Louise Bourgeois set to return to the Tate and Neneh Cherry plans TV show
The British film producer Simon Channing-Williams skill in persuading John Le Carré to sell the rights to his novel The Constant Gardener is legendary. Le Carré had long been suspicious of Hollywood, especially since the disappointing 1984 adaptation of his Little Drummer Girl. Now it seems that Channing-Williams has done it again. Exactly which Le Carré book he will be bringing to the big screen is top secret, but I can tell you that Joe Fisher, the Tichborne Claimant screenwriter, is busy penning a script.
Wheee! Unilever, sponsor of one of the most enjoyable cultural experiences of 2006 (Carsten Höller's five big slides down to Tate Modern's Turbine Hall), is on board for one more extravaganza, to be announced this spring. A senior Tate figure says it could well be a piece of performance art. He also says many of the staff (including the director, Sir Nicholas Serota) will miss the slides; they have been using them to get around the gallery, often arriving at meetings looking a wee bit ruffled.
Talking of Tate Modern, Louise Bourgeois, the first artist to fill the Turbine Hall, is returning for a major exhibition in November. Over at the National Portrait Gallery, Sandy Nairne, its director, is looking forward to the gallery's "Daily Encounters", which will turn the camera on newspaper photographers. The British Museum's autumn highlight will be an exhibition dedicated to Qin Shi Huang, First Emperor of China and the man behind the terracotta army.
Move over, Jamie Oliver. Neneh Cherry (pictured) and her sister, the musician and presenter Andrea Oliver (mother of the T4 presenter Miquita), are planning a BBC show, probably for next year. It will be like a jazzed-up Two (Not So) Fat Ladies.
bendowell@ btinternet.com
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