Another Op'nin', Another Show

And so to the theatre. Opera North are putting on 'Kiss Me, Kate' thereby allowing me to continue my autumn of Shakespeare at one remove.

 "Brush up your Shakespeare
Start quoting him now
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow"

At least according to Cole Porter; I couldn't possibly comment. It's not the sort of show I'd have gone to see were it not being put on by Opera North, but I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless; especially, and to my surprise, the dancing. The company are well known for occasionally updating lyrics to include topical references, but I think the pig's head that appears at one point was probably in the design before the emergence of swinegate (as it surely ought to be known).

In other news I have been to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to see the Wave of Poppies, which is rather lovely. It originally formed part of the core at the Tower of London around which was added one ceramic poppy for each of the fallen. It suits its current setting very well and I can understand why it has proved so popular an attraction. YSP's permanent exhibition includes the work of Sophie Ryder, and one of her very large hares also currently stands outside Cartwright Hall, the City of Bradford's art gallery.

And, as it happens, I have also been there, accompanied by the elder Miss Epictetus. One of the current temporary displays is the Bradford Open, an exhibition of local artists. My daughter and I were in agreement with the judges and, even more oddly, each other. I particularly liked the enormous painting of Zeus on multi-layered reclaimed cardboard. The permanent collection is fairly wide ranging, moving from the sort of high Victorian bourgeois stuff endowed by nineteenth century wool barons through to Lowery, Lichtenstein and Warhol. And then there is Hockney, as always in Bradford, including my own favourite Le Plongeur. You will recall that Tory and Liberal Councillors recently tried to sell all of the above mentioned works of art plus many others, on the basis that only rich people should have access to art.

The philanthropic founders of the collection - Tories and Liberals to a man - must be turning in their graves.

Whaam!

Is Epictetus the Andrew Ridgley of wargaming? Discuss.

Alternatively read his review of the Roy Lichtenstein exhibition at the Tate Modern.

It looks just as good when viewed sober

I have always liked Lichtenstein's work - possibly influenced by the fact that one of his most famous works (above) was reproduced on the wall of the students union bar at the University of Bradford in the mid seventies. The exhibition itself is very good and covers a wide range of styles as well as the classic comic influenced pop art. He was less successful (in my completely amateur opinion) is his more abstract works, although his version of Mondrian is substantially better than the original, which hangs elsewhere in Tate Modern. His take on cubism is also rather good, but in this case serves mainly to highlight the genius of Braque and Picasso. Anyway, I highly recommend the show.

'The ring always believes the finger lives for it' - Malcom de Chazal

The rest of Tate Modern (apart from the building, which is magnificent) merely reinforced my prejudice against most modern art. The rather small cubist section was good and I found myself unexpectedly rather attracted to a couple of the abstract expressionist paintings; although not, I hasten to add, to the Jackson Pollocks - which are basically a load of Jackson Pollocks.

Actually I quite like Wham! as well as Whaam! (Waake Me Up Before You Go Go, Laast Christmas, Caareless Whisper etc). I grew up near where they did and whilst some unkind souls have compared me to the less talented of the two (the Rhetorical Pedant here points out "It was you, it was you.") my more famous namesake has more in common with George being, er, bearded and Greek. If he was alive today I have no doubt that he would be preparing pithy epigrams on his right to park where he wanted, when he wanted, having smoked whatever seemed a good idea at the time.

As a sop to wargamers (although even the most hard line must accept some relevance in this post) I will finish on a picture of two typical wargamers on their way to a show.