Spiral Notebook: To speak or not to speak

Little wonder Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman is so exercised by statements put out in his name which seemingly gave cover to radical preacher Anjem Choudary's visit to Brick Lane a week ago.

Choudary - the Katie Hopkins of hate preachers - threatened hellfire and whippings to Muslims selling alcohol along the traditional stretch of curry houses and bars.

Books: David And Goliath, Difficult Men, Two Girls, One On Each Knee

David And Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits And The Art Of Battling Giants
Malcolm Gladwell (Allen Lane)
★★★★✩

David and Goliath. Great story. That David. Beat the odds. didn't he. with his sling and stuff against the big bruiser Goliath. Every loser wins, as TV's Nick Berry once said.

That's not how it was.

Doink! You what?

Spiral Notebook: A failure of tolerance

Tolerance has been taken hostage. Last week, three men were jailed for their actions as part of the east London "Muslim Patrol", a gang of extremists who tried to enforce Sharia law by bullying passers-by, first with megaphones and then with fists.

Stage review: Drawing The Line, Hampstead Theatre

STAGE
Drawing The Line
Hampstead Theatre
★★★★✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Howard Brenton's compelling take on the partition of India is sweeping epic given pin-sharp focus with precision and wit.

Spiral Notebook: Rahman's insult to Tower Hamlets

Tower Hamlets Council has endorsed an investigation by Tower Hamlets Homes and the police into the curious case of the "Rahman canvassers".

This follows reports that bogus representatives from the social housing company were using their access to residents in Wapping to flog Mayor Lutfur Rahman's re-election bid.

Stage review: Strangers On A Train, Gielgud Theatre

STAGE
Strangers On A Train
Gielgud Theatre
★★★✩✩

IN A NUTSHELL
A stylish and slick take on Hitchcock's classic has plenty of tension, but is occasionally stymied by its own aesthetic ambition

Turner And The Sea, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

JMW Turner was the pre-eminent landscape painter in Western art, according to leading Victorian art critic John Ruskin. But the weight and obsession of the artist's canon suggests he was, above all, and with an relentless obsession, a seascape painter.

Film review: The Family (15)

FILM
The Family
(15) 111mins
★★✩✩✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Director Luc Besson creates some uncomfortable shift in tone that undermines the work of his accomplished cast.

Spiral Notebook: The wrong Brand of revolution

Russell Brand has suggested that young people should not vote, their collective act of indifference sparking crisis, then revolution.

He delivered his polemic on Newsnight in his usual baroque lexicon, like a child keeping pace with a runaway autocue.

Film review: Gravity (12A)

FILM
Gravity
(12A) 91mins
★★★★★

IN A NUTSHELL
Director Alfonso Cuaron takes CGI to a new level with his spellbinding 3D space adventure.

Bringing children back to the wild

Mason is 10. He looks out on Canary Wharf from his high-rise. He wants to take film-maker David Bond on a tour of his manor, where he takes his dog for a walk to the patch of green that is his meagre playground.

"People moan at us for playing ball games," he says as he heads past the forbidding signs and down the "curly wurly" stairs of his concrete jungle.

Spiral Notebook: Not more cruel, just more of it

There are a lot of us about. Billions in fact. And what with the world opening up to journalists looking for tales of weirdness and cruelty and a healthy appetite for the same on the web, there appear to be more and more of us each day.

Take China. The opening up of the Red Giant has, yes, provided a bigger market for our widgets but, more importantly, it has fed the world with another tranche of human misery of which we were previously ignorant.

Film review: Ender's Game (12A)

FILM
Ender's Game
(12A) 114mins
★★★★✩

IN A NUTSHELL
More intelligent than your average glossy shoot-em-up, Ender's Game has an earnest undercurrent.

Exhibition: Nelson, Navy, Nation at National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

From this distance, Britain's unrivalled national hero Horatio Nelson appears to embody the entire span of glittering age of naval dominance such is his pre-eminence in our cultural consciousness.

And yet, definitive though his actions were, they spanned only a few years at the tail-end of the 1700s through to his victory - and celebrated death - at Trafalgar in 1805.

Stage review: The Commitments, Palace Theatre

STAGE
The Commitments
Palace Theatre
★★★★✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Roddy Doyle has re-created his tale of Dublin soul band as a full-on gig with banter.

Spiral Notebook: Breaking bad news for schedulers

I took to humming last week.

Not the usual dirges that are necessary to keep the skull-headed gorilla safely ensconced in my bedroom cupboard but, instead, a chirpy tune, lacking in melody but delivered with considerable oomph.

Exhibitions: Royal Museums, Greenwich

EXHIBITIONS
Yinka Shonibare / 
Astronomy Photographer of the Year
Royal Museums, Greenwich
★★★✩✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Two contemporary exhibitions of very different visuals ask the visitor to think again about what they see.

Film review: Sunshine On Leith (PG)

FILM
Sunshine On Leith
(PG) 100mins
★★★✩✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Director Dexter Fletcher does it again - courtesty of The Proclaimers - with a life-affirming celebration of love, family and Scotland.

Film review: Prisoners (15)

FILM
Prisoners
(15) 153mins
★★★★✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Superior story-telling, smart direction and powerhouse performances ensure Prisoners sidesteps the usual child-kidnapping cliches.

TV preview: Father Figure (BBC)

If you put the expression “Mrs Brown’s Boys” into Babelfish.com and bat it back and forth around the continents, it comes back as “male infant covered in sticky chocolate”.

Which must have given comedian Jason Byrne an idea. Just the one, mind, but, if he played his cards right, told it with an Irish accent (mainly because he’s Irish) and threw in a toilet gag he could spin the skit into a six-part sitcom.

Stage review: The Secret Agent, Young Vic

STAGE
The Secret Agent
Maria at Young Vic
★★✩✩✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Theatre O take the prescient themes of Joseph Conrad's classic and present them with intriguing, if disjointed, visual flair.

Film review: Rush (15)

FILM
Rush
(15) 122mins
★★★★★

IN A NUTSHELL
The combination of palm-sweating race sequences and moving human drama ensures this story of the 1976 F1 Championship takes the chequered flag.

Film review: Ain't Them Bodies Saints (15)

FILM
Ain't Them Bodies Saints
(15) 97mins
★★★★✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Sundance alumni David Lowery has created a doom-laden Bonnie and Clyde mood-piece with some fine central performances.

13 things we've learnt since the Syria debate

1. Tony Blair has profoundly devalued the office of prime minister and the Dodgy Dossier should be placed on the Fourth Plinth to mark his dishonour.

2. “Something must be done” and “never again” are understandable human reactions, not policy positions.

3. No.10 is no longer the natural home of the national interest. The natural interest resides in about 14 different places across the country at any one time.

Film review: Elysium (15)

FILM
Elysium
(15) 109mins
★★★★✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Neill Blomkamp follows District 9 with another gritty socialist sci-fi saga with Matt Damon suited up to nobble the nobs.

Film review: Kick-Ass 2 (15)

FILM
Kick-Ass 2
(15) 103mins
★★✩✩✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Laboured sequel lacks the confidence and verve of the original but there are still some nuggets of delicious pleasure.

Film review: Lone Ranger (12A)

FILM
Lone Ranger
(12A) 149mins
★★★★✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Johnny Depp dons Tonto warpaint and Armie Hammer adopts the mask in this right rollicking, roller coaster of a re-imagined Western.

Technology: The shape of the future - in 3D

"We have an incredibly strong science base in the UK, second only to America. We have a very strong technology base - manufacturing is not dead - and we have a strong design base but they don't work together as much as they can."

Film review: Only God Forgives (18)

FILM
Only God Forgives
(18) 90mins
★★★✩✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Director Nicolas Winding Refn's gory Bangkok revenge flick is full of stylish flair but, ultimately, feels empty.

Film review: Red 2 (12A)

FILM
Red 2
(12A) 116mins
★★✩✩✩

IN A NUTSHELL
The excellent cast have fun with the quips and the thrills in this espionage sequel but their enjoyment is rarely contagious.

Travel: Newquay and the south west

I had heard talk of unnatural practices rampant in the sequestered south west, far from metropolitan reproach.

Film review: Frances Ha (15)

FILM
Frances Ha
(15) 86mins
★★★★✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Greta Gerwig spreads charm all over the place in this ode to gal pals and finding oneself lost in Manhattan.

Exhibition: Line of Kings, Tower of London

The mid-1600s was a precarious time to be king. The species was threatened. The reign of Charles I had been brought to a bloody end and the country's failed dalliance with republicanism had seen a fragile rapprochement with the concept of monarchy.

Spiral Notebook: Red is the new green

There is a busy T-junction near my home. It is guarded by traffic lights. Cars obey. Pedestrians wait for the little green man. Cyclists ignore it all and do what the hell they want.

I cannot recall a single time a cyclist has stopped at these red lights if jumping them posed no risk to their safety (and theirs alone).

This observation could be made of any traffic light anywhere in London. Cyclists see them as mild inconveniences, much as they do the pedestrians they target when they take to the pavement for a shortcut.

5 reasons book translations are rubbish

Translated books are, on the whole, duff. I am currently engaged in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and it is only the story that persuades me to continue.

5 reasons translated books are rubbish…

Stage review: Private Lives, Gielgud Theatre

STAGE
Private Lives
Gielgud Theatre
★★★★✩

REVIEW
This crowd-pleasing production of Noel Coward's Private Lives is lightning in a bottle.

Book review: Stuff Matters, by Mark Miodownik

POPULAR SCIENCE
Stuff Matters
Mark Miodownik
Penguin, £18.99
★★★★✩

IN A NUTSHELL
In this fascinating little read, master of materials Mark Miodownik takes a snapshot of his home and begins picking apart the substances that make our world.

Spiral Notebook: The saints and the winners

I left one newspaper after about seven years and I got a Simpsons mug. A Simpsons mug! Sheesh.

I had played a significant part in turning around that newspaper. I had won awards and the rest. Indeed, for the purposes of literary neatness, I’d like to think I’d worked miracles.

Stage review: Fences, Duchess Theatre

STAGE
Fences
Duchess Theatre
★★★★✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Lenny Henry full occupies the role of Troy Maxson, the embittered garbage man and patriarch robbed of his shot at the baseball big time.

Exhibition: Lowry And The Painting Of Modern Life, Tate Britain

Laurence S Lowry painted football matches. He painted evictions, and men at work and magnetised huddles around a suicide in the street.

Little wonder then that his work was popular and that popularity - as usual - was a double-edged sword, bringing him affection among "his" people and a derision and dismissal among the critics.

Book review: Perilous Question, by Antonia Fraser

HISTORY
Perilous Question
Antonia Fraser, W&N
★★★★✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Antonia Fraser's vivid, impeccable and authentic account of the passage of the Great Reform Bill of 1832 paints a picture of tempestuous times.

Stage review: Sweet Bird Of Youth, Old Vic

STAGE
Sweet Bird Of Youth
Old Vic
★★★✩✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Kim Cattrall shows her star quality in a flawed but rumbustious adaptation of Tennessee Williams' study of love, loss and hope.

Exhibition: Visions Of The Universe, Greenwich

At the entrance to this new exhibition are four images of the Orion nebula. They represent all that this awe-inspiring collection aims to encompass - science, technology, history, beauty.

Film review: Man Of Steel (12A)

FILM
Man Of Steel
(12A) 142mins
★★★✩✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Superman cracks heads but no smiles in Zack Snyder's earnest and spectacular re-boot of the Kryptonite outcast.

5 key moments of the Royal Mint at the Tower

A new permanent exhibiton at the Tower of London tells the tale of the tower's little-known role as the Royal Mint between 1279 and 1812. The exhibition focuses on five key episodes in the Mint's life, as explained by Curator Dr Megan Gooch, pictured.

Spiral Notebook: Hard hat, hard luck, hard heart

This is a public service announcement.

I was minding my own business, as is required on a Canary Wharf bench at lunchtime. Then I was approached, tentatively, by a man in a high viz jacket carrying a hard hat.

Exhibition: Estuary, Museum Of London Docklands

If the capital is moving east, then the Thames Estuary is moving west. An unnerving thought for a city that generally views this journey's end as a place of damp and mystery, a repository of detritus and industrial skeletons.

Film review: Behind The Candelabra (15)

FILM
Behind The Candelabra
(15) 118mins
★★★★✩

IN A NUTSHELL
Beyond the sequins, the hypocrisy, the lies and the teeth, director Steven Soderbergh finds an unlikely tale of a very real relationship.

Stage review: Race, Hampstead Theatre

STAGE
Race
Hampstead Theatre
★★★✩✩

IN A NUTSHELL
David Mamet's muscular prose commands the stage in a world-weary no-holds-barred dissection of race in America.

Spiral Notebook: Money for old rope

I paid, as usual, for a coffee with a credit card. No big deal. In fact quite the opposite. A tiny one. £2.10. Used to be the case that the rule of thumb was anything under £10 was cash but now everything's plastic and no-one raises an eyebrow.