A woman to lead the RSC, plus Shrigley's cookery opera, and a paratrooper targets Ed Vaizey
A woman to lead the RSC
The theatre world is whirring with ideas about who should, or could, take over running the Royal Shakespeare Company when Michael Boyd departs next year. Names in the frame include Gregory Doran who, as longstanding associate director at the RSC, is surely the crown-prince-in-waiting (though that is never a guarantee, of course). Some would like to see Rupert Goold, director of Enron, take over: with his wildly imaginative and sometimes controversial productions, he would certainly shake things up. Dominic Cooke, who was at the RSC before making such a success of the Royal Court, may think it's time to return to Stratford.
Maybe, though, it's time for a woman to do the job. Marianne Elliott, who co-directed War Horse with Tom Morris, is surely a contender. Playwright and director Mark Ravenhill has been touting himself on Twitter ("vote Ravenhill for an anarchist collective RSC"), but largely, he says, in order "to bugger up silly Guardian polls" on the subject. What is interesting is that there seems no shortage of possible names (I haven't even mentioned Sam West, Michael Grandage, Rufus Norris or, ahem, Liam Fox, who resigned about half an hour after Boyd's departure was announced on Friday). Theatre ? more than any other art form in Britain at the moment, I think ? seems to be bursting with people who are ready to take on the big institutions.
Shrigley's cookery opera
Artist David Shrigley, famed for his mordant cartoons, is turning his hand to opera (or rather a "sort of opera", he says), with composer David Fennessy, winner of a Paul Hamlyn award last year. It sounds a hoot. It's a melodrama, says Fennessy, set in a "cheesy daytime cookery show studio". The hosts are June Spoon and Phillip Fork, and their task is to create a meal for their guest, Mr Granules. To do so, says Fennessy, "they have to brutally murder various ingredients" (Mr Egg, the depressive alcoholic, for example). "I've wanted to work with David Shrigley for years," says Fennessy. "His work is very funny and has, as it were, enormous holes in it ? these strange non-sequiturs that make you think something dark is around the corner. I thought that my music could, somehow, fit into the holes." Pass the Spoon will be at Tramway, Glasgow, next month, and there will be a performance at the Southbank Centre, London, in May next year, during a Shrigley retrospective at the Hayward Gallery.
Paratrooper v Ed Vaizey
A new shadow culture minister has been appointed: it's Dan Jarvis, who won the Barnsley Central seat in March's byelection. A former paratrooper, Major Jarvis (as we should say), served in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan. He's been aide-de-camp to General Sir Mike Jackson, and company commander in the Special Forces Support Group, one of those faintly shadowy special operations units. Now, he faces Ed Vaizey.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2011/oct/18/arts-diary
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