John Birch was organist and master of the choristers at Chichester Cathedral, where he served from 1958-80, then at The Temple Church, London, until 1997, following in the footsteps of George Thalben-Ball, Walford Davies and EJ Hopkins. He was only the fourth organist there since 1841.

Streets ahead of the competition

There's an Inca mask from Peter Shaffer's The Royal Hunt of the Sun; the bench that Laurence Olivier once sat on in Uncle Vanya; and a delicate Patrick Procktor watercolour of a theatre on green lawns shadowed by a golden oak.

With their chunky, textured brush strokes, Roz Hall's artworks wouldn't be out of place hanging alongside some of the great Impressionists at one of the world's esteemed galleries.

Left-leaning David Hare's new play is based on his days as a scholarship boy at public school. Michael Coveney meets him

How does left-leaning playwright David Hare make a return to the stage with a play based on his days as a scholarship boy at public school? Michael Coveney asks him.

Caryl Brahms, an astute critic and a funny writer, said that characters in Chekhov always harked back to their beginnings but learnt no lesson from their past; they were content to sit around the samovar and talk.

Keith Vaughan died forgotten, but a new retrospective salutes his contemporary relevance, says Adrian Hamilton

He committed suicide forgotten, but Keith Vaughan is a master, says Adrian Hamilton

An ambulance service has spent £400,000 on three vehicles designed to transport obese patients weighing up to 50 stones.

He was distant and shy. And then one night 25 years ago, Lucian Freud bounded up to Richard Cork and began a remarkable friendship

The consecration of women as Church of England bishops is all but inevitable after a vote count across the country found overwhelming support for what is often described as "shattering the stained glass ceiling".

Hankering for just one more Mafia drama? For sure, you might think the movies and the small screen have done this genre to death – lock, stock and two-a-penny. Yet The Syndicate is an intriguing curiosity, written in 1960 by the continentally revered Eduardo de Filippo (of Napoli Milionaria! renown). Hitherto unstaged in the UK, it’s premiering at Chichester in a new version by Mike Poulton. Sean Mathias’s chamber production, moreover, stars Ian McKellen on top form as Don Antonio Barracano, a Neapolitan godfather with a twist.

The title makes it sound like a sharp-suited business bonanza, possibly a Mafiosi Mad Men. In fact, this is a 1960 Neapolitan comedy of familial resentment and redemption with a great pairing of Sir Ian McKellen as a godfather with a guilty secret and Michael Pennington as his doctor.