The most interesting thing coming out of the local elections today is the Conservatives, and their surrogates in the media, spinning the results. It's called 'Kool-Aid Drinking' in the States. And plenty has been consumed today.

From Eric Pickles, former chairman of the party, soothing hard working councillors who lost...

Last week, I was a part of a jury which unanimously awarded the bi-annual Place Prize For Contemporary Dance. We gave the prize, worth £25,000, to the dancer/choreographer Riccardo Buscarini.

The field was strong, each work unique in its own way. But Buscarini stood out. On the surface, his 'Athletes'...

As a playwright, author and novelist, I've been involved with the arts practically all of my life; a good third of that time has been spent in the UK. As a dual-national, the other part of that being American, I know what you Conservatives mean: culture has to pay; show...

I was abroad last week (not in the US) where the only thing that I could watch for rolling news was CNN.

Well, it looks like I'm part of what has to be the legions of people asking: "What the hell has happened to CNN?"

What I saw can only...

The news that Dr. Tim Ellis, the Bishop of Grantham, birthplace of Margaret Thatcher, has said that the scale and cost of Mrs. T's funeral was "asking for trouble", brings to mind the fact that her most ardent supporters share her fatal trait: not being able or willing to catch...

While everyone is going on about MP Glenda Jackson's anti-eulogy in the House of Commons yesterday, may I, just for a minute, rhapsodize about the awesome power of Glenda Jackson, actress.

From the mid 1960s, when she became an international sensation in Peter Brook's masterpiece Marat/Sade; her Oscar winning performance...

I can remember when I first heard Tony Blair speak on the floor of the House of Commons as shadow home secretary. Even then, I detected something phony about Tony, something that didn't quite ring true. It must have been just me because he won and won big. In addition,...

Let me start off by saying that I've been on two boards with Tony Hall (can't bring myself to call him Lord Hall): one that he headed (Theatre Royal Stratford East) and the other - Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, joining when he had been CEO there for a very...

Okay, I know that I risk being attacked by bigots, anti-Semites and the other pond life and creepy-crawlies out there, but I don't care. As a Voltairian I believe in freedom of speech. So here's me exercising my freedom.

My late Dad was a young soldier, a private in a...

My heart always sinks a little when I hear of a Brit actor/actress decamping to Hollywood. I can understand that. Hollywood, America in general, is the big dog, the wide open field of dreams where ambition can be deeply challenged and realised.

Most players make very little to no...

First of all, let me set something straight for those few who seem to have had an irony-bypass regarding my first blog on the subject of Boris Johnson 'Just Plain Boris'.

I wrote that London is: "That major business and market hub with a medium sized island-nation attached."

A Parisian friend of mine, a very 'sang froid' type of guy, emailed me in capital letters to say that "Boris" was taking the French capital by storm. I didn't need to ask who "Boris" was. I knew. The whole world knows. He was there to promote his book and...

"White skin is a moment in the history of human evolution".

Nope, not my opinion, but a fact that Dr. Jill Cook, the eminent archaeologist, deputy keeper of the Department of Pre-history and Europe at the British Museum and curator of the Museum's hit show: Ice Age Art: Arrival of...