the times | Saturday January 1 2022 saturday review 5
Visual art
Francis Bacon: Man and Beast
Dedicating himself to futility with an all
but religious fervour, Francis Bacon found
glory in squalor. Philosophical grandeur
and raw instinct fight it out in his work.
This exhibition, spanning five decades of
Bacon’s career, will focus on the artist’s
obsession with the animal: a fascination
that shaped and distorted his vision of
humanity, blurring the boundaries
between man and beast. Royal Academy,
London W1 (royalacademy.org.uk), Jan 29-
Apr 17
The Tudors: Passion, Power and Politics
Polish up your graces. Practise dropping
that curtsy. This loan exhibition will bring
together about 25 portraits of the figures
who presided over one of the most
flamboyant, if fraught, periods of British
history. Come face to face with five Tudor
monarchs: here are the original pictures —
among them the magnificent “Darnley”
and Armada portraits of Elizabeth I —
that many of us know from history books.
Holburne Museum, Bath (holburne.org),
Jan 28-May 8
to play with the artistic possibilities of new
technologies. This exhibition will study his
experiments with everything from the
camera lucida to the iPad in the context
of the masters whose techniques have in-
spired him. Cambridge, with its renowned
art collections and its history of scientific
innovation, creates an atmospheric stage
for such radical juxtapositions. Fitzwilliam
Museum and Heong Gallery at Downing
College, Cambridge (fitzmuseum.cam.
ac.uk), Mar 15-Aug 28Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation
of French Decorative Arts
What has Disney’s Cinderella got to do
with Marie Antoinette? Quite a lot, it turns
out. Disney, briefly stationed near Versail-
les during the First World War, fell under
the thrall of the flamboyant architecture.
The Wallace, drawing on its collection of
fanciful treasures, will look at the impact
of French historical design on his vision in
a show that sets tapestries, pieces of furni-
ture, Boulle clocks and Sèvres porcelain,
alongside a wide range of his artworks.
Wallace Collection, London W1 (wallace-
collection.org), Apr 6-Oct 16Raphael
His career was brief, but it was starrily glo-
rious. This show, building on the National
Gallery’s fine Raphael collection, is among
the first to follow the entire course of this
famously handsome young man from Ur-
bino. His career, lasting barely 20 years,
possibly showed the most dramatic devel-
opment of any single artist in history. This
promises to be an unmissable chance to
revel in the masterpieces of one of the
triumvirate most closely associated with
the high Italian Renaissance.
National Gallery, London WC2
(nationalgallery.org.uk), Apr 9-Jul 31Reframed: The Woman at the Window
Surely every Dulwich Picture Gallery visi-
tor pauses, bewitched, to return the gaze of
the rosy-cheeked Rembrandt girl who,
leaning her elbows on a trompe l’oeil
ledge, looks from her window with a faint
smile on her lips. The gallery now makes
this, one of the most popular pictures in its
permanent collection, the starting point of
a show of about 40 works, old masters
through to modernists, all of which feature
the same entrancingly enigmatic motif.
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London SE21
(dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk), May 4-Sep 4Van Gogh Self-Portraits
It is difficult to know oneself, Vincent van
Gogh declared. “But it’s not easy to paint
oneself either,” he wrote in a letter to his
brother. And yet over the course of his
abruptly curtailed career he painted more
than 35 self-portraits, one of his most rivet-
ing legacies. The Courtauld, with Self-
Portrait with Bandaged Ear as a centre-
piece, will bring together more than half of
these. Courtauld Gallery, London WC2
(courtauld.ac.uk), Feb 3-May 8The World of Stonehenge
For almost five millennia the primeval
monoliths of Stonehenge have stalked
across the landscapes of our imagination.
This will bring the story of this awesome
stone circle into sharper focus. Britain and
Ireland in that era were not lost in the
mists of folklore and mythology. They
were lands of ideas, commerce and travel.
British Museum, London WC1 (britishmus-
eum.org), Feb 17-Jul 17Hockney’s Eye: The Art and
Technology of Depiction
Our most famous living artist meets a fab-
ulous art collection. David Hockney lovesReport, and now Kumar is back on stage
doing what he does best: mixing the per-
sonal with the political as he goes from
getting booed off stage for doing Brexit
jokes at a charity event to Covid and
beyond. On his night he’s as sharp and
entertaining a political comedian as we
have. Bonus Arena, Hull, Feb 2, then touring
to May 17 (nishkumar.co.uk)Hannah Gadsby: Body of Work
She made one of the most unflinchingly
personal and influential stand-up shows of
the past decade with Nanette, and returned
with the challenging Douglas. Now,
though, the Tasmanian comedian reckons
we could just do with a bit of a hug. “I’m not
trying to solve any problems... I’m just
delighting in storytelling,” Gadsby says of
a tour that ends in three nights at the
London Palladium. Manchester Opera
House, Mar 6, then touring to Mar 18 (han-
nahgadsby.com.au)Joe Lycett: More, More, More! How
Do You Lycett? How Do You Lycett?
He has left hosting The Great British Sew-
ing Bee to Sara Pascoe (whose tour starts
in November), so now the comedian, pre-
senter and campaigner gives himself the
time to mount his biggest tour yet, culmi-
nating in two nights at Wembley Arena.
He will touch on his love of art and garden-
ing, and his satirical sallies against corpo-
rations. This, remember, is the man who
briefly changed his name to Hugo Boss.
Plymouth Pavilions, Mar 11-12, then touring
to Sept 23 (joelycett.com)Barry Humphries: The Man Behind
the Mask
Humphries, 88, takes to the stage as
himself for the first time to talk about his
early years in Australia, his personal life,
and his decades of success in comedy in
Britain, America and Australia. “This is
perhaps the bravest thing I’ve ever done,”
he says, “and I hope the most entertain-
ing.” That, as anyone who has seen Dame
Edna Everage on stage in full effect, is
quite a hope. Nottingham Playhouse, Apr 7-
9, then touring to Jun 5 (manbehindthe-
mask.co.uk)Sandi Toksvig: Next Slide Please
As supremely assured holding court on
stage as she is marshalling comedians on
the BBC quiz show QI, the Anglo-Danish
multitasker returns with a new tour that
will, she promises, offer “reasons to be
cheerful after many long months of coro-
nacoaster gloom”. Lots of learning, leav-
ened with lots of jokes: count us in. Alban
Arena, St Albans, Apr 20, then touring to Jun
30 (sanditoksvig.com)Stratagem with Alan Partridge
His previous tour was Steve Coogan as
Alan Partridge and Other Less Successful
Characters. Now it’s 2022, life is too short
and too fragile for also-rans, so Coogan
is taking to the arenas in his first Par-
tridge-only show, playing a character
buoyed by his return to primetime
BBC1, donning a head mike to present
Stratagem, a
live stage
show that
promises, his
in-character blurb
says, “to inform, edu-
cate and entertain in
equal measure”. SSE
Arena Belfast, Apr 22,
then touring to Jun 3
(alanpartridge-
live.com)Comedy
Nina Conti: The Dating Show
This smiling ventriloquist has long mixed
an amazing ability to make chatting with
her puppet, Monkey, look like the most
natural thing in the world with a less cosy
desire to rip up her craft’s rule book. In her
latest show, which plays a West End fort-
night towards the end of her
national tour, Conti is turn-
ing the audience into her
puppets. Reports from the
tour suggest ventrilo-
quism at its most free-
wheeling and fun.
Touring to Feb 28,
including Arts
Theatre,
London WC2,
Feb 10-19
(ninaon-
tour.com)Nish Kumar:
Your Power,
Your Control
He has finally
left his role host-
ing The Mashdéjà view Above left:
Mark Rylance and
Mackenzie Crook in
Jerusalem at the Apollo,
London. Above right,
from top: Henry VIII
by Hans Holbein the
Younger c 1537 at the
Holburne Museum, Bath;
The Madonna and Child
with the Infant Baptist
(The Garvagh Madonna)
by Raphael c 1509-10 at
the National Gallery,
London. Right: the
ventriloquist Nina ContiCharacters. Now it s 2022, life
and too fragile for also-rans
is taking to the arenas in h
tridge-only show, playing
buoyed by his return to
BBC1, donning a head mik
Strpro
in-char
says, “to
cate and
equal m
Arena B
then tou
(((alanpart
live.comm)s the end of her
Conti is turn-
ence into her
orts from the
ventrilo-
most free-
fun.
b 28,ally
st-
ashContinued page 6
Compiled by
Rachel Campbell-Johnston,
Debra Craine, Clive Davis,
Neil Fisher, Will Hodgkinson,
Dominic Maxwell, Richard MorrisonEvents are subject to
change. Check with
venues before bookingt
t