Icons of British Fashion at Blenheim

We went to Blenheim on bank holiday Monday because I wanted to walk from the Ditchley Gate right up to the house. Well, it was pouring down with rain so that wasn’t happening. I managed to check a few aspects of the parkland that I wanted to, but we were soon...

Ralph Fiennes’ Macbeth

Macbeth, Dir. Simon Godwin, London 2024. Just back from London and the blasted heath of Canada Water to see Simon Godwin’s production of Macbeth. It took place in a gigantic warehouse, where audiences filed past a burnt-out car in an imaginary war-torn city, and the...

York Watergate

York Watergate, Embankment Gardens, London, Dec 2023. On my way to review an exhibition at the Courtauld, I had a closer look at the York Watergate in Embankment Gardens. It was built around 1626 in the grounds of York House: the Duke of Buckingham’s mansion. The...

Robert D. Hume

I am still reeling from the news that Robert D. Hume, the American theatre historian, died last week. I debated whether to write anything about him here because I was not a colleague or friend and did not know him very well – beyond the exchange of a few emails....

More Operatic Foundations

Bedford Row, London, November 2023. I wrote the other day (in Operatic foundations: A relic of the Haymarket theatre) about the curious stones in the front garden of a law office in Bedford Row and how I think they once formed the foundation of John Vanbrugh’s...