■ Jeremy Paxman has morphed into an art guide. Looking at the website of the Art Fund, I stumbled on its four-minute film in which the former Newsnight presenter offers a gentle stroll around the new Delacroix exhibition at the National Gallery.
Delving further, I noticed that the Art Fund, which helps buy works of art that are under threat, had previously made a couple of other short videos with Paxo, on Goya and Rembrandt, again for the National Gallery. Both were also pleasant tours d’horizons.
What, though, has happened to the terrier of Newsnight? These films are basically plugs for the gallery, with Paxman occasionally softly lobbing a question to the curator. We all liked Paxo because of the sharpness of his mind and tongue. He is now to make a documentary about Van Gogh for the BBC. Hope he finds his old self again.
■ Wonder.land had sniffy reviews when it opened at the National Theatre last November. Created by Damon Albarn, Moira Buffini and the National’s director, Rufus Norris, it has, however, turned out to be critic-proof. In fact, Norris tells me that by the end of its run on Tuesday week, it will have averaged 85% capacity over what will be nearly 100 performances. And half of those who came have been first-timers to the National.
No chance, though, of the musical gaining a West End transfer to follow One Man, Two Guvnors, War Horse and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, all of which became very decent earners for the National. Yet Norris assures me that, from this spring, his theatre can live within its means without a top-up of commercial income from Shaftesbury Avenue. But it’s good that People, Places and Things, which ran at the Dorfman last summer and was one of my favourite plays of the year, is to get three months at Wyndham’s from next week.
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■ Of the eight blue plaques to be installed at the former London homes of famous people during 2016, two are for footballers — Laurie Cunningham, a pioneer of black achievement in his sport, and Bobby Moore, captain of the victorious 1966 World Cup team. It was Greg Dyke, a member of the English Heritage Blue Plaque panel, who put forward the names of these two footie heroes. Which is hardly surprising, as he is also chairman of the Football Association. Three of the eight are for women, including one to the former Sunday Times food writer Elizabeth David. But many more plaques for eminent women are needed to redress a huge gender imbalance. Suggestions?
■ Well done, Jeffrey Archer, who has again put two fingers up to most book reviewers with Cometh the Hour, the just published penultimate novel in his Clifton Chronicles series. He stands number one in the hardback charts of both this paper and The New York Times.