Theatre review: The Picture of Dorian Gray August 22, 2013 THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY | ★★☆☆☆ | thealchemicorder.com The location of The Alchemic Order’s production of The Picture of Dorian Gray is so secret I almost couldn’t find it. Eventually, on ringing the bell of an unassuming Greenwich townhouse, I was greeted by a moustachioed man in Victorian butler’s attire, who ushered me into [...]
Sun, sea and history in Sardinia August 22, 2013 The small town of Santa Teresa di Gallura on the northern tip of Sardinia held significant strategic importance for various Italian and Sardinian rulers over the ages. Traces of its history can still be spotted in the surrounding towns and villages, although today the economy is supported almost entirely by tourism. Santa Teresa’s population explodes [...]
Travel review: The Four Season’s Hotel George V in Paris August 22, 2013 I have a confession to make. I don’t like Paris and I don’t find Paris romantic. On the contrary I find it dirty, crowded and unsympathetic in every way. But I have family in Paris, so I often find myself there. On this particular occasion, it was my father’s 70th birthday. He’d summoned three generations [...]
Where to drink August 22, 2013 If the Notting Hill Carnival isn’t your cup of tea, there are plenty of interesting venues across London at which to drink away the bank holiday. In Fitzrovia, for instance, the perennially popular Sanderson is keeping its courtyard terrace fresh with an especially a la mode pop-up. Named Sanderson Green, it’s serving laid-back, haute fast [...]
Review: Rock Lobsta at Mahiki August 20, 2013 RESTAURANT 1 Dover St, Mayfair, W1S 4LD Tel: 020 7493 9529 FOOD Four Stars VALUE Three Stars ATMOSPHERE Three Stars Cost for two with drinks: £100 Once upon a time I worked for a newspaper in Bermuda called the Mid Ocean News. I say “worked” – we didn’t actually do very much. Every Friday we’d [...]
Mix it up: That’s not a Papa Doble…. I’ll show you a Papa Doble August 20, 2013 DESPITE the growing popularity of cocktails, many Y-chromosome-carrying homo sapiens still consider mixed drinks too effeminate for public consumption. It wasn’t always thus. Just read the stories of Ernest Hemingway: “Papa”, in his life and in his deeply autobiographical writing, makes modern models of masculinity look like 17th century foppishness. But the good work of [...]
A Range Rover that is truly sporty August 19, 2013 It’s the fastest, most agile SUV the manufacturer has ever built. We put it through its paces… in a jumbo jet They’re known for coming up with imaginative off-road courses, but the Land Rover Experience guys have outdone themselves this time. It’s fantastically silly. I’m driving the new Range Rover Sport SDV6 model up an [...]
Not convinced? August 19, 2013 HERE ARE THE ALTERNATIVES BMW X5 £60,830 The X5 xDrive M50d SUV model is BMW’s rival to the Range Rover Sport. Powered by a V6 diesel engine, it has an impressive power output of 381bhp but it’s a good deal faster with a spritely 0 to 62mph acceleration time of just 5.4 seconds. Its fuel [...]
Alternative Orlando is blooming August 18, 2013 There is more to the Sunshine State’s theme-park capital than Disney Land I WAS in Orlando for the Florida Film Festival. A film I had produced called The North London Book of the Dead was in the British Shorts Now! programme. Great, right? Except… Orlando? Seriously? It’s hardly renowned for its thriving arts scene. But [...]
An era-spanning masterpiece August 15, 2013 THEATRE THE PRIDE Trafalgar Studios | By Xenobe Purvis Four Stars ALEXI Kaye Campbell’s award-winning The Pride gets a powerful revival as part of Jamie Lloyd’s Trafalgar Transformed season at Trafalgar Studios. The play’s protagonists Oliver, Philip and Sylvia exist in two time periods, the 1950s and now, and respond to the social pressures encountered [...]