The emergence of digital both as a technology and a culture has fundamentally changed the world in which short film now exists. Now short film has public, industry and social value and its role and routes have fundamentally changed.
If, like me, your first reaction to the question “What does opera have to say to under-30s” is “What doesn’t opera have to say to them, or anyone, for that matter?” then you can stop reading now. Job done. Go out and spread the word. For everyone else – and that includes Tolstoy, Rousseau and Samuel Johnson, famous opera-detractors all – I have just one further question: what is your problem with opera?
Ballroom dancing, that most civilised of pastimes, may seem an unlikely target for controversy, but a proposed rule change by the British Dance Council (BDC) has thrust our nation’s waltzers into a heated debate. This weekend, the BDC will discuss whether or not to approve a suggested amendment declaring that a ballroom partnership be recognised as “one man and one lady in all adult amateur and professional competitions and championships unless otherwise stated”.
Television is all about borrowing. One clever new format – a mock doc, a makeover show, a clever-clever quiz – spawns a stack of near-identical clones. Most of them do their time until the format starts to tire, eventually to die a natural death. The only exception is the indestructible talent show. Say what you like about Simon Cowell, but in taking reality ever deeper into the realm of fabrication, he killed off the docusoap. There’s barely been a nosey workplace series stuffed with twats mugging for the camera since. But for some reason the docusoap seems to have risen again.
Money, love, professional jealousy - the three undying motives for personal crime, and all three were present in the Bolshoi Ballet acid trial. An international public that scoffed happily at the OTT ballet horror-show that was the film Black Swan was suddenly sobered up by real-life events that needed no cinematographers and screenwriters.
A couple of weeks ago I was queueing to get into the BBC’s magnificently revamped HQ at Broadcasting House. Just behind me in the same queue were Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse. Their faces are craggier, their hair less confident than when the two comedians became part of the national furniture 20 years ago. And here they were, lightly joshing about the indignity of signing in to enter the offices of the national broadcaster which owes them so much.
I'm a great fan of the BBC, I really am, but it pains me to say that its coverage of the arts on TV often leaves a great deal to be desired. A case in point is Sarah Montague's recent (29 July) HARDtalk interview of opera singer Thomas Hampson, which I watched via the HARDtalk YouTube page.
Are we seeing a breakdown in the ballet company system? Where the brightest stars used to twinkle in the great companies, all is changing. Alina Cojocaru, the great Royal Ballet ballerina, has announced today she's joining English National Ballet - run by another great Royal Ballet ballerina, Tamara Rojo. For ENB to have the two finest talents of the past decade in Covent Garden now at the head of their cast lists is the biggest stunner since… well, since the Bolshoi Ballet's young superstars Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev quit to join the smaller Mikhailovsky Ballet.
“Without music, life would be a mistake”: Nietzsche. Sadly for many – indeed tragically, Nietzsche would say – music education in the UK has become so inconsistent that now, music barely features in some children’s lives at all. For years, county music services have been tied in to long contracts with services and teachers, some of whom have consistently delivered outstanding musical education, while others are tired and disconnected from the needs of the pupils they are teaching.
Last November, for the 25,000th time on the stage, the actor playing Sergeant Trotter in The Mousetrap stepped forward during the curtain call and asked members of the audience not to reveal the play's surprise ending to others. To do so would, by implication, spoil the whodunnit for future audiences. Over the years the odd clever-clogs stand-up has disobeyed the injunction. And whoever wrote the play’s Wikipedia entry also gives the game away.