A look behind the scenes in the arts world
For the first time ever, Radio 4 is venturing out from the comfort of Middle England and into 3D film-making. The station has commissioned half a dozen films about London, to be shown at the Imax cinema in Waterloo. The project is being overseen by none other than that biographer of our capital city, Peter Ackroyd.
More good news from the wings at the triumphant West End production of Equus. The lead actor - Daniel Radcliffe, of Harry Potter fame (pictured below) - has been telling his co-stars that he's going to wait until he's at least 30 before publishing his memoirs.
Less fun at the Old Vic, where one performance of Osborne's The Entertainer was interrupted by a woman in the audience who barracked Robert Lindsay during the famous last speech with the words: "Say something funny, for Christ's sake." Apparently Lindsay was "gobsmacked".
BBC insiders are concerned about the direction of the great genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? since its transfer from BBC2 to BBC1. "They are choosing people based on how famous they are - like Barbara Windsor in the last run - not whether their story is any good," I am told. "The Natasha Kaplinsky episode lined up for the next series is a real stinker."
John Baskett, the gentlemanly long-term adviser and friend to Paul Mellon (the late US philanthropist whose collection of British art will get a Royal Academy show from October this year), tells me he once oversaw the purchase of a J M W Turner painting from an impoverished Scottish earl who insisted on lugging a heavy wooden ladder himself during the inspection. "I can't tell my butler that I'm selling it," the earl said to Baskett. Those were the days, eh?
bendowell@btinternet.com
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