JEANNINE ALTON says How we are: Photographing Britain at London's Tate Britain is simply not to be missed If your name's Joseph Nicéphore Niépce you're bound to make your mark. He did. He made, in 1826, the first photograph, and 150 of his umpteen followers from 1844 to 2006 have been assembled in the Tate's first blockbuster devoted entirely to photography.
Probably you've never thought of Preston as a nursery of operatic life. You'll have to think again, mainly as a result of the activities of Chris Gill including the creation of Heritage Opera in 2006 - since when they have performed and toured no fewer than three major works (Così, Onegin and Bohème, since you ask).
The Penelopiad . . . or The Hanged Maids' Tale. This is Canadian writer Margaret Attwood's take on the Odyssey, offered in a collaborative production with Canada's National Arts Centre and with several Canadian actresses.
This is the author's 19th play. Quite a good life's work, you might think. Not for our favourite laughsmith, Sir Alan Ayckbourn.
'Publisher and Swindler". Ouch. These are the opening words of the entry for Ian Robert Maxwell in the Dictionary of National Biography. He'd have been pleased with the National' anyway, having been so conscious of less welcome labels - Czech, Jew - used against him, he felt, by the undefined Establishment which never accepted him. His own phrase, coined by a master-practitioner - "Lies have been told" - gives its title to Ron Beacham's play, which ended its current tour (surely not the last) in Oxford last week.
The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Maybe. It's certainly beginning to rule the stage. Two weeks ago at the Playhouse, Kindertransport mediated Nazi persecution via a daughter, mother, foster-mother and grandmother; fathers and husbands were referred to but not seen. Last week came Molora, the latest play by the acclaimed South African author Yael Farber whose work and production team have already been warmly welcomed by Oxford audiences.
This is far from being an Oxford debut show for John Thomson. In 2005 he was Artist in Residence at the Botanic Garden and exhibited at the University Museum of Natural History last year under the title disney meets DNA. His present show Say it with Flowers, at Christ Church Picture Gallery till July 8, extends more widely to comprise sculptures, works on paper, digital prints and sketchbooks. These items, executed in an extreme variety of media, are scattered in the galleries among the works of the old masters who mostly managed just with oil and canvas.
The warm-up scene of Dud & Pete: Come Again, a tribute to fondly-remembered comedians Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, was promising, setting up a TV set with actors, radio engineers and whatnot wandering about measuring angles, adjusting furniture, vaguely dusting a grand piano. Sadly, that's about as good as it got. We were to witness the Tony Ferguson Show, introduced by the man himself (Alexander Kirk) in a desperate Archie Rice-type attempt to get us interested and applauding before launching into an interview with Moore.
The year 1685, by curious coincidence, saw the birth of two children in Germany who wrote a lot of music, wore vast wigs, and ended rather tubby and famous. They were, of course, J.S.Bach and G.F.Handel, who shared the programme for Oxford Spezzati's concert in Merton College Chapel.
Anthony Neilson is a remarkably prolific man, with a score of radio and stage plays to his 40-year-old credit. Some have titles like Penetrator, Twisted and Stitching, which may raise an eyebrow. Several have explored the male psyche but in this award-cluttered piece from the National Theatre of Scotland, which first took Edinburgh by storm in 2004 and is at the Playhouse all week with its original cast and direction (Neilson's own), his focus is on Lisa, a young mental patient (Christine Entwistle, excellent throughout).
