Art imitates art imitates life, in Alan Ayckbourn’s newly-restored version of A Chorus of Disapproval, which ends it’s successful run at the Harold Pinter Theatre this Saturday.  The joy of this reprisal is steeped in the skill with which Ayckbourn weaves his narrative in and around that of John Gay’s classic satire, The Beggar’s Opera.  Itself a take-off of the genteel society of eighteenth century London at the heart of the Enlightenment, Ayckbourn’s 1984 play stands up today.

Guy Jones is a young widower who joins an amateur dramatic company that is putting on The Beggar’s Opera.  He progresses through the ranks of the cast, becoming both the male lead and bedding several of his leading ladies.  Along the way, he meets characters including ostentatious Welsh director Dafydd and his two-timing wife Hannah.

The National premiered this play in 1985 with Michael Gambon and Bob Peck; its success lives long in theatre memory.  This reprisal will be noted for its stealthy direction by Sir Trevor Nunn and a trio of great performances, from former Rob Brydon as Dafydd, Ashley Jensen as Hannah and former Eastender Nigel Harman as our hero/anti-hero.  It closes on Saturday and tickets can be yours for the knockdown price of a tenner.  Wasn’t it one of your New Years’ Resolutions to go be more cultural?

A Chorus of Disapproval is at the Harold Pinter Theatre until 05 January.

Don McCullin has spent his life going face-to-face in some of the world’s most dangerous conditions in order to get the photograph.  Born in London in the 1930s, McCullin returned from RAF after the Suez Crisis and almost immediately had a picture of his published in The Observer.  This image of a local London gang began McCullin’s career, one which would see him enter some of the perilous situations of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in order to capture some of the most exhilarating imagery ever created.

From the secessionist Biafra, to victims of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, to the Vietnam War and Northern Ireland during The Troubles, McCullin has been there, and a new documentary on the man is one of the most engaging arts films of recent years.  Comprised almost exclusively of his images and a voice-over interview narration, McCullin is both a warm portrait of the man, as well as a hard-hitting overview of social documentary photography.

To warn, this isn’t sometimes the easiest of films to watch, but it’s certainly one of the most worthwhile you’ll see all year.

McCullin is on general release.

Your dear Culture Editor was on the radio the other day.  There was a question asked on what we thought were the best exhibitions of the year.  Fortunately, my selected show is still on.

Aspen magazine ran from 1965-1971.  It was, arguably, the first multimedia magazine, containing articles, artworks, all kinds of music on 7” flexidiscs, and films included on rolls of 8mm film.  Altogether, it came in a box that was redesigned by the guest editors of each issue to match its theme.  Contributors to the magazine included some of the most iconic figures of the twentieth century.  Bear with me; from a total of almost two hundred I will name John Lennon, Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, Jean Renoir, Marcel Duchamp, Samuel Beckett, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Andy Warhol, Marshall McLuhan, Roy Lichtenstein, Allen Ginsberg, Willem de Koonig – I could go on.  Aspen magazine is one of the most recognisable objects of 1960s Conceptual avant-garde, and until March can be seen in the Archive Gallery at Whitechapel Gallery.

What makes this show so good?  It’s the depth.  It’s fantastically difficult to make a coherent exhibition when you’re working from publications – simply, by displaying them in boxes and vitrines you take away one of their great benefits: their tangibility, their objecthood.  This is essentially their sense of being that is being undermined.  But Whitechapel Gallery have added layers and layers of contextual material, interviews, multimedia audiovisual material, both archive and newly-created.  It’s a serious point of learning through art and fulfils the potential of the gallery magnificently.

Aspen Magazine 1965-1971 is at Whitechapel Gallery until 03 March 2013.