For opera and ballet lovers, you can still see La Traviata from the Royal Opera House on You Tube here, while the Royal Ballet has tonight started streaming Anastasia . Next month watch out for one of my favourite ballets, La Fille Mal Gardée. For another favourite opera, how about Tosca with Angela Gheorghiu from Vienna. Glyndebourne will also be showing peformance of three Mozart operas starting on Sunday 24 May with The Marriage of Figaro.
For theatregoers, the National Theatre now has Barber Shop Chronicles until 14 May followed then by A Streetcar Named Desire
Remember Nicola Moorby's brilliant talk to us about Turner and Constable back in January? Seems a long time ago now but you can catch her again from next Tuesday when she does one of the Arts Society's fortnightly talks on-line on An Artist of Note: Turner and the new £20
For Lloyd Webber fans, his well - loved Cats is showing for 24 hours from tonight. So be quick!
It’s pantomime season, so I thought I would this month celebrate Joseph Grimaldi 1778-1837, king of clowns. We scarcely now think of Covent Garden and Sadler’s Wells as venues for comedy, yet Grimaldi bestrode the stages of both and of Drury Lane to become the most famous entertainer of the Regency period. Coming to prominence especially for his role as Clown in Harlequin and Mother Goose, ‘Joey’ became synonymous with ‘clown’ and he it was who created the face make-up that survives to this day. There’s a fascinating book of his tempestuous life by Andrew McConnell Stott – ‘The Pantomime Life of Jospeh Grimaldi’. You can also read an account on a Jane Austen website here . An annual memorial service in Hackney still draws hundreds of fully-costumed clowns from all over the world. His portrait hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.