● If you can’t visit the British Museum’s riveting Hokusai exhibition, you can still catch many of the works in a documentary (the BM’s first) in cinemas today, with more showings possible in days to come; then on BBC4 later this month in a cut-down one-hour version. The British Museum is working with the Japanese broadcaster NHK. Thanks to close-ups from high-definition cameras, the viewer will be able to see Hokusai’s works in greater detail than museum visitors, and have the bonus of interviews with David Hockney, Grayson Perry and Maggi Hambling. The documentary is presented by the art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon. Virtually everybody knows Hokusai’s Great Wave, but I confess my ignorance in not realising, until I saw the exhibition, that it is one of 36 views of Mount Fuji, which, in the case of the famous print, is very much in the background.
● Maria Balshaw finally took over as the director of Tate on Thursday, as Nick Serota sailed off into the sunset, minus the boat that, unwisely, somebody had initially suggested as a staff leaving gift. He will, however, receive a contemporary work of art from the Tate trustees as a pressie. Balshaw will have Lord John Browne as the trustees’ chairman for only a few weeks, as, after more than eight years, the former BP boss is to retire. But the trustees, who select their own chairman, have been unable to find a new one from among themselves. So they have asked the culture department to appoint a trustee (they have somebody in mind) whom they can then elect as Browne’s successor. The individual must be good at fundraising.
● Eddie Mair, voted the most popular male voice on UK radio last year (mine, too, along with Jane Garvey from Woman’s Hour), has signed a book deal for his memoirs, A Good Face for Radio. It’s a typically self-deprecating title, because, as well as being the brilliant anchor of Radio 4’s PM, Mair is a good face for television. It was a shame that Newsnight, which very nearly chose him as Paxo’s successor, in the end went for Evan Davis, who, frankly, has a good face for radio, though rather lacks Mair’s compassion and his ability to listen to interviewees. Who could forget Mair’s chats on PM with Steve Hewlett, the media commentator, in the last weeks of his life?
● The Donmar’s next production, Committee, a musical somewhat improbably based on the parliamentary select committee investigation into the collapse of Kids Company in 2015, has some interesting casting. Opening later this month, it will star Sandra Marvin as the charismatic Camila Batmanghelidjh. Marvin was in the Donmar’s 2014 revival of City of Angels and has recently been appearing in Stepping Out, in the West End. I trust that Alan Yentob, who was Kids Company’s chairman, is happy to be played by the baritone and actor Omar Ebrahim. Early this year, the former creative director of the BBC was so concerned about his portrayal that he went to talk it over with the Donmar’s artistic director, Josie Rourke.