My 2007 Cultural Highlights

Thinking of my year's cultural highlights has been a salutory experience as the list of options has been distressingly shorter than I would like. However the best ones have been brilliant. In January we saw "My Face", the first play by 20 year old Polly Stenham, at the Royal Court Upstairs. It was a brilliant play about a family driven apart by alcohol and angst with storming performances from Matt Smith and Alison Steadman. All the more powerful for being staged in a theatre with around 80 people sitting in a quadrangle around the stage. I have read loads of books, few of them self-improving, but I loved reading my first Trollope "The Small House at Allington", which kept me reading in bed however tired I was and Robert Harris' "The Ghost" made one feel one was very close to the post-PM lives of Tony and Cherie. I waded through Alistair Campbell's Diaries in the summer alternating between frustration at the absence of Gordon from any of his stories and admiration at their determination to tilt at every windmill at the same time following the 1997 election. Film-wise one film stood out for me - "The Lives of Others". No other film was quite so gripping and moving as this film. I loved the performance by the main character - Ulrich Muhe - who sadly died this year. I thought the best TV was, by far, the Xmas special "The Thick of It" which covered the impending resignation of the Prime Minister. Not many comedies could be at the funniest while doubling the length of the programme and losing its leading actor. Roger Allam as the Tory Minister adrift in a new touchy-feely Cameronian world was brilliant - "How's my Blog?" and I think the Cabinet needs to find a place for Ben Swain. I have also enjoyed Lead Balloon more and more but it hasn't yet dared for the outrages that make Larry David so special. Seen some great concerts, notably the Jim Capaldi tribute at the Roundhouse with Steve Winwood, Paul Weller, Pete Townsend and, most winningly, Cat Stevens. Lily Allen at Somerset House with my daughters in mid-summer was also an uplifting experience - let's hope she can keep it up!