The standard reponse to the word 'Fitzrovia' (as in 'I work/live/have my hair cut in') has been 'Where's that?' A fairly tortured explanation follows, involving something about an area tucked between Tottenham Court Road, Great Portland Street, Euston Road and Oxford Street.

KATHLEEN HALE'S 18 marvellous books about Orlando the Marmalade Cat could only have been created by somebody with an exceptional sense of humour and an extraordinary artistic talent. To spread wide any of their generously filled folio pages is to become mesmerised by the detail, wit, and grace of the drawings. Clearly, a large number of people were equally mesmerised by Hale herself, from the moment she arrived in London in 1917 after an art course at Reading University, 'with only a few shillings in my pocket, my pince-nez delicately chained to one ear, and no qualifications whatsoever for earning a living.'

It's not quite Montparnasse - there are more caffs than cafes - but this is London's artists' quarter. Forget Cork Street. There's more of the real cutting edge of contemporary British art here, in a twenty square mile patch of the East End that's home to the studios of over 800 of our brightest young hopefuls. Not since Sickert, Fry and Epstein rubbed shoulders in Fitzrovia has the city seen such a concentration of creative talent. And once a year, from May to the end of June, artists from Greenwich to Stratford open their studio doors to all-comers. It's an unique chance to gain first-hand experience of what goes on in an artist's studio, to discover what's new and to spot work that just might be the 'next big thing'. Among the better-known names with studios in the East End are artists as diverse as Mark Wallinger, Anthony Whishaw, Laura Godfrey-Isaacs, Herve Constant and Cecilia Vargas.

AT THE AGE OF 20 Michael Ayrton drove John Gielgud to distraction over his stage-sets for the 1942 Macbeth, by his 'savage resentment', his 'ungraciousness of manner and lack of charm and generosity towards the work people in every department'. Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, playing Lady Macbeth, was more charitable: 'Don't go on 'being insufferable' longer than you can help. It's a sort of defence against something isn't it? But it only gets in your way.'

I AM generally doubtful about anthologies. Who are they for? What are they supposed to do? Bits of this and that clustered around some contrived category (Saints, Villains, Chocolate - why not an anthology of anthologies?) are almost bound to dissatisfy anyone with a real interest in the subject and bore everyone else. Good for the loo, I suppose, but people I know who read in the loo generally require something more substantial - War and Peace at the very least.

MY SECOND novel, Real Life, came out in hardback in the spring of last year. It got some respectable reviews, and a stinker in the Observer from a chap I vaguely remember from university (what is it about those chaps we vaguely remember from university? Why do they hate us so?) A dozen bad reviews would have been as nothing, though, compared to what happened on a bright morning in April - April Fool's Day, appropriately enough - about three weeks after publication, when the telephone rang.

'WE CAN'T just give in to terrorism,' Eugene O'Brien, landlord of the George and Dragon, said. He is one of more than 40 publicans in the West End of London campaigning for the British Telecom tower to reopen to the public in order to boost local businesses.

THE FOUR men and two women who comprise Adventures in Motion Pictures are working too hard. The company's touring schedule is punitive and, because it has little trouble attracting funds, it has been duty- bound to create two new works a year. Under the strong artistic direction of Matthew Bourne, AMP is still touring with its zany version of The Nutcracker, and last week presented its latest work, The Percys of Fitzrovia. Remarkably, the dancers show no sign of flagging, but their vitality merely serves to prove the body is more durable than the choreographic flame, which is flickering.

IT SEEMS strangely appropriate for Adventures in Motion Pictures to occupy the Lyric Hammersmith for their current London season, what with that theatre's considerable history of plays and revues. This history, indeed, supplies much of the source material for AMP: different genres of cabaret and theatre - Noel Coward, for instance - as well as the archetypal human material of social satire. Matthew Bourne's choreography comments slyly on this bygone world, using it to create his own, distinct language. Every move becomes part of a taut choreographic plan and he cleverly blurs the borderline between period- class affectation - fey gesturing and slouching - and naughty references to films, ballets or current events, all outside the premise of the piece.

THE TWO Ronnies we've all heard of, but mention of the Two Roberts (as they were called) is unlikely to ring many bells these days. Aiming to put that right, John Byrne's new play Colquhoun and MacBride takes us on a brisk tour of the rowdy, well-lubricated lives of these two Scottish painters, who met at the Glasgow School of Art and then went on to become partners (or even 'a single organism' as one critic purply put it) in love, art and assiduous alcohol abuse.