Evening Standard - Arts

Critics' choice: five best exhibitions

Fri, 18 May 2012 13:00:52 BST

ISLAND STORIES: 50 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN BRITAIN

V&A, SW7 (020 7942 2000, vam.ac.uk)

A tantalisingly small visual documentary of British life that tells engrossing tales of time and place.

Top ten films of the week

Fri, 18 May 2012 12:19:26 BST

1. Avengers Assemble (12A)

DVD and Blu-ray releases

Steve Morrissey — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:03:17 BST

The Descendants

(Fox, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

Alexander Payne’s first film since Sideways is another road movie, starring George Clooney as the absent dad reconnecting with his daughters on a trip round Hawaii. Gentle, gentle stuff, entirely engaging, funny, a small classic.

Hot tickets: weekend gigs

Fri, 18 May 2012 11:36:05 BST

Watch the Throne: Jay-Z and Kanye West

Two of hip hop’s giants, and not coincidentally, two of the finest live performers in their field, join forces to show off their supremely overblown collaborative album. No understated campfire acoustic segments at this one.

Tonight to May 22, O2 Arena, SE10 (0871 984 0002, the02.co.uk)

Commentary: Invisible - Art about the Unseen

Fri, 18 May 2012 11:27:38 BST

This is a bold move by the Hayward and the show is bound to trigger a vociferous debate. But in fact there is a long history of invisible art. Paris’s Pompidou Centre had a show featuring a procession of empty spaces in 2009, the Hayward’s director Ralph Rugoff did a version of Invisible in San Francisco back in 2005 — and its inventor was 20th century artist Marcel Duchamp, godfather of conceptual art.

Can you tell what it is yet? New Hayward show reveals... not very much

Fri, 18 May 2012 11:16:54 BST

This new conceptual art exhibition will provide a field day for critics who label it pretentious.

Also showing: Even The Rain, The Source and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Fri, 18 May 2012 11:01:55 BST

The Source

Cert tbc, 137mins

***

She Monkeys - review

Fri, 18 May 2012 10:34:02 BST

She Monkeys? Apparently even the actors in this award-winning, Swedish coming-of-age drama don’t know what that title means. Which seems apt. Director and co-writer Lisa Aschan has created a portrait of childhood and adolescence that dazzles us with its mysteries.

2 days in New York - review

Fri, 18 May 2012 10:15:39 BST

Fast-paced and sex-soaked, 2 Days in New York (written, directed by and starring Julie Delpy) picks up where the excellent 2 Days in Paris left off. Watching it is like reconnecting with a fizzy old friend. Though 2 Days in Paris only came out in 2007, it feels like we’ve known Marion — the beleaguered heroine — for ever.

Broken, Cannes Film Festival - review

Fri, 18 May 2012 10:06:48 BST

If nothing else, theatre director Rufus Norris’s debut feature, adapted from Daniel Clay’s novel about the roots and results of family violence, provides a fine showcase of British acting talent.

Critics' choice: five best theatre

Fri, 18 May 2012 09:59:55 BST

SLOW AIR

Tricyle, NW6

Until June 2 (020 7328 1000, tricycle.co.uk)

David Harrower’s low-key but

richly rewarding two-hander is a fascinating insight into family life.

The Sunshine Boys, Savoy - review

Fri, 18 May 2012 09:56:01 BST

Danny DeVito is wonderful in this revival of Neil Simon’s Seventies comedy. It’s his West End debut, and he delivers something close to a masterclass: a commanding mix of energetic humour, cute timing and simmering resentment. Thanks to him this is certainly a hot ticket.

LSO Chamber Orchestra/Redmond, LSO St Luke’s - review

Fri, 18 May 2012 09:36:02 BST

The musical landscape of the early 20th century is littered with composers spicing up their works with jazz. Stravinsky, as Timothy Redmond reminded us in his podium introductions to the pieces in the LSO Chamber Ensemble’s programme, had a highly individual approach to the matter.

A Marvellous Year for Plums, Chichester Theatre - review

Fri, 18 May 2012 09:07:32 BST

I’m not convinced that drama requires any more works about either Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson or the Suez Crisis but never mind, here we are back in 1956, with Anthony Eden (Anthony Andrews) presiding over the crumbling days of Empire. It’s an agreeable enough hike along a well worn path but the trouble is writer Hugh Whitemore, acclaimed for his television dramas about Churchill, doesn’t have any startlingly new insights. Furthermore, Whitemore isn’t entirely certain where the play’s central focus lies, which results in various plot strands that don’t hang comfortably together.

Willy Moon, Madame JoJo’s - review

Andre Paine — Fri, 18 May 2012 08:57:39 BST

He may be a new face for 2012 but with his sharp white suit, gliding dance moves and slick hair, Willy Moon appeared to have arrived directly from 1959.

Hot tickets: weekend comedy

Fri, 18 May 2012 08:42:55 BST

Freeze! with Tim Key & Tom Basden

The title is not a comment on the weather but the name of shows by the occasional duo consisting of Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Tim Key and his musical chum Tom Basden. The emphasis is on charming, chaotic art-happening spontaneity. Expect poetry, sketches and films plus quirky chaos.

Until tomorrow, Udderbelly,

SE1 (0844 545 8282, underbelly.co.uk)

Listen to this...

Fri, 18 May 2012 08:41:34 BST

The xx - VCR (xx, 2009)

CDs of the week: Tom Jones, Saint Etienne and The Temper Trap

Fri, 18 May 2012 08:37:10 BST

TOM JONES

Spirit in the Room

(Island)

****

Music box: the Manganivar Seduction

Simon Broughton — Fri, 18 May 2012 08:31:28 BST

It starts quietly with the soft bowing of a desert fiddle, but it ends in an extravagant cacophony of sound, lights and colour. Thirty-six Rajasthani musicians dressed in white robes and turbans of red, yellow and orange are placed in a four-storey tableau of little curtained boxes — each containing a musician surrounded by the sort of lights you see in a theatrical dressing room. Is it a concert? Is it theatre? It’s the Manganiyar Seduction — part brothel, part Bollywood — and a colourful treat for Womad’s 30th birthday this summer.

The Raid - review

Fri, 18 May 2012 08:11:20 BST

Such a lot of talent comes out of Wales. Ivor Novello, Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, Rhys Ifans, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michael Sheen, to name only the bleeding obvious.

Interview: Slash's second coming

Fri, 18 May 2012 08:07:29 BST

If you looked up the word “contentment” in the dictionary, chances are there wouldn’t be a picture of Slash. Sitting somewhere beneath giant shades and shaggy black curls, with his nose ring, arms littered with tattoos and a black T-shirt that has pretty much all the swearwords printed on it, the former Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver guitarist looks like the same rock ’n’ roll hellraiser he always was. But this is not the case.

African apocalypse: Uganda’s child terrorists

John Preston — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:45:46 BST

The Night Wanderers: Uganda’s Children and the Lord’s Resistance Army
by Wojciech Jagielski
translated by Antonia Lloyd Jones
(Old Street Publishing, £9.99)

A flow of apt words for every occasion

David Sexton — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:31:22 BST

Higher Gossip: Essays and Criticism
by John Updike
edited by Christopher Carduff
(Hamish Hamilton, £25)

Season to Taste

William Leith — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:28:35 BST

Season to Taste
by Molly Birnbaum
(Portobello, £8.99)

Lose no time in worrying about the concept

Nick Curtis — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:27:15 BST

Time Warped
by Claudia Hammond
(Canongate, £14.99)

Conformist, bored and ripe for seduction

Esther Walker — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:23:01 BST

The Innocents
by Francesca Segal
(Chatto, £14.99)

How It All Began

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:17:50 BST

How It All Began
by Penelope Lively
(Penguin, £8.99)

Adele wins the double at the Ivor Novello awards

Thu, 17 May 2012 13:35:54 BST

Adele celebrated a double victory at the Ivor Novello Awards this afternoon – but missed out on the event’s most prestigious honours.

Cannes Film Festival: Marion Cotillard is the new princess of whales

Nick Clark — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:42:34 BST

French actress and wildlife campaigner Marion Cotillard told how she had to overcome her revulsion at seeing animals in captivity to film her new movie.

Rust and Bone, Cannes Film Festival - review

Thu, 17 May 2012 12:22:28 BST

Those expecting another tough and violent prison thriller like A Prophet from award-winning French writer-director Jacques Audiard will be considerably surprised, and perhaps a little disappointed, by this love story between a legless young woman and a second-rate boxer.

What the Butler Saw, Vaudeville - review

Thu, 17 May 2012 10:32:45 BST

Farce seems to be back in fashion. The success of One Man, Two Guvnors and Noises Off has made the genre feel positively sexy. But Joe Orton’s What The Butler Saw is a farce that’s almost an anti-farce, an anarchic attack on traditional English sensibilities.

Mike Birbiglia, Soho Theatre - review

Thu, 17 May 2012 10:08:51 BST

American storyteller Mike Birbiglia was worried about making his long-awaited London debut, comparing it to having a date with someone you have a major crush on and being scared that it might turn messy. The date metaphor is apt because Birbiglia’s monologue, My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend, is all about the ups and downs of his relationship history. This is a show for anyone whose romances have not always run smoothly, ie pretty much everyone.

Oh Delilah: Introducing London's hottest pop singer

Susannah Butter — Thu, 17 May 2012 09:43:16 BST

Even when she’s working with Grammy award-winning producers, Delilah says she has to be in charge. “I’m a control freak,” says the 21-year-old singer. “Just because someone has been working with Madonna doesn’t mean they can tell me what to do.”

Scissor Sisters, Shepherd's Bush Empire - review

Thu, 17 May 2012 09:01:41 BST

It’s hard to imagine that something as effervescent and of the moment as Scissor Sisters were meant to be a long-term proposition, especially since their moment was in 2006, when I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ was their last Top 10 single.

Men In Black 3 is the most unique yet says Will Smith at Leicester Square premiere

Thu, 17 May 2012 08:18:54 BST

Will Smith was joined by co-stars Josh Brolin, Alice Eve, Nicole Scherzinger and Emma Thompson in Leicester Square last night at the premiere of Men In Black 3.

Unseen Queen - the new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery

Thu, 17 May 2012 08:13:14 BST

There have been huge shifts in the way the Queen has been portrayed in her 60-year reign, and also in our own changing expectations of the image of our monarchy — and it’s these that the National Portrait Gallery’s latest exhibition documents.

Moonrise Kingdom, Cannes Film Festival - review

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:36:44 BST

Opening the proceedings at Cannes is not always a privilege. Often the festival selects a film that has a good reason to be out of the competition.

The Dictator, aka Sacha Baron Cohen, surrounded by a bevy of beauties (and a camel) in Cannes

Wed, 16 May 2012 12:28:30 BST

General Aladeen, the wicked dictator of Wadiya, caused his usual mayhem when he appeared at the Cannes Film Festival today.

Woody Allen: a documentary, Cannes Film Festival - review

Wed, 16 May 2012 12:10:20 BST

Did you know that Woody Allen doesn’t use a computer, has never sent an email in his life, and writes his screenplays on a typewriter almost as old as himself? His worst problem is: where does he get a new ribbon nowadays?

In pictures: Rita Ora joined on stage by Dizzee Rascal at KOKO

Wed, 16 May 2012 11:55:11 BST

Ora, who is signed to Jay-Z's Roc Nation record label and is widely tipped to take the pop world by storm this year, will be supporting Coldplay for their three night residency at the Emirates Stadium in June. The west London starlet is also set to play BBC Radio 1's Hackney Weekend in Hackney Marshes on June 23.

Cannes Film Festival - in pictures

Wed, 16 May 2012 10:39:07 BST

Detroit, National's Cottesloe - review

Wed, 16 May 2012 09:55:44 BST

The first thing to say about Lisa D’ Amour’s shrewdly observed play is that it doesn’t necessarily have much to do with Detroit. In fact it’s set in what is described as a “first-ring” suburb on the outskirts of a mid-sized US city.

Rambert Dance Company/L’Après-midi d’un faune/ What Wild Ecstasy, Sadler’s Wells - review

Clifford Bishop — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:23:36 BST

Mark Baldwin’s What Wild Ecstasy avoids the literal-mindedness that has plagued some of his recent offerings but by such a wide margin as to be almost unintelligible. It marks Baldwin’s 10th anniversary as artistic director of Rambert Dance Company, and is presented as a companion piece to Nijinsky’s 100-year-old L’Après-midi d’un faune, in which a mythical half-man, half-beast makes Greek vase shapes at a bunch of nymphs before ejaculating into the scarf dropped by one of them.

Falstaff, Covent Garden - review

Wed, 16 May 2012 09:03:50 BST

Given that relocating operas to the 1950s has become something of a cliché, one would hope a director has a cast-iron reason for repeating the ploy. If Robert Carsen has such a rationale for making the merry wives of Windsor, in his new production of Verdi’s Falstaff, part of a foxhunting community of that era, it is not a relocation that offers much enlightenment.

Aaron Sorkin to write new film about Steve Jobs' life

Wed, 16 May 2012 08:39:12 BST

The Social Network's Aaron Sorkin is to write the screenplay for a new film about the life of Apple founder Steve Jobs.

Last chance: Written on the Heart

Wed, 16 May 2012 08:38:03 BST

WRITTEN ON THE HEART

Duchess Theatre, WC2

Bring on the Wah! Wah! Girls

Tanika Gupta — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:30:13 BST

In a marble-floored inner courtyard in 16th-century Mughal India, surrounded by carved walnut doors draped with exquisite tapestries, men lounge on embroidered silk cushions, smoking hookahs, while live musicians entertain them and sandalwood incense fills the air. Enter a beautiful, bejewelled woman — all eyes are on her. She shimmers in bright silks and brocade, with a sparkling nose-pin; her eyes are thickly kohl-rimmed and her hands and feet decorated in vermillion. She is a mujra dancer.

Two young stars shine with red carpet veterans as Moonrise Kingdom opens at Cannes

Nick Clark — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:20:52 BST

While the attention may be on the movie veterans on the red carpet as Moonrise Kingdom opens the 65th Cannes Film Festival, it also marks the arrival of two young stars in their first movie.

Alan Rickman to play Hilly Kristal in new film CBGB

Wed, 16 May 2012 08:08:56 BST

Alan Rickman has signed up to play New York club owner Hilly Kristal in forthcoming film CBGB.

One Direction and Jack White to play London iTunes Festival

Tue, 15 May 2012 13:54:24 BST

One Direction and Jack White are among the headliners at this year's iTunes Festival, it has been announced.

Haim, Shacklewell Arms - review

Tue, 15 May 2012 11:54:51 BST

As they came to the close of a brief tour of London’s tiniest venues, the “three sisters and a mister” who make up Los Angeles quartet Haim must have realised this will be the last time British fans will see them playing next to the lavatory door.

Just announced: Robert Glasper to play Village Underground tonight

Amira Hashish — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:26:35 BST

Last night, the Robert Glasper Experiment's planned 90-minute set evolved into three uninterrupted hours, during which the band (Robert Glasper, Casey Benjamin, Derrick Hodge and Mark Colenburg) played tracks from their latest album Black Radio, paid homage to J Dilla and shared the stage with guest vocalists Bilal and Lalal Hathaway.

Robert Glasper Experiment, Barbican Hall - review

Tue, 15 May 2012 09:27:10 BST

Robert Glasper is a hot property at the moment. Black Radio, his potent cocktail of jazz, soul and hip-hop, is rattling up the US jazz, hip-hop and r’n’b charts, and the laid-back Texan pianist-composer is loving every minute of it. “Y’all got the album?” he swiftly enquired last night, nodding contentedly as a whoop of assent rose from the darkness.

Fun., XOYO - review

Tue, 15 May 2012 09:07:35 BST

Who’s had the biggest-selling single in the US this year? Rihanna? Bieber? Actually, a bunch of guitar-wielding New Yorkers by the name of fun. Their song, We Are Young, has sold more than four million copies and topped the Billboard charts — the first rock single to do so in four years.

The great Gatsby renaissance

Tue, 15 May 2012 08:41:37 BST

It’s not the centenary of the publication of The Great Gatsby (1925) or any significant anniversary in the life or death of its author, F Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940). Yet 2012 is shaping up to be the year of the great Gatsby renaissance. Baz Luhrmann’s mega-budget film adaptation is promised at Christmas and before then comes a host of stage treatments of this scalpel-sharp dissection of Jazz Age America. Fitzgerald’s shimmering, shattering endgame of opulence and ambition, of money buying everything the American Dream can offer while happiness crumbles to dust, seems to speak particularly pertinently to us now as we trudge on through recession and economic gloom.

Cannes Film Festival in sexism storm as all Palme d’Or nominees are male

Peter Allen in Paris — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:12:46 BST

The Cannes Film Festival was at the centre of a sexism row today because all the nominees for this year’s coveted Palme d’Or are men.

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Jansons, Barbican Hall - review

Mon, 14 May 2012 10:31:07 BST

Half a century, two world wars and the Holocaust separate the stirring fanfares of Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra from his elegiac Metamorphosen but they made for a fascinating pairing in the second concert of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra’s Barbican residency.

Lewis Wright, Pizza Express Jazz Club - review

Mon, 14 May 2012 10:16:53 BST

Though professional for nearly a decade, vibraphonist Lewis Wright is still only 24 and thus a worthy winner of the Worshipful Company of Musicians’ Young Jazz Musician of the Year award. Thirty is the age limit, so the former boy wonder accepted his medal last night with admirable panache and a cheque for an unspecified amount.

Ladyhawke, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire - review

Andre Paine — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:52:16 BST

New Zealand’s Pip Brown is almost the complete package: the artist known as Ladyhawke writes fantastic tunes and, with her shaggy blonde mane and easy smile, she certainly looked like a pop star during this comeback show.

A Slow Air, Tricycle - review

Mon, 14 May 2012 09:41:11 BST

In the clamorous hubbub of the Edinburgh Fringe, it’s all too easy for smaller, quieter pieces to go astray. What a treat, then, to see David Harrower’s low-key but richly rewarding two-hander, which played as part of the Traverse Theatre’s packed programme last August, get a well-deserved London run and a sliver of spotlight all for itself. A little bit of slower air and the piece soars.

Russell Brand, Lyric Theatre - review

Mon, 14 May 2012 09:14:48 BST

"Nice here, innit." Russell Brand's first London show since his divorce from Katy Perry found him in high spirits and as playful as ever. He had no sooner walked onstage than he had stepped off it into the audience, asking for the lights to be turned on so that he could assess his female fans: "I'm single now, it matters," he chuckled seductively.

Island Stories: 50 Years of Photography in Britain, V&A - review

Mon, 14 May 2012 09:02:40 BST

This tantalisingly small collection is a visual documentary covering five decades of change in Britain. In parallel, it also traces developments in photography — the techniques, styles and content which contribute to this time-capsule of domestic life, landscapes and industrial practises.

Opening this week

Mon, 14 May 2012 08:37:05 BST

THE PREMIERE

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN

Empire Leicester Square, WC2

TONIGHT

Pity poor Kristen Stewart, destined to become the fairest in the land and so incur the wrath of mean queen Charlize Theron, pictured. There’s no word yet on how convincing they are but it’s sure to be lovely looking.

Top ten films this week

Fri, 11 May 2012 12:22:46 BST

1. Avengers Assemble (12A)

Also showing: Faust, All in Good Time and Jeff Who Lives at Home

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:55:03 BST

JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME

Cert 15, 83 mins

***

Whimsical comedies come in all shapes but few have the emotional kick of Jay and Mark Duplass’s low-budget movie that all takes place in one day. It stars Jason Segel as slacker Jeff who, sent out to do an errand for his mother, lands up with his brother Pat (Ed Helms) instead. Pat is trying to track down his possibly adulturous wife (Judy Greer) and his mother (Susan Sarandon) is not best pleased with the situation.

The Duplass brothers clearly hope that the miniature world on display contains a whole universe of feeling and supressed emotion. And what comes across best from the movie is the puerile nature of most men, staggering through life with so little understanding that every small hurdle seems like Becher’s Brook.

Somehow, in the end, everything turns out to be funnier, truer and more touching than you initially expect.

Horst Faas, legendary photojournalist, dies at 79

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:19:10 BST

Horst Faas, a prize-winning combat photographer who carved out new standards for covering war with a camera and became one of the world's legendary photojournalists, has died at 79.

Critics' choice: five best exhibitions

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:18:20 BST

BAUHAUS: ART AS LIFE

Barbican Art Gallery, EC2. Until August 12 (0845 120 7550, barbican.org.uk/artgallery)

A survey of the German school devoted to the synthesis of art and architecture is as instructive as it is entertaining.

Critics' choice: five best theatre

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:17:21 BST

BRIMSTONE AND TREACLE

Arcola, E8. Until June 2 (020 7503 1646, arcolatheatre.com)

Rupert Friend is the Satan of suburbia in a wicked revival of Dennis Potter’s twisted tale of repression and religion in north London.

Hot tickets: weekend comedy

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:16:18 BST

Russell Brand

A surprise one-off London gig from the controversial comic-turned-Hollywood star. Brand will be trying out new material and promises a night of “spontaneous” comedy. Hecklers beware, he recently vented his full spleen on someone who interrupted his stream of consciousness. Sold out but returns may be available.

Sunday, Lyric, W6 (0871 22 117 22, lyric.co.uk)

Hot tickets: weekend gigs

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:09:41 BST

Ladyhawke

Known for her superb cult hit My Delirium from 2008, New Zealander Pip Brown is finally back with new material. Her second album, Anxiety, is released at the end of the month, so expect plenty of unfamiliar tunes here.

Tonight, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, W12 (0844 477 2000, o2shepherdsbushempire.co.uk)

Happy Mondays, 02 Academy Brixton - review

Fri, 11 May 2012 10:57:59 BST

It has its knockers but I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! did show Happy Mondays singer Shaun Ryder to be a fully-fledged, genuinely likeable human being, rather than an addled berk. He’s seized the moment too: since his 2010 appearance in the reality show, Ryder revealed nearly all in his autobiography and reconvened the original Happy Mondays line-up for the first time in 18 years.

Snow White/Ballet Preljocaj, Sadler’s Wells - review

Clifford Bishop — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:44:13 BST

Angelin Preljocaj’s Snow White is exciting the farther it gets away from that more balletically familiar fairytale, The Sleeping Beauty. It’s a shame then that he makes so many early nods to that tamer tale of sexual awakening, creating a court scene that runs out of steam, and diluting the Oedipal jealousy of the wicked stepmother by making her entrance so much like that of the vengeful fairy Carabosse, all threats and stamping.

BBCSO/Verdernikov, Barbican - review

Fri, 11 May 2012 10:39:51 BST

What composer wouldn’t relish the opportunity of two major premieres by two London orchestras in just three weeks? In April, Colin Currie premiered Finnish composer Kalevi Aho’s percussion concerto. Last night Alexander Vedernikov conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra as Jörgen van Rijen took the solo part in the first UK performance of Aho’s Trombone Concerto.

Simon Amstell, Reading Hexagon - review

Fri, 11 May 2012 10:20:41 BST

Comedy shows usually end at around 10.30pm but Simon Amstell concluded 30 minutes earlier.

CDs of the week: Garbage, Beach House and Gossip

Fri, 11 May 2012 09:58:36 BST

GARBAGE

Not Your Kind of People

(V2)

***

Interview: Paloma Faith on men, Marilyn and house prices

Fri, 11 May 2012 09:03:29 BST

So is Paloma Faith a diva or not? As she totters into her Portobello Road members club, a vision in salmon pink on skyscraping heels, bottle-red corkscrew hair billowing, an hour late for our scheduled rendez-vous, it certainly feels that way. But then it's all double-cheek kisses and gushing apologies in an extraordinary speaking voice (a second career as a bubbly East-Enders barmaid awaits) and straight into an intimate, knee-patting kind of interview. Pop's dotty auntie natters away and all is quickly forgiven.