Birmingham Post

Residential Property: Making a Splash in Malvern

The building now known as Priory Manor in Priory Road, Great Malvern is a picturesque reminder of the town's golden years as a fashionable spa. The local, water-borne wealth grew steadily from 1756 and Dr Wall's glowing testimonial for the natural resource: 'its efficacy stems from its great purity'.

Residential Property: Striking the Perfect Balance

Miller Homes has launched its new apartment scheme, Miller 61, at St Paul's Square, 24 one and two bedroom homes now available off plan. Three of the units are already sold, attractions including the premier address in this conservation area with its surviving architecture of old Birmingham and the church as focal point.

Residential Property: Joint Venture

The recently-formed GVA John Shepherd New Homes has been appointed as selling agents for the new Miller 61 scheme in St Paul's Square. The partnership between GVA Grimley and John Shepherd New Homes, based at Brindleyplace, launched the site last month, securing five early sales off plan.

Residential Property: Serenity On the Side of the Severn

Waterside plots remain a rare prize in the Midland marketplace for newbuild opportunities. As Birmingham and Worcester run out in their prime central areas, developers are into all corners, seeking forgotten brownfield sites for exploitation.

Residential Property: Listening to Local Residents

More than 550 locals attended a CALA Homes exhibition on controversial proposals for mixed development at Brassington Avenue in Sutton Coldfield. The housebuilder's Midland arm staged the three day event last week to gauge town opinion on its revised plans to build on derelict land close to the centre.

Residential Property: The Best Things Come in Threes

Three bedrooms, three storeys - and just three available: new homes in downtown Worcester are adding a fresh dimension to the city living market. The latest offering by Neil Grinnall Homes is the trio of townhouses on the Diglis Canal Basin at Bath Road, being billed as 'executive city homes for space-hungry professionals'.

Perspective: Brown Edges Closer to His Holy Grail

Poor Gordon Brown can barely say a word without somebody accusing him of trying to snatch Tony Blair's job away from him. His pre-budget report yesterday will be seen as a coded leadership bid - because everything he ever does is seen as a coded leadership bid.

Perspective: Be a Bit Charitable, Folks ; Rachel Pritchard Does a Geldof On Behalf of the Latest Band Aid Single. Why Aren't Enough People Buying It?

It appears we are missing the point. The critisicm of new the Band Aid 20 song, Do They Know It's Christmas is, quite frankly, disgraceful. The whole exercise is not about the song, it never has been about the song. What matters is what it does, and the hope that it strives for as a cause like no other.

Review: The Bare Bones of Genius ; Bare Bones 3 Patrick Centre, Birmingham

There has been a bit of a spat in these columns about the use of the word 'genius'. I defy anyone to quibble when I use it about one particular item in this brilliant new set of pieces presented by DanceXchange. To the Bone is a masterpiece. No question. No arguments. It's performed with extraordinary depth of characterisation and infectious exuberance by Jacob Dorff-Petersen and Vicki Manderson. And it's outrageously funny.

Review: Nutcracker Magic ; the Nutcracker, St Petersburg Ballet the Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton

This beloved ballet with its nostalgic scenes of everybody's vanished childhood and innocence has generally been perceived as a young girl's rite of passage from adolescence to young womanhood. Certainly, the company found this element in the piece but it was really only apparent at the final curtain when Drosselmeyer the magician (a symbol perhaps, of inevitable change and the movement of time) hands a diamond tiara taking away at the same time her Nutcracker doll as though a bridge had been...

Archive

25 years ago A supermarket Santa who felled a wounded gunman and a nurse who saved the man's life received rewards in Birmingham yesterday. And Walter Carless, aged 72, of Northfield, said the incident at the Stirchley Co-operative two years ago brought to an end his 'hateful job' as Father Christmas.

Theme

Anniversaries

They Said

Culture: Pound for Pound, Sterling Work ; the Merchant of Venice Cert Pg, 131 Mins

First filmed in 1908 as Shylock with four further silent versions between 1914 (the first feature to be directed by a woman) and 1922 (with Sybil Thorndike), if you discount a little seen 1953 French offering and a version in Maori a couple of years back, while at least nine TV productions exist there's never actually been a mainstream feature adaptation of Shakespeare's controversial drama. Michael Radford puts that to rights here with a sumptuously grimy looking and generally faithful adapt...

Culture: A Cold, Tiresome Christmas ; Surviving Christmas Cert 12a, 90 Mins

Bombing Stateside in October with a pathetic $11m, Americans had an early serving of turkey with this excruciating comedy that sees Ben Affleck playing Drew Latham, an obscenely rich Chicago advertising exec taken aback when shallow girlfriend Missy (Jennifer Morrison) dumps him for wanting to take her to Fiji for Christmas. Christmas is for families, she accuses, adding that she's never even met his. So, to cut a tiresome set-up short, unable to get invited anywhere for the holidays, he deci...

Culture: Facing Window Cert 15, 106 Mins Subtitled

Stuck in a dead end chicken factory job and a stagnating marriage with an underachieving husband, 29-year-old Italian housewife Giovanna (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) has long since given up on her dreams of becoming a pastry chef. Then, one day they meet an amnesiac old man (Massimo Girotti) in the street and, because he can't be bothered with the hassle of filling in police forms, her husband invites him to stay. Initially annoyed, Giovanna begins to warm to the stranger who, a Holocaust survivor ...

Review: Not Short On Talent, but Long On Programme ; Nigel Kennedy Symphony Hall

Just when you thought it was safe to go to a Baroque concert, along comes The Vivaldi Experience. Nigel Kennedy, who once famously declared he was fed up playing 'dead composers' and went into a musical huff for five years, has now come back as the fiddler from hell pretending to be a rock star. From the endearing cheeky chappie who blew a breath of fresh air into the classical music scene, he's become a grungy geezer power- punching round the stage, joshing with the audience and his 'band', ...

Culture: Woeful Choice of All That Is Awful ; Christmas with the Kranks Cert Pg, 98 Mins

For a minute there I'd hoped it was a misprint and this was actually a feature film from the Krankies. It would certainly have been preferable. With daughter Blair away for the holidays for the first time, taking off to Peru to work with the Peace Corps, Luther Krank (Tim Allen) decides that this year he'll give Christmas a miss and take wife Nora (Jamie Lee Curtis) for a Caribbean cruise instead. And save $3000 into the bargain.

Culture: Milwaukee, Minnesota Cert 15, 95 Mins

The joke, for those not versed in American geography, is that Milwaukee is in Wisconsin. It's all part of the would-be Coens-like quirky charm rippling through Alan Mindell's gently offbeat soft boiled con artist black comedy. A mentally disabled 30-year-old, Albert Burroughs (Jane Fonda's son, Troy Garity) has lived his entire life under the thumb of domineering, cruelly overprotective widowed mother Edna (Debra Monk) who's quashed any sign of independence the moment it's reared its head. Bu...