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Archives: Posts From January 2008

Ravenhill's Iraq War Cycle To Have London Premiere
By Zoe Strimpel | Thu, 31 Jan 2008 at 2:44 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: Sixteen plays by Mark Ravenhill, whose scandal-causing works (most notably "Shopping and F***ing" 12 years ago) are on every college syllabus dealing with postmodern drama, will have their premiere at four venues in London in April. Tiresomely, the ...

Turner Winners Short-Listed for £2M Commission
By Zoe Strimpel | Thu, 31 Jan 2008 at 2:19 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: Britain seems to have gone mad for public art. What with the recent hubbub over who will lay claim to the next Fourth Plinth space in Trafalgar Square and a Time Out London front page this week charting the rise and fall of Banksy and the ascension of a ...

The $2,000 Tasting Menu
By Zoe Strimpel | Tue, 29 Jan 2008 at 9:21 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: It probably happens in Manhattan all the time, but a £1,000-a-head (translated, that's a $2,000-a-head) tasting menu designed for bonus season has caused quite a splash in London. Vivat Bacchus, in the city's financial district, offers seven courses of ...

Martin Amis: 'It Is Not a Racial Question'
By Zoe Strimpel | Tue, 29 Jan 2008 at 5:15 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: Martin Amis, the author and close cohort of Christopher "The Hitch" Hitchens, has tried to set the record straight in a television interview with the BBC about seemingly anti-Muslim remarks he has made since September 11, 2001. Naturally, these set ...

As a Broadway Star, Tony Blair's Good for Laughs
By Zoe Strimpel | Sun, 27 Jan 2008 at 2:23 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: It met with foul reviews, the Guardian condemning it for lacking "edge, originality or a strong point of view," and other outlets saying much the same. But "Blair on Broadway," written by first-timer Ian Hollingshead with music by Timothy Muller, made ...

Irresistible and Repellent: Marc Quinn at White Cube
By Zoe Strimpel | Thu, 24 Jan 2008 at 7:04 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: The artist behind the beautiful armless sculpture of a pregnant Alison Lapper that decked Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth beginning in 2005, Marc Quinn, opened his new show tonight at White Cube gallery. On the top floor, the likes of Paul McCartney ...

A.L. Kennedy Wins Costa Book Award
By Zoe Strimpel | Thu, 24 Jan 2008 at 1:17 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: The famously morose Scottish author and comedian Alison "A.L." Kennedy won one of the UK's top literary prizes on Tuesday night, having been the favorite to win since the contenders were announced at the beginning of the month. Winners of the Costa Book ...

American Gives $10M to National Portrait Gallery
By Zoe Strimpel | Wed, 23 Jan 2008 at 6:06 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: An unusual mixture of high art and sports as it was announced that the owner of Aston Villa, one of the UK's largest soccer clubs, has spotted the National Portrait Gallery its biggest donation to date. The 45-year-old, American-born graduate of Clare ...

News Host's Knickers in a Twist Over Marks & Spencer
By Zoe Strimpel | Tue, 22 Jan 2008 at 3:59 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: We currently find ourselves in the middle of a very British furor. It involves repeated use of the words "tackle," "pants," "gusset," and, at its core, "Paxo." To what and whom does all this refer? In a nutshell: An e-mail from the renowned presenter of ...

Gordon Ramsay Adds (Too Much?) to His Empire
By Zoe Strimpel | Sun, 20 Jan 2008 at 2:41 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: Gordon Ramsay continues his takeover of the world apace, with a European triple whammy. His new restaurant in Heathrow's Terminal 5 is set to open in March. The menu at Plane Food (one doubts the honesty of that pun — could it be ironic?) will be ...

Radiohead, Ingenious After All These Years
By Zoe Strimpel | Sun, 20 Jan 2008 at 2:18 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: Radiohead's swooning odes to dysphoria were an integral part of our youths. What's surprising is the band's longevity and the way in which we keep taking it seriously, unlike, say, Green Day or Sublime, who were arguably just as important 15 years ago. ...

Who Serves the UK's Best Fish and Chips?
By Zoe Strimpel | Sun, 20 Jan 2008 at 1:54 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: Drumroll, please. Nominations have been announced for one of Britain's most important prizes: best fish and chips shop in the land. The winner will be decided by the industry body Seafish, and announced Wednesday at the Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington, in ...

The London Art Fair: This Is Not Frieze
By Zoe Strimpel | Wed, 16 Jan 2008 at 4:50 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: The London Art Fair kicked off today at the Business Design Centre in Islington, with 100 galleries of Modern and contemporary art showing their wares. But wait! Where's the champagne? Where's the manic buzz in Franglais, Britalian, and cut-glass German? ...

Martin Creed's 'The People Running 'Round and 'Round'?
By Zoe Strimpel | Tue, 15 Jan 2008 at 9:59 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: We've got the big crack in the floor of the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall — Doris Salcedo's "Shibboleth." We've seen "State Britain," a replica of the tattered war protest in Parliament Square, snake through the Tate and win this year's Turner Prize for ...

Tolstoy-Prokofiev Glamour Gives Diplomacy a Boost
By Zoe Strimpel | Tue, 15 Jan 2008 at 9:33 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: Relations between Russia and Britain are spiraling downward, with London refusing to close British Council offices in Petersburg and Yekaterinberg on unfriendly Russian orders. But the exact converse of such enmity is everywhere evident in London, where ...

On Jamie Oliver's Mouthiness Most Fowl
By Zoe Strimpel | Thu, 10 Jan 2008 at 4:20 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: The cute-as-pie celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has done it again. He's gone and ruffled the feathers of the people who pay him most handsomely, British supermarket giant Sainsbury's. Mr. Oliver means well — but maybe a little too well to remember about the ...

Shape-Shifting at the Times of London
By Zoe Strimpel | Thu, 10 Jan 2008 at 1:29 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: And so the great organ that is the Times of London changes shape again. Not in the way that it did three years ago, when the paper went from broadsheet to tabloid. No, it was announced today that the much-anticipated shuffling around of senior staff ...

Seizure Fears Soothed, Russia Sends Paintings to London
By Zoe Strimpel | Thu, 10 Jan 2008 at 12:33 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: To the enormous relief of those who had been planning it for years and at great expense, Russia yesterday confirmed it would honor its commitment to the Royal Academy of Arts, and ship over the paintings needed for the museum's high-profile exhibit, ...

Cozy 7BR w/Nightclub, Armor-Plated Front Door, £35M
By Zoe Strimpel | Tue, 8 Jan 2008 at 4:36 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: An Israeli diamond magnate has bought what is believed to be the most expensive newly built house ever sold in the UK. Lev Leviev, originally from Uzbekistan, reportedly paid £35 million for the seven-bedroom home in London's ritzy, famously Jewish ...

Tracey Emin's Meerkats To Invade the Fourth Plinth?
By Zoe Strimpel | Tue, 8 Jan 2008 at 4:15 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: Contenders for one of London's most high-profile displays of public art, the Fourth Plinth at Trafalgar Square, were unveiled today at the National Gallery. Possible replacements for Thomas Schütte's screamingly bright glass "Model for a Hotel 2007" come ...

Auction Houses Pit Bacon Vs. Bacon
By Zoe Strimpel | Mon, 7 Jan 2008 at 3:59 PM | Permalink
Excerpt: Christie's has announced what is likely to be the main highlight of its February contemporary art evening sale: a triptych by the achingly sought-after British artist Francis Bacon (1909–92). "Triptych 1974–77," estimated at £25 million (about $50 ...