric Stanley Spencer. It’s the night before Christmas and Christmas stockings hang from each bed frame: in this case, long rubber boots and... Read more... |
Yuletide Scenes 3: Winter SeaSaturday, 21 December 2013
There’s movement towards a walk after lunch, but by the time everyone’s hummed and hawed about where they might go, rubbed their bellies after one too many forcemeat balls and argued about who put the Guardian Quiz where, it’s already dark and there... Read more... |
Yuletide Scenes 2: The Adoration of the KingsFriday, 20 December 2013
Jan Gossaert’s The Adoration of the Kings, painted in 1510-15, is a sumptuous, richly detailed and even, to us today, slightly hilarious painting. It’s the large central panel of a Flemish altarpiece which includes practically every motif of the... Read more... |
