Helen was glad when she saw that her mother was asleep. It would mean that there would be no complaints about the fact that she was late and she would have a chance to catch her breath. She settled herself into the empty chair next to her mother and waited. It had been a long morning and she had a bag full of correspondence to deal with when she got home.
Finally her mother opened her eyes and stirred. Helen waited for a smile that didn’t come.
“You’ve landed then.”
The tone of her mother’s voice was quite deliberate and meant to suggest that it was about time. It was best ignored. Even though her mother knew that she could rely on a visit every Wednesday afternoon this was never enough, and it never would be.
“Hello mum. How are you doing? Are you all right?”
“I have to be don’t I?”
Helen smiled thinly. That was the end of another conversation. It was no good asking her mother what she had been up to because she hadn’t been up to anything. She tried again. Telling her about Christopher sometimes helped. If only he would come in and see her. It had been easy to make excuses for him while he was away at university and then doing his post grad research, but not now, not when he was working only twenty miles away. Perhaps if she had another word with him about it, that might help. Several words even.
“Christopher sends his love. He’s enjoying his new job.”
Margaret frowned.
“Something to do with computers isn’t it?”
The only possible answer was yes. It was no good attempting to explain what he really did.
“He’s hoping to come and see you soon. He’s very busy.”
“Oh aye.”
Her mother didn’t believe her. Of course she didn’t.
Helen embarked on a long speech about how busy and successful Christopher was. She even added a bit about how he was always asking after her mother. Half way through it she was interrupted.
“Has he still got that robot thing he used to talk about? He had a whole lot of them.”
Helen wondered whether her mother really understood how old her grandson was.
It’ll be up in the loft somewhere.”
“He used to show me how it turned into a car- tried to get me to do it for him a few times. I never could.”
Helen smiled.
“That was a long time ago. He plays with real robots now.”
“Just like a man.”
They looked at each other and laughed. Just once in a while Helen could still feel the mother who she had once been close to, the mother who was now lost in a fog of bitterness and fear. Sometimes there was a glimmer of sunlight shining out from her face and it was beautiful. She remembered when her mother had once stopped her in mid flow when she was complaining about Richard, not long after Christopher had been born. It had taken just four words. “He’s a man, love.” Her mother had thought that this explained everything and Helen had realised that she was probably right. It was just how it was. No use complaining about it. Her mother’s generation had learned those attitudes the hard way. She could do with some of that wisdom now, wisdom that was still locked away deep inside her mother’s head, out of reach.

Margaret allowed her mind to wander away from the rather annoying middle aged woman sitting next to her and drifted back in time to when her daughter was a child. She was a pretty little thing then. You could still see the remains of that little lass in her face now, a shadow of youthful beauty behind the strain around the eyes and the sucked in cheeks. Helen should eat more. You weren’t meant to be stick thin when you got older. It made you look haggard. She remembered a little blue frock with tiny daisies round the neck that she had loved to put her in when she was a toddler. There used to be a photo of her wearing it somewhere but it had been taken away, like so much else. When they did that they never thought about the fact that the memories went too. They were stealing a life. Taking it away and storing what was left, the bits and pieces that they allowed you to keep, in a single room. Well she could still remember that frock. They hadn’t managed to steal that.
“Do you remember that blue frock? With daisies?”
Helen was half way through telling her mother about her new exercise class. She had thought that her mother was listening.
“What dress?”
“I told you. A blue one. With daisies.”
“No, sorry.”
Margaret looked at the blank face of her daughter with pity. She’d forgotten. She had loved that dress but now she had forgotten. You were never quite as important to your children as they were to you. They had a life to live. No matter how dutiful they were. Duty was an empty sour emotion. She could see it in every pore of her daughter’s skin. Helen didn’t want to be here. Why would anybody want to be here?

A blue dress with daisies. Helen watched her mother close her eyes quietly and drift off into her own world. She wondered where that idea had come from. Something she had seen in a magazine probably. Please don’t let her mother’s mind be getting weak. She didn’t really seem to take things in any more and there was so much that she wanted to tell her, things which she should have told her while she was still listening. It wasn’t good to overtire her. Next week might be better. She placed her hand gently on her mother’s knee as a goodbye and turned away, hating the clack of her heels as she walked across the parquet floor. Next week she would find her mother in exactly the same spot, waiting for nothing in particular. Margaret’s eyes remained closed and her mouth twitched as she watched a little girl in a blue dress run across a June hay meadow clutching a daisy chain for her mother.

The old lady, a quiet and unassuming soul, was standing her ground in the aisle of the supermarket, trying very hard to have her say. She had done her shopping and pushed her trolley all the way back to her bungalow, looking forward to her cup of tea with every step of the way, only to find that the milk that she had bought had gone off. For a few seconds she had felt like having a cry, but that would have done nobody any good so she had just put her coat back on and pushed her trolley back down the long straight road that led from her little estate into the town centre. She really didn’t want to have to explain to the shop assistant that her milk had gone off but there was no point just going in quietly and buying another pint because that might have gone off too if it had the same date on it. She had no choice but to say something. She had just finished her speech explaining what had happened and apologising for being a nuisance when I came past. The assistant was not impressed. She only half turned round from filling up a display of six packs of lager.
“We’ve never had any complaints about our milk.”
The injustice of this reply stopped me in my tracks. The old lady was becoming flustered. She stood there holding her pint of milk, unsure what to do. The milk was off. Surely that wasn’t right? It couldn’t be.
I glared at the assistant.
“That’s not true. I’ve had milk from here that was off twice in the last few weeks.”
The assistant straightened up and glared back. She hadn’t expected that. The old lady frowned at me, too worried about the whole business to feel grateful. I waited. Finally the assistant backed down.
“I’ll see what we’ve got in the back.”
I nodded at the old lady, who was biting her lip as she watched the assistant march down the aisle towards the store area and wishing that she could just go home.

This was a single tiny incident, just one of many which explains why I was so glad to see those fridges out on the pavement. Small town supermarkets serve real people with real worries and real needs. They should never forget that. Slogans are not enough.

All the same she wanted to do something, have something to remember Jack by, she just couldn’t think what. Until the day she had what she called her brainwave. She sat there in her front room, having a cup of tea and found herself taking an interest in what was on the mantelpiece for the first time in weeks. Right in the middle, next to the clock, was a little brass fisherman sitting there, exactly where Jack had put him when he first brought him home. He had three cod hanging on some string in one hand and a fishing rod in the other and he was wearing a great big coat and sou’wester hat. Now something like that would be a memorial worth looking at. It could be an exact copy, only it would be ten feet high, maybe even bigger, staring out to sea on the promenade. That would be something to see. They could paint the metal yellow for his coat and hat, just the way they should be, and he would look even better.

So she began to do some finding out. It wasn’t easy. She had to ring up ever so many people before she found someone who would do it for her. Either they didn’t make things that big or they wanted to do it their own way instead of making a copy of her little man. None of them were happy about painting him yellow. When she kept insisting they ended up turning her down. It wasn’t until she offered half her savings that something got done. £45,000 soon changed their minds. Some of those donkeys she had been planning to help at the trust would just have to go hungry.

The trouble started when she went to look at him, all finished and wearing his shiny yellow coat and hat, in the middle of a big artist’s studio that felt like an aircraft hanger. It wasn’t him who was the problem. He was glorious. When she held the little figure in her hand and compared them they were exactly the same. Just what she had wanted. It was when they started talking about something called installation. She had thought that only happened with cookers and washing machines but evidently it had to be done with her fisherman as well. Not only did it cost even more money that she hadn’t thought about (poor donkeys) but they wanted to know where she had got permission to put it. Permission? Did all those folks who stuck their grim benches anywhere they pleased get permission? She supposed they must do.

They told her they would keep it in the aircraft hangar place while she sorted things out and she wrote a short letter to the town council telling them that she was donating them a sculpture for the seafront. She thought it best not to mention the size or the yellow coat, just that it was a fisherman. One of the councillors rang straight back. He sounded pleased. He called her a benefactress to the town and a patron of the Arts. She liked that. Very posh. Jack would have been  surprised. He only liked television. They made an appointment for some of the councillors to go and see it in the aircraft hangar with her and invited a reporter and a photographer from the local paper to write up the handover. It was going to be exciting. Edie sat there in her front room all week, looking at the little fisherman who was back on his mantelpiece, hugging herself and feeling proud.

Councillor Mountford looked at the thing standing in the middle of the vast studio in disbelief. It was a bloody monstrosity. Hell, it wouldn’t go anywhere near fitting the site he had persuaded the others to agree to. Silly old bat. She was already telling that joker from the local paper that it was in memory of her husband and the sum of £50,000 had been written down in a spiral notebook. She was having her picture taken in front of it now holding a little brass ornament and wearing a hat with feathers on it. God help us. He wondered if the bright yellow would wear off with age. It looked pretty damn permanent.
“There’ll be a right fuss about this one Tom. People will talk. Didn’t you think to ask her how big the damn thing was?”
Tom looked at him slyly.
“I don’t mind it myself.”
There was a long silence, then Tom’s mouth began to twitch. Councillor Mountford shook his head.
“Shut it Tom.”
“It’s a bit bloody yellow.”
“What are we going to do about it then?”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do is there? Soft woman’s bought it now. If you upset Edie Harrison four months after her Jack died it’ll be all round the estates in no time. Miladdo over there’s going to have a field day if we turn it down.”
“He’ll have a field day if we don’t.”
They walked forward towards the mayor’s party. He was adjusting his gold chain, all ready to give a speech, and his wife was smiling broadly towards the camera, just in case. The words benefactor and patron of the arts got another mention while the giant metal fisherman stared out blandly over their heads. Councillor Mountford put his head towards Tom, hiding his mouth with his hand.
“What’s it made of any road? Is it worth nicking?”
Tom shook his head.
“They’d need a truck to cart that off.”
“Could be arranged. They managed to get away with that aluminium giraffe they put in the university grounds didn’t they?”
“Shame it’s not wood. There’s plenty of little toads round here who’d sort it out for us double quick if it was.”
“The thing is, they’re going to see that thing- and you won’t miss it wherever it ends up being put- and they’re going to be knocking on my door blaming me. Why the hell didn’t anybody ask her how big it was?”
“You could repaint that sou’wester.”
“Oh they will. They will. There’ll be all sorts written on it before long.
“Well I’m telling you now it can’t go on the boat landing. There’ll be no room for anybody to have a cup of tea if you try to put it on there.”
They walked forward to take their places in the group shot, standing behind Edie and smiling warmly, as grateful civic worthies are meant to do, even when a metal fish is in danger of hitting the back of your head.

It had all gone quite beautifully Edie decided. She had handed it over, everybody had been grateful, and you could see they were all very impressed by the size of it. Taken aback even. She had forgotten to mention the brass plaque that she wanted to add to his belly with Jack’s name and dates on it but that was just a detail. They wouldn’t mind. The reporter had been very interested as well. He had mentioned a double page spread for the following day and he said he would be going down into town to see what people thought about it and get some quotes. He kept talking about the “astronomical” cost and having a competition to give him a name. He wanted to know what her next project was, but she wasn’t telling him. He must think she was made of money.

When she got home she put the little ornament back in its place on the mantelpiece.
“You’re going to be famous you are.”

Three weeks later the lorry rolled up onto the cliff top car park and the giant fisherman was disgorged and put in place, staring blankly out over the bay, hidden away behind the children’s play area. People wandered over to see him now and again, but as time passed and the yellow of his coat became dull and pitted with salt air and the seagulls mottled his head with white and black droppings he was noticed less and less. Only Edie went to see him and talk to him. The winner of the competition in the paper had called him Captain Cod but that wasn’t what Edie called him.  His name was Jack. The only thing that bothered her was that she couldn’t get up high enough to clean his head.

Grayson Perry, The Rosetta Vase, 2011. Image courtesy of the Artist and Victoria Miro Gallery and via www.britishmuseum.org.

Hold your beliefs lightly.

Grayson Perry’s exhibition The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman at the British museum is one of the most fascinating shows I have ever seen. In fact, I don’t think I have ever seen anything quite like it before. It is a chance to walk into his world and see not only some stunningly beautiful new work of his own but also his own selection of artefacts from one of the world’s great museums alongside it. All of them have been personally chosen to reflect his own interests, passions, sources, and obsessions. He has called it “a journey into my own mind” and this is exactly what it is. You can get to know him from the choices that he has made and what you find is very likable, deeply interesting and moving but also funny and charming. There is nothing pompous or self serving here, nothing didactic. All we asked to do is look and enjoy. Putting the show together has clearly been a labour of love for Grayson and his respect and admiration for the artists and craftsmen and women who have gone before him shines out from every room. The people who made these objects are mostly forgotten but their work is their memorial and in this exhibition he has allowed them to live again. All of the objects are interesting and often beautiful in their own right but when you see them in the context of what they tell us about the work and influences of the single living artist who has chosen them they gain an extra layer of meaning, providing an insight into the mind of one of the most talented and original artists working in Britain today. Yes, he is that good.

Grayson Perry, The Frivolous Now © Grayson Perry

The new work which is on show is only going to become more fascinating as it ages and comes to take its place in history alongside the items from the collection. The contemporary references woven into the pots alongside the wonderful glazes and seductive decoration will form a snapshot of contemporary life which will slowly recede into the distance while the pots remain, a glittering record of a frozen moment in time. The most beautiful of them, for me at least, is The Near Death and Enlightenment of Alan Measles, which is a celebration of the fact that we can find a new beginning, even after the horror of the past has almost destroyed us. Alan Measles is Grayson’s god and alter ego, his childhood teddy, a guru who is there to allow him to transcend his own past with a combination of beauty and humour. It also allows all of us, whether we have faith or not, to look at the ideas and icons of religious belief and consider them in the abstract. Alan Measles himself is not present, of course, but his image recurs throughout the show and his personality remains its guiding light via that of Grayson Perry himself.

A Map of Truths and Beliefs. copyright Grayson Perry.

As well as the pots there are textiles and sculpture. A Map of Truths and Beliefs is a huge tapestry celebrating  the world’s pilgrim places in vivid colour. A smaller tapestry bearing Alan Measle’s mantra “hold your beliefs lightly” is set alongside an equally joyous Asafo banner from Ghana where heads are being cut off with great abandon and seeming delight. Juxtapositions like this are constantly pulling you up short as you walk round, making you think, smile or wonder.

Grayson Perry, Our Mother, 2009. Image courtesy of the Artist and Victoria Miro Gallery and via www.britishmuseum.org.

The two most moving new pieces in the show, for me at least, are Our Mother and Our Father, two figures who seem to stand for all those human beings who have gone before us and borne so much suffering so stoically. The mother is weighed down with her load of packages and belongings as she carries everything she has with her while looking tenderly at her baby. It is as moving a portrait of a mother and child as I have seen, and there are many as it is a universal subject that has been looked at many times over the generations.

The central piece of the show, a fitting climax, is the Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman itself. A huge brown iron ship, heavy with symbolism and decoration, carries a prehistoric flint axe axe at its heart. This ship is a culmination of everything that has gone before, a monument to all those unnamed craftsmen who have worked and lived for thousands of years since that flint was carved and used, and it has real presence and authority. As you look at it you feel that you have come home. The theme of pilgrimage runs throughout the exhibition, from the stunning motor bike outside the entrance on which Grayson and Alan made their own pilgrimage to the tiny pilgrim badges, sacred objects, maps and art works inside which you have been looking at, and when you see the ship it feels like journeys end.

This exhibition says a lot for Grayson Perry both as an artist and a human being. It has been put together with great love and honesty and shows that his own work has lasting power and beauty when set against objects and art from the past. You simply couldn’t produce a show like this unless both your own work and you yourself were worthy of it, you would be found out. He is certainly worthy of it.

Copyright: Patricia Rogers.

Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, Portrait of a Woman, “La Belle Ferronière”, Louvre, Paris, about 1493-4, oil on walnut panel, 63 x 45 cm.

The two stars of the show are undoubtedly two beautiful and privileged young women from the world of fifteenth century Milan, Cecilia Gallerani and Beatrice d’Este, whose portraits glow with life and detail. You feel that you are face to face with a real person, standing in their presence, and his fellow artists of the time rarely managed that. Leonardo’s paintings have soul. It marks him out from his fellow artists even more than his technical skill and makes you stand back and draw breath. Beatrice has an astonishing gaze. This is a woman who is beautiful, confident and poised. If anyone or anything distresses her it will be dealt with. If she wants anything it will be supplied. In a time when life was hard for many she is confident that she is of worth and that her worth is recognised. One of the ladies standing next to me who was visiting the exhibition as part of a coach tour summed up what I am saying nicely. “She knows her own mind.” There is no doubt at all that she did and even after over five hundred years we can still feel it.

Leonardo da Vinci, 'Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani (The Lady with an Ermine)', about 1489-90. Property of the Czartoryski Foundation in Cracow on deposit at the National Museum in Cracow © Princes Czartoryski Foundation

Ceciia Gallerani  is a different matter. She is only sixteen, heartbreakingly beautiful, young and flawless. It is an idealised vision of fleeting youthful beauty but at the same time her quiet self contained confidence shows us a real young woman at the start of her adult life. She is a sweetheart and it is hard not to fall in love with her. The ermine that she is holding to symbolise her purity, painted with breathtaking detail and movement, is a real tour de force. Two kinds of beauty are being celebrated and contrasted to great effect. What both have in common is that they are unspoiled and perfect. It was believed that the ermine would accept death rather than have his coat sullied by dirt or blood, and this perfection is the condition that the beautiful young lady holding him is also still able to enjoy.

Both of these paintings are a joy to look at and really nothing else in the exhibition compares to them. When you look at them your journey has been worthwhile. You have had your moneys worth. None of the other portraits, however lovely some of them may be, live so vividly.

The royal collection has a wealth of great drawings and these are well represented. They are technically breathtaking and sometimes very beautiful. Crammed onto pages with the curiosity and focus of an artist who was also a scientist they are not meant to be framed and looked at, although Leonardo kept them and clearly valued them as part of his working process. There is a small skull on an almost empty page which is particularly lovely and the drawings by his pupils which are shown alongside them are stiff and lifeless in comparison.

"Christ as Salvator Mundi" by Leonardo da Vinci. Photographer: Tim Nighswander/National Gallery via Bloomberg

When you reach the large room which contains the two versions of The Madonna of the Rocks it is a chance to sit down and have a good long look and I have to admit to feeling quietly smug on seeing that the National Gallery’s version, the second of them after Leonardo had complaints, is by far the best. We also have the only large scale drawing by Leonardo to survive, a full size cartoon for a painting although it was never used as one, and that is showing in the same room as a newly attributed Leonardo, Christ as Salvator Mundi. This is a wonderful work and I am quite happy, given its quality, to agree with people who know more than I do and accept the attribution, but it is a shame that the face of Christ has been overcleaned in the past destroying the evidence that would have put it completely beyond doubt, had we been able to see it as Leonardo intended.

This is a wonderful exhibition. It is sold out and in spite of the fact that the gallery issued fewer tickets in order to avoid crowds you are still going to need to take with you plenty of tolerance and goodwill towards your fellow human beings as some of them wander around talking aimlessly or sweep in front of you for a closer look. It is still worth it. Shut the world out and you can meet the work, and the mind, of a great master. A great master who didn’t always get time to paint very much as he was busy designing and investigating other things but when he did get round to it there was nobody like him.

At first it seems a ridiculous idea. Surely the Oscar should go to the dog’s trainer, or perhaps to the actor who has to build up a close relationship with the dog on screen or stage, rather than the dog? Isn’t the “performance” just the result of the audience projecting their own feelings onto the animal and seeing what they want to see? The old actor’s adage “never work with children or animals” grew up for a reason. Any time that you put a dog in front of an audience half of those watching will already be on its side before it has done anything at all. As soon as it actually does something their hearts will be going out to it. Dog acts have always been popular whether on stage or screen. Dogs were stars of music hall and variety and heroes of early silent films and they love to work with people. A well trained dog, doing things which come naturally to it, loves to work and give pleasure to its trainer and that pleasure is infectious and crosses over to the audience. The dog may be enjoying being the centre of attention but it is not acting.

Or is it? Set aside the obvious fact that a dog is not capable of playing a character for a moment and think again. Many a human star has made a great career out of playing themselves in every role that they are given. Some have been great actors and won Oscars for it. This fragile skill gave Cary Grant and James Stewart, just to name two examples, great careers and they were much loved and admired for it. Nobody would dream of suggesting that they can’t act. Being able to play yourself in a relaxed, natural, truthful way requires great skill. I have been on stage with many amateur actors who were utterly unable to achieve this and even watched quite a few professionals who struggle. That kind of honesty and vulnerability is at the heart of great acting. It is more important than any assumed accent, walk or character make up, however clever and convincing they may be. Some dogs, only a very few admittedly, have the confidence and personality to be able to do this without any trouble at all. If they are made to understand what it is that they have to do and they are around people who they trust they will do it wholeheartedly without any embarrassment or second thoughts. If they are one of the well trained minority who have the talent that is……….. One of the best times I have ever had in a theatre was watching an RSC production of Two Gentlemen of Verona during which Richard Moore, playing Launce, gave his dog Crab his dinner. It was a blissfully funny and perfectly timed double act and on the day I saw it Crab looked straight at his master and yawned on cue when he was told that he was the most disreputable dog in creation. It stopped the show. Most of that timing came from a wonderful actor of course, but it wouldn’t have worked with just any dog. Wooly the lurcher who played Crab was special and the RSC has recognised that by placing his picture at the very top of the stairs up the observation tower in the new main theatre at Stratford.

Here is a very short clip from the film Bombon El Perro with Juan Villegas and his co star Cha Cha, a dogo argentino. Have a look and see what you think.

That dog is secure in his own skin. He is playing himself to perfection and he has been put in a situation where he can relax with the actor sitting next to him and a whole relationship is suddenly there on screen. They are an odd couple, summing each other up. When they get to know each other things will start to happen and we want to be there to watch. The plot is being set up and it is going to be one which explores character rather than relying on events. Both of them have been through hard times and already we are on their side. Cha Cha also has tremendous physical presence, something which Olivier was much admired and praised for, and this is another aspect of a performance which is by no means trivial.

More often of course dogs have been action heroes, asked to use their physical skills to rescue or help. Rin Tin Tin and Lassie were the most famous examples of this type of canine Errol Flynn character, and they are much loved and and still remembered. When I owned a rough collie I got used to life having a constant soundtrack of “Ahhhh! Lassie” when we were out and about together. This was usually from children but by no means always. An early example of this kind of stardom was Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s American pit bull terrier Luke who starred with his master in a series of silent films, displaying great confidence and physical courage. Here is a montage of some of his greatest moments.

And that brings me back to Uggie. If I was writing his Oscar citation I would want to point out how he never takes his eyes off his screen master Jean Dujardin, lesser dog actors can often be seen sneaking a glance at their off stage trainer or even staring at them fixedly waiting to be told what to do next. His concentration is absolute. Actors spend years at drama school doing exercises to get them to that point. It’s difficult, much more difficult than it looks. I would want to show the scene where he is careering down a crowded street on a rescue mission, alert and full of purpose. He had obviously been trained to run down that road but nobody could have put that kind of commitment into his head. He had to feel it for himself. The timing which Uggie and Jean Dujardin display throughout in their scenes is delightful. Try doing that kind of acting with someone who isn’t up to it, as I have after knowing what it is like to be on stage with someone who has talent, and you will fall flat on your face. It takes two, and on this occasion one of them happened to be a dog.

Here is the trailer for The Artist. Loook out for him.

So does Uggie deserve an Oscar? Maybe, maybe not. He is probably above such things, as he should be.The academy has never recognised a performance by a dog before, and there have been many. He is a very good skateboarder though, and I would love to see him skateboarding across the stage on Oscar night carrying an Oscar for Jean Dujardin.

Photograph: Production still by Karl Andre photography.

Blithe Spirit is a bit of an old war horse of a play but the almost full house that I was part of for a matinee of the Stephen Joseph Theatre’s production suggests that one of the longest running and most popular stage comedies ever written is not ready to fade away just yet. Noel Coward wrote it very quickly and he knew from the start that he had the makings of a hit. It is light, witty and very well constructed, a perfect diversion for its early wartime audiences and still a fine way to spend part of your Christmas today. In fact Blithe Spirit is so well made that it has even survived countless lacklustre or overplayed amateur productions down the years, a good few of which I have sat through, and so it was a real treat to see it well acted and well directed. It was like seeing an old master which has had all the brown discoloured varnish and over-painting removed so that it is able to shine and show you parts of the image that you never even knew were there.

The two characters who have suffered most from well meaning amateurs are Edith and in particular Madame Arcati and it was good to see them both played truthfully, without exaggeration. You really mustn’t overact in Coward- the pleasure is all in the speed and brightness of the dialogue and nothing should get in the way of that. Madam Arcati may be a figure of fun to the Condomines but she is deadly serious about herself and after all she does manage to conjure up two spirits even if she isn’t quite sure how it happened. Janine Birkett shows us this beautifully. Helen Macfarlane does the same job for Edith in a heartfelt and concentrated performance. Edith is very funny, but not to herself, and this is what is at the heart of all great farce.

Photograph: Production still by Karl Andre photography.

Charles and Ruth Condomine are beautifully played, absolutely in period, by Kieran Buckeridge and Clare Corbett. They are a very believable couple and keep up the early pace well as the scene is set for the plot. Ruth is a slightly thankless part in that she has to carry a lot of the weight of the play without being given many of the killer lines. She is reacting to  situations all the time and Clare Corbett does this very well. Charles is a likable but rather weak frustrating man ( if he is your husband) who is all too believable when he finds that he quite likes having his beautiful young wife back again and ready to have some fun with him. I enjoyed the fact that he was still young and fun loving.

Photo: Production still by Karl Andre photography.

And then we get to Elvira, Charles first wife who was never well behaved in life and finds enormous joy in coming back to run rings round everybody. Her character has suffered from the well meaning amateurs too, but not in the same way as Edith and Madam Arcati. You usually get too little of what is there on the page rather than too much. Wafting around looking charming in a posh frock is not enough. Elvira is one of the most delightful characters that Coward ever wrote, sexy, mysterious, funny, and capricious and wilful. Unfortunately for other talented, hard working actors who are also on stage at the same time as an actress playing her properly she is always going to steal the show. Heather Saunders does exactly that, looking wonderful, timing her lines beautifully and bringing the woman who is described in the early part of the play perfectly to life. It is lovely to watch and it needs to be- the play depends on her.

The period setting is nicely done, particularly in the accents and manners of the time which are lightly but accurately reproduced without seeming mannered or forced (many an amateur Charles has fallen at that fence) and I was very grateful for the light touch in the direction too allowing the play to zip along without anything extraneous being added. This play runs like clockwork if it is allowed to and it doesn’t need tinkering with.

I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to see Blithe Spirit yet again if I’m honest, but I’m very glad that I did. This production is a timely reminder after seventy years that it is still a great piece of writing and it still deserves to be seen.

The interior galleries are beautiful spaces with slot windows giving views of the river and the cathedral, allowing an unsentimental and clear sense of space. We are in the real world and never forget it as we look through the sculptures into the outside. The windows provide dramatic light across the spaces, augmented by added filler light from top light strips. This is most effective in Gallery 5, the plasters gallery, which is a truly stunning space lit like a piece of theatre from one end with light falling across the pieces from above. When I walked in there for the first time the room attendant smiled at me when she saw my jaw drop. Like the exterior of the building everything is quietly and carefully finished, from typeface to stairwells to locker spaces, designed to create a universal language for the building. It really works. Everything is just as it should be with no false notes or distractions.

Barbara Hepworth has been given an enormous posthumous gift, a permanent home for a large selection of her own work, much of which has been generously donated by her family. It sits alongside that of some of her contemporaries and more than holds its own in a great era for sculpture. Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, John Skeaping, Paul Nash and Constantin Brancusi are all represented in the collection and it is a great chance to see them all up against each other. There are clear resonances between their work as well as contrasts and you come away proud of the way a woman was able to succeed in what was very much a man’s world, making strong pieces that were full of presence and vigour. Sculpture is a very physical craft and it is rather wonderful that in Hepworth’s work this strength is combined with a quiet feminine elegance. Clean, clear lines and curves are combined with muted colours and textures to form works that are simple and perfectly balanced. As well as seeing the works themselves the gallery gives us an insight into how Hepworth worked. Her bench and some of her tools are there on view, a physical reminder of a very physical craft and the most stunning gallery is the one full of plaster working models, which are work in progress, fortunate survivors and pale ghosts of what they were about to be. They are impressive works in their own right, well worth looking at and quite different in feel to what they would become when cast. I think that Hepworth possibly realised this and this is why they were kept.

As well as the permanent collection there are four galleries which are kept for temporary exhibitions. In December 2011 when I visited these housed The Unquiet Head, an exhibition of the work of Claire Wood, brightly coloured, twisting and tormented landscapes on a huge scale, made especially for the Hepworth, and it was satisfying to see that the gallery spaces worked just as well for the work of an artist who couldn’t be more different from Hepworth herself. There were clear echoes of the work of Paul Nash, John Piper and Graham Sutherland in her bravura sense of colour and drama, so it was clear that a tradition of landscape painting was being developed and taken forward and her work richly deserved its place.  She has also been working on a massive outside wall for the 2012 Olympic park and I should imagine that it will be stunning.

Just to add the icing on the cake I can report that the food at the Hepworth is very good indeed, not at all overpriced, and the staff are friendly, polite and informative……. even when you inadvertently attempt to take a picture where it is not allowed.

All photos are copyright Patricia Rogers. Please respect this.

Photograph: copyright Donald Cooper Photostage.

Bobby is about to turn 35 and beginning to wonder whether it may be time to find a new way forward and settle down. His friends are telling him so and he is becoming tired of  being a welcome guest at their homes, watching as they snipe, love, fall apart, and demonstrate by their example what is so wonderful and so appalling about being close to someone else. He has enjoyed being a handsome young bachelor in a big city able to play the field. It seems both a lot to lose and a lot to gain. He needs some answers. When he arrives home and finds out from his answer machine that his friends are planning a surprise party for him he starts on a process of discovery that ends with one of the most joyous songs ever written for musical theatre. Some have complained that Company has no plot, but of course that process of discovery which happens inside Bobby’s head is the plot. It is a collage of moments and memories which he looks back on as he waits, memories which he uses to make sense of where he has been in the past, where he is now, and where he might be going. His journey is one which we all have to make, one way or another, as we reach middle age and that is why a show that is forty years old can still touch our hearts and resonate so strongly. That is more or less the point in life that Sondheim himself had reached at the time he wrote it so he knew what he was talking about and this shows very clearly in the insight, experience and irony which he brought to the lyrics. The score is a virtuoso display of different styles and moods and contains a series of outstanding numbers from the gentle, introspective Sorry Grateful, one of the best songs ever written about marriage, to Another Hundred People which is both a hymn to New York and to the life which Bobby is afraid to leave behind. All of the numbers are an integral part of the storytelling and take the action of the show forward, showing us the characters rather than just commenting on them. Sondheim makes enormous demands on his performers, and not just musically. You can’t just sing his songs, you need to live them.

Photograph: copyright Donald Cooper Photostage.

For the 2011 revival at the Crucible theatre in Sheffield the artistic director Daniel Evans has gathered an extraordinary cast to play the friends and lovers who surround Bobby. They are a true ensemble working together beautifully and the whole thing zips along with great style and pace, immaculate timing and clearly defined sharp changes of mood. He has cast himself as Bobby and given that he won an Olivier award and was nominated for a Tony for his performance as George Seurat in Sunday In The Park With George nobody is going to complain about that. A British actor who is nominated for a Tony in an American musical needs to be very good indeed and he is outstanding as Bobby. It is a demanding part which needs an actor with a great musical theatre voice, charm and an ability to draw us into his world. If we don’t understand Bobby and feel for him there really is no show there to watch. Daniel Evans brings great warmth and commitment to the role, allowing the audience to follow him as he painfully and tentatively learns what he needs to know. Being Alive is a great song which has to be earned. It is the culmination of everything that has gone before and when we watch him sing it we are as thrilled as he is to know that he has found his answer. It is a great climax to the show, as it should be.

Photograph: copyright Donald Cooper Photostage.

As for the rest of the cast their strength really is in the way they work together as an ensemble, especially in the number Side By Side, but there are also some great individual moments. For someone of Samantha Spiro’s talent Amy is a gift of a part and she is both funny and touching as well as nailing the technical difficulties of Getting Married Today. Lucy Montgomery has a nice feel for comedy too in the number Barcelona and Ian Gelder, Damien Humbley and David Birrell are beautifully touching in Sorry Grateful. Rosalie Craig is full of life and energy as Marta and she was able to paint a haunting picture of New York in Another Hundred People as well as give us a believable portrait of a young girl in love with the city that she is a tiny part of.

The production is set in the 1970′s, as it has to be, and the set, designed by Christopher Oram, is lovely to look at. Bobby’s stylish but rather soulless loft apartment has a panoramic view of the city and the Chrysler building, and it is surrounded by a period evocation of  a seventies disco floor.

This is as good a production of a classic American musical as you are likely to see. Hats off to the Crucible! It deserves to move on to the West End but if it doesn’t I shall enjoy being smug about the fact that we were the ones who got to see it up in Sheffield.

This morning I didn’t need much, just some bacon and some vegetables for the pheasant casserole that I am cooking tonight. When I went into Adrian’s butchers I was greeted cheerfully. I asked if I could have four rashers of thick cut bacon, rashers not as thick as their bacon chops but thicker than their normal sliced bacon and a whole side of bacon was fetched out from the fridge at the back of the shop. Four rashers were carefully cut by hand from it and shown to me to make sure that they were all right. They were. Very much all right. We had a little chat about the casserole that they would be going into and the pheasant which I bought there the previous day and I went on my way.

Next stop the veg shop. Just potatoes and spring cabbage needed. I went to the back of the shop and chose my cabbage then had a look at the potatoes. The red skinned potatoes that I like if I am making mash were all bagged up in plastic bags and since I have to carry all my shopping back down a  very long road I broke into a bag and got two large potatoes out. I have been told in the past that this is ok. The young woman who was serving gave me a look as she walked past to the till.
“We’ve started putting them in smaller bags so you don’t have to do that. The bags cost money.”
I was startled enough to respond.
“I don’t even want that many.”
She wasn’t happy.
“Or there are the loose ones.”
Now I wasn’t happy.
“But they’re not the same kind.”
She had made me nervous and my fingers fumbled as I tried to open the bag that I had got from the dispenser to put the two potatoes in. I was watched in silence. I thought she might be going to tell me that they were all potatoes, so what difference did it make, but she didn’t. The woman behind me in the queue at the till was frowning slightly now, she was either wishing that I would hurry up or thinking exactly the same as I was. I paid up. The spring cabbage and the two potatoes sat there on the counter. The young woman looked at me.
“Do you want a bag for those?”
“No thank you.”
I shook my head in disbelief and carried the potatoes and cabbage out under my arm.

If I had to place a bet on which of those two shops would still be there in a years time I think I know which one I would choose.