‘Oh Boy!’
Coming soon!Produced by the dynamic 27 year old Jack Good, it made stars of Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde, Billy Fury, The Verrnons Girls, The Dallas Boys and many more, and the Lord Rockingham’s XI band had a Number 1 hit with ‘Hoots Mon!’ This 1958 Rock N Roll show was the first on British television, […]
London Art Fair at Business Design Centre, Islington, London
This excellent art fair, now in its 32nd year. Is a good showcase to see modern and contemporary art of our time, and buy if you like what you see. The fair’s director is the charming and elegant Sarah Monk who enjoys her role with obvious joy and pride; as well she might for what […]
Mary Poppins at the Prince Edward Theatre
Poster for the 1964 Mary Poppins film Walt Disney hard a hard job of persuading author P. L. Travers at her Chelsea home to allow him to make Mary Poppins into a film but we can be grateful he did as it has pleased many people worldwide since 1964. Julie Andrews and Charles Stapley talking […]
A Tale of Two Curries – CoCo Ichibanya, London and Kyoto
CoCo Ichibanya in Kawaramachi, Kyoto I have been to the Kawaramachi-Sanjo CoCo Ichibanya curry house branch in Kyoto Japan many times, and on each trip, I pay a visit to that particular branch for a lovely Chicken Katsu Curry. The food is always great in this branch, there are others in Kyoto but this is […]
Geisha Dreams in Swanage
It’s the annual Swanage Carnival so I’m delighted that my latest book Geisha Dreams is in the independent Swanage Bookshop as it is the only bookshop in the country where I want it to be sold. I believe in having an exclusive deal with someone like Jill Blanchard who runs it, as she has done […]
‘Small Island’ at the National Theatre
‘Small Island’ and the National Theatre on the South Bank As a member of the Society of Television & Design (STLD) through my career as Lighting Director for Central Television, myself and other members were invited to the National Theatre (NT) to see a camera rehearsal of ‘Small Island’ for NT Live, the play based […]
Photo London 2019
Photo London 2019 at Somerset House Each year for the last five, Photo London has just got better. Also bigger as it seems to have taken over the whole of London’s majestic Somerset House in The Strand. Michael Benson and Fariba Farshad opening Photo London 2019 rganisers Michael Benson and Fariba Farshad have been surprised […]
A Book of Influence
We are all influenced by the images we see right through our lives and as a photographer I have been highly influenced with my travel photography by one particular book, ‘London – city of any dream’ by German photographer Erwin Fieger. When I was in my early 20s I came across this book in my […]
Hooray for Cricklewood! (not Hollywood)
In 1912 the Handley Page Company moved from Barking in Essex and established an aircraft factory at Cricklewood in north London where aircraft were built and flown from the company’s adjacent air field. After World War 1 the factory was mothballed until Stoll Picture Productions, run by the theatre impresario Sir Oswald Stoll, took over […]
“Keep changing, Connect with everything, Continue forever”
The Mitsubishi Japanese Galleries at the British Museum reopened on 27 September. They are situated in what was described as a ‘loft conversion’, albeit a rather upmarket one, and they have been closed for nine months being refurbished. Both the floor and ceiling have been replaced with pine and cherry wood respectively and much attention […]