ALL YOURS… THE BEST SEATS IN THE HOUSE
There’s a world of entertainment and fun out there just waiting for you. So roll up, roll up… on your sofa and enjoy!
WITH theatres, cinemas, libraries and adult education colleges all shutting up shop, staying in is officially the new going out. So it’s the perfect opportunity to take advantage of all that time on your hands.Why not watch those films you always wanted to see, read the novels you never got around to and learn a new skill?
With a huge array of virtual performances, tours and lectures online, this could be a wonderful opportunity to embrace the new.
Here are all our top tips:
LEARN NEW THINGS
There are hundreds of short online courses. Newbies should start with one of the halfhour beginner tutorials on basic computing. BT Skills For Tomorrow can show you how to do online shopping and use secure payment methods – see bt.com/skillsfortomorrow
Or try one of the free fortnight-long courses available from top universities.You could bone up on psychology, environmentalism or even screenwriting at futurelearn.com
How about learning to draw with book illustrator, Jim Field, via his truly amazing
#drawwithjim videos. Or lift your lungs and your spirits with Home Malone with Gareth Malone.TheTV choirmaster gets people singing in a virtual choir at 5.30pm every night. Register here to join https://decca.com/ greatbritishhomechorus/
MEMORY BANK
Remember all those family photos stuffed into boxes in the loft?Why not sort them out and upload the best ones. One of the easiest ways is to take a photo of the photograph using the camera on your phone.You can sort them into named files.You can also scan them if you have a scanner on your printer.Alternatively, select the ones you want digitised and post them off to a company who will do the work for you.The average cost is 9p a photo. www. bestphotoscan.co.uk
Or sign up to the family tree building website and research your ancestors. The chat boards are mines of expertise ancestry.co.uk
TV BOX SETS
The Sopranos: For those who missed it first time round, there’ll never be a better chance than now to work your way through six series of the mobster drama.
Game of Thrones: This dynastic fantasy epic is packed with eight series-worth of war, love, betrayal, magic and sex.With dragons thrown in. (Sky Box Sets/Now TV)
Best of Ealing Studios Collection: The classic Ealing comedies: Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), starring Alec Guinness; The Ladykillers (1955), with Peter Sellers; Passport to Pimlico (1949); The Man in The White Suit (1951); and The Lavender Hill Mob (1951).Watch out for an early cameo by Audrey Hepburn in the latter. (DVD)
The Trip: Aside from the indulgent comic jousting from Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, there is glorious scenery – in Britain, Italy, Spain and Greece – to savour and top-notch cuisine to remind you how good non-tinned food is. (Series 1 & 2 on Netflix; 3 & 4 on Sky/Now TV)
Detectorists: In sun-blessed Essex fields, two friends (Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones) offer the very best comfort viewing as they gently hunt for treasure together. bbc.co.uk/ iplayer
PODCASTS Revisionist History:
Malcolm Gladwell finds big stories in tiny matters
such as why McDonald’s fries taste different nowadays and why he can’t walk on a local golf course. revisionisthistory.com
Fake Heiress: A six-episode BBC show following the real-life rise and fall of Anna Sorokin, who conned New York high society into believing she was a millionaire. bbc.co.uk/ podcasts Desert Island Discs: There are hundreds of absolute gems to dig through. Try plucky
Diana Athill, or gloomy, witty Philip Larkin. bbc.co.uk/iplayer
READING
Middlemarch, George Eliot: This multistranded story of genteel provincial folk in the Midlands changed the landscape for women writers and has a claim to being the greatest novel in the English language.
Freedom, Jonathan Franzen: This panorama of 21st-century American society is written like a 19th-century novel, taking in middle class families, environmental doom, rock stars, 9/11, love, art and sex. Regeneration Trilogy, Pat Barker: The scars of the First World War are exposed as we meet pioneering psychiatrist William Rivers, as he struggles to treat patients with shellshock including war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Wolf Hall trilogy, Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall, Bring Up The Bodies and the newly-published
The Mirror And The Light chart the rise and fall of Henry VIII’s ruthless right-hand man Thomas Cromwell. Nearly 2,000 pages of compulsive storytelling provide a unique insight into a fascinating character.
Troubles, JG Farrell: Britain’s difficult relationship with Ireland is caught in miniature in this novel set in a crumbling hotel owned by an eccentric Anglo-Irish family in the 1920s. Funny, nostalgic and sad.
FEEL GOOD FILMS
Abominable: Recalling a simpler, precoronavirus time, this is an exquisite ChineseAmerican animation about a magical yeti. Very family-friendly. (DVD or on demand)
Paddington 2: You don’t get more life-affirming than this: Hugh Grant set to maximum rogue, the best jailbreak since Shawshank and a loveable marmalade addict. (Amazon Prime) The Other Side of the Wind: Orson
Welles’s long-unfinished final feature was salvaged by Netflix in 2018, 33 years after his death.A film à clef about a faded Hollywood auteur staging a comeback. It’s challenging but hugely rewarding viewing.Warm up with the accompanying documentary,They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead. (Netflix)
Begin Again: If you need reminding how badly we have underestimated Keira Knightley, try John Carney’s delightful musical in which she plays an English songwriter rediscovering her groove on New York’s buzzy streets. Escapism with genuinely great songs. (Amazon Prime, DVD)
CONCERT MOVIES
Woodstock: Extended director’s cut of the 1970 documentary about the first great rock festival, with Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Joan Baez and more. Half a million hippies on a farm with only 600 toilets should make you appreciate home comforts. (Apple iTunes, DVD)
The Last Waltz: This Farewell concert of Bob Dylan’s legendary group The Band was filmed in 1978 and featured a host of music royalty, including Dylan himself, Neil Young and Eric Clapton. (DVD)
THEATRE
Funny Girl: This is a must. In 2015, Sheridan Smith followed in Barbra Streisand’s stilldaunting footsteps as the irrepressible Ziegfeld Follies comedienne Fanny Brice and not only played the part for the first time on the
London stage in 50 years but did so with terrific aplomb. (Digitaltheatre. com)
Twelfth Night:
Tim Carroll’s glorious all-male, period-dress staging of Shakespeare’s comedy was reborn in 2012, 10 years after its first outing at the Globe, with Stephen Fry, playing Malvolio. He brings the house down in his disastrous wooing scene. (Globe Player, DVD) The Caretaker: The 1963 film version (by Clive Donner) of the play that made Harold Pinter’s name. Stars Donald Pleasence, Robert Shaw and Alan Bates. (Amazon Prime, DVD) Oklahoma! Trevor Nunn’s revival of the 1943 Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, starring Hugh Jackman and Maureen Lipman, was one of the
National Theatre’s most cherished hits and an awardwinning triumph. (Broadway HD, DVD)
MUSEUMS
Vatican Museum: Experience 360-degree views of beautiful interiors online.The website also offers a virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel. http://www.museivaticani.va/ content/museivaticani/en.html
British Museum: Focus on any one of 7,000-odd individual objects.You can even zoom into display cases and even read the labels. britishmuseum.org National Gallery: The entire collection of more than 2,600 paintings is online. nationalgallery.org.uk; youtube.com Palace of Versailles: Google’s virtual tour allows you to wander the Hall of Mirrors or explore the bedchamber of Marie Antoinette. artsandculture.google.com/project/versailles
DANCE
Frederick Ashton: Les Patineurs, Divertissements and Scènes de Ballet:
Triple bill of beautiful short works by one of the all-time best choreographers is a joy, with Darcey Bussell. (NaxosVideo Library, DVD)
The Nutcracker: Superb Royal Ballet show of Peter Wright’s magical production. Tchaikovsky score may be his greatest. (DVD) Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:
Banquet of escapism. (Medici TV, DVD)
OPERA
La bohème: The matchless Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti sing their hearts out in San Francisco Opera’s classic production of Puccinis weepie. (Medici TV, DVD) The Turn of the Screw: Alessandro Talevi directs Opera North’s imaginative staging of Britten’s brilliant treatment of Henry James’s ghost story. (OperaVision)
Die Zauberflöte: Julie Taymor, best known for her stage adaptation of The Lion King, has directed a thrillingly inventive staging of Mozart’s opera at the New York theatre. metopera.org
Cinderella: A gently endearing and old-fashioned version of the fairy tale, with music by the exceptionally talented young composer Alma Deutscher, who was just 11 years old when it premiered. (Medici TV, DVD)