Nice Play. Write Another One For Tomorrow.

“Where most writers would be content to get one play up and running in August, Mark Ravenhill’s Herculean undertaking involves presenting a new 20-minute piece on 17 mornings of the [Edinburgh Festival]; around five and a half hours of theatre in total.” Not bad for a guy only a few months removed from an epileptic seizure and a botched anaesthetic that cost him two months of memories…

Picasso, Monet, Renoir… Dylan?

An exhibition of paintings by folksinger Bob Dylan will go on display this fall at a German museum. “Dylan has produced more than 200 sketches and watercolours over the years… The collection, entitled The Drawn Blank Series, will hang in an exhibition alongside works by various European masters, including Picasso.”

Move Over, Romeo; Heathcliff Has Your Number

A new poll asking Britons to name the greatest love story ever set down on paper has seen The Bard of Avon knocked off by Emily Brontë. “Wuthering Heights, recounting the doomed affair between sweet Cathy Earnshaw and the brutal outsider Heathcliff, has seen off Shakespeare, Gone With the Wind and everything by Barbara Cartland in a survey which shows the lasting power of classic works.”

How Do You Replace Rilling?

The Oregon Bach Festival is bound up almost entirely in the identity of its artistic director, the legendary Helmuth Rilling. But Rilling, while he shows few signs of slowing down, is getting on in years, and the festival will eventually have to find a successor. “Make no mistake on stature and charisma. You can’t replace a dynamic figure like Helmuth Rilling with someone who is merely an excellent musician.”

Grieg’s Norway/Norway’s Grieg

The Norwegian preoccupation with the music of Edvard Grieg is easy to understand on a basic level – most countries naturally embrace the work of their most successful exports. But Grieg’s history and Norway’s are inextricably intertwined, and the connection runs deeper than mere flag-waving.