The Xtra Diary - No love for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s paint job

Published: 23 April, 2010

ANDREW Lloyd Webber is no stranger to criticism. A career of box office hits and popular success has fixed the impresario in the crosshairs of many a waspish Fleet Street reviewer.
Now Lord Lloyd Webber has found himself under fire from a more unfamiliar tribe of critic, after Westminster Council’s planning officers said a black paint job on the exterior of one of his theatres was “unacceptable”.
Last night (Thursday) planning officers were expected to order him to strip the black gloss from outside the Grade-II listed Adelphi Theatre on the Strand.
The paint had been added to promote Lord Lloyd Webber’s new musical Love Never Dies.
Officers recommended that the council’s planning committee refuse the application to retain the paint made by his Really Useful Group.
A report that went before the committee stated: “The works have changed the character and appearance of the theatre and harmed its special architectural and historic interest.”
English Heritage have also objected to the paint while the Theatres Trust have asked for the theatre’s original appearance to be restored after the show.

Silver linings…

No volcanic dust in the tuba pipes as far as we can tell but that hasn’t stopped the ash cloud reaping havoc with the West End’s musical calendar.
Scores of musicians from around the world have been stranded in the capital following the volcanic eruption in Iceland, and most of them wasted no time in getting on the hustle for a microphone and an audience while they wait.
Simone Cooke, managing director of legendary Soho jazz venue Ronnie Scott’s, says he has been deluged by musicians hoping to get on the bill.
On Monday, US trumpeter Wallace Roney was chalked off (stuck in the US) but he will not be missed too much because the Grammy
award-winning vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater has been drafted in instead.
She had been due to fly off to Germany after Friday’s Barbican performance. Something about clouds and silver linings there...

Photographers’ square deal?

There was a time when so-called guerilla art operated in the subterrane.
Subversion, transgression and counter-culture was the modus operandi.
In recent years the concept has gone mainstream to the point where it now a commodity beloved by the so called branders and cool hunters.
Galleries and guerillas sit side by side, PR companies are keen to plug the next Banksy and even politicians profess to be fans, such is its Zeitgeist.
So Diary is hesitant to use the terminology, but we’re struggling to find a better description for some artwork that landed on Trafalgar Square.
A press release (do guerilla artists send press releases?) said that
I Heart Street Photo celebrates “all that is beautiful, thought-provoking and spontaneous about street photography... carrying the message that misdirected fears about terror, privacy and child protection could spell the end for the whole genre”.
Admirable stuff.
The group were also celebrating news that Lord Mandelson’s controversial clause  43, which, they say, would threaten photographers’ rights by making it legal to use internet photos without consent, has been dropped.
At twilight, photos were projected onto hand-held screens in the square.
Celine Marchbank, a photographer in the group, said: “Had clause 43 gone through it would have threatened the livelihood of photographers all over the country.”