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Inside Arts & Entertainment

Opening Doors And Windows, By James Roose-Evans

The theatre world is littered with self-styled gurus and shamans, but it is rare to find a director who is also an Anglican priest. In this charming and insightful memoir, 82-year-old James Roose-Evans takes us on a spiritual and creative journey from his literally tortured adolescence (he was prone to self-flagellation) to the twin heights of ordination in Hereford cathedral and Broadway success.

Paltrow joins Kidman for gender-bending 'Danish Girl'

Oscar-winners Gwyneth Paltrow and Nicole Kidman are to play husband and wife in an upcoming film about the world's first transsexual, it was reported Monday.

Opera sheds new light on Tchaikovsky's gay lifestyle

Tchaikovsky is thought of as a gloomy fatalist, but a rarely staged humorous opera and a book about his gay lifestyle will make us think again

Just Jack, Shepherd's Bush Empire, London (Rated 3/ 5 )
Staff Benda Bilili, Barbican, London (Rated 4/ 5 )
The Cinematic Orchestra, The Roundhouse, London (Rated 4/ 5 )

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The Week In Radio: When poetry becomes an adventure

If I had a fiver for everyone I've heard say, "I never watch any television apart from the news and David Attenborough", well, it would probably cover my licence fee. But while there being Nothing on TV has been a staple moan of British cultural life for some time now, radio is in far happier shape. The Rajar figures for the third quarter of the year were good for the BBC, especially Radios 3, 4 and 5 Live. There were all sorts of explanations, including the Ashes and the Proms and global economic meltdown to explain why people were reaching for the radio. Yet perhaps it comes down to the fact that radio simply does some things better.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Gate Theatre, London (Rated 4/ 5 )

The motion of a train loosens the tongue, confides Pozdnyshev, our companion in a railway carriage for the 85 minutes of this extraordinarily compelling stage adaptation of Tolstoy's great, warped novella The Kreutzer Sonata.

Architecting, The Pit, Barbican, London (Rated 4/ 5 )
First Night: Staff Benda Bilili, Barbican, London (Rated 4/ 5 )
Uncle Vanya, Old Vic, Bristol (Rated 2/ 5 )

Angela Gheorghiu/Marius Manea/Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Festival Hall (Rated 2/ 5 )

For anyone wondering what on earth the Overture to Leonard Bernstein's Candide was doing at the start of this bizarre, rag-bag of an evening (there seemed to be no rhyme or reason for its presence) might I suggest that the inference may have been that "in the best of all possible worlds" (to quote Voltaire) Angela Gheorghiu would have been singing more than two (yes, two) arias in the official programme with two more tired old chestnuts added as encores.