Blog Entries by Neil Simpson from 12/2011

PUBLIC Presents: Fooling Around In PUBLIC With Jack Whitehall Review

| Posted 12.04.2011 | UK Comedy

Jack Whitehall, of course, went down a treat. His mum (who was sitting in the corner) seemed to enjoy her son's scripted sequences and flailing around on stage immensely. Whitehall is a fantastically energetic comedian, able to use every ounce of energy in his spindly figure to squeeze laughs from the audience.

The First Actresses: Nell Gwyn to Sarah Siddons Review

| Posted 12.12.2011 | Huffington Post

Indeed there is no shying away from the parallels in this exhibition with so much modern entertainment. Celebrity worship is another human constant; and with celebrity, as any Hugh Grant or Steve Coogan knows, comes sex, obsession and the baying British press.

High Ideals and the Dismal Science: Atlantic Britain at the Tate Britain

| Posted 12.15.2011 | Huffington Post

This exhibition highlights how solid economic bonds can be extinguished, almost overnight in a hail of political wrangling and arguing. It is prescient, although perhaps without meaning to be. Indeed, just as it is impossible to tell the story of Britain after 1945 without reference to Europe, so to is it impossible to tell the story of 18th-century Britain without reference to the Atlantic.

Travelling Light at the Whitechapel Gallery

| Posted 12.20.2011 | Huffington Post

How would you explain Britishness? If we were introducing a foreign ambassador to Britannia with no prior knowledge of her, save for the embarrassing 'ums' and 'ahs' of Mr Bean and Hugh Grant, we would surely draw on a few comfortable self-induced stereotypes.