Bon Vivant

There are lessons for the Bar in this musical, believes David Wurtzel. 

Legally Blonde (Savoy Theatre) proves that good new musicals can still be written. They can also be performed by your favourite television stars who are indeed able to sing, dance and do dialogue (with occasional breathlessness) on stage. The combination is perfect: the women steal the show, the men provide the eye candy and the audience, who greet it with remarkable knowingness, gives it a standing ovation. You do not have to have seen the movie and I suspect that I am glad that I didn’t. It is easier to suspend disbelief in a theatre than in the cinema. Legally Blonde belongs in a theatre. Luckily, the entire cast led by Sheridan Smith with wonderful star quality and timing, plays it straight, though with gays, a lesbian and sexual harassment, straight may not be quite the word. 

Beer: The Singular Case of Donoghue v Stevenson
Matthew Chapman
Wildy, Simmonds and Hill; Hardback (December 2009); £14.99 ISBN: 0854900497 

“You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour. Who, then, in law is my neighbour? The answer seems to be – persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omissions which are called into question” per Lord Atkin. 

Suffering from pains or aches? There are three key areas to focus on, advises Christopher Belderbos 

A starry audience matched by an equally eminent cast, writes David Wurtzel.  

On Sunday, 16 May the Great Hall of the Royal Courts of Justice was packed with people who normally appear there as counsel or sit there as judges. They had come for “The Dunsinane 2”, barrister-turned-writer Peter Moffat’s take on what a trial of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth would have looked like, had it happened in 2010. 

Supermarkets now supply the bulk of wine bought for home consumption.  

Dominic Regan and Seán Jones highlight some of the best champagne and wine. 

30 April 2009: DIARY ATTACHMENT SUPPLEMENT/SALUTARY LESSONS/When deep sleep falleth on men, fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake (Book of Job). 

16 May 2010: “Well, after this I should think nothing of falling down stairs.” Lewis Carroll 

was called to the Bar in the late seventies. A year later I invited an old friend to afternoon tea in Inner Temple: a splendid hour in the common room where delightful crumpets were toasted in a little kitchen. I thought my friend would be impressed. 

Tom Bingham
Allen Lane; Hardback (February 2010); £20
ISBN 9781846140907 

There is a general, though not universal, feeling that the rule of law is a Good Thing. But it is a notoriously elusive concept, one that can be wheeled out in support of all manner of propositions and one whose meaning, if any, remains something of a mystery. In The Rule of Law, Lord Bingham (“Tom Bingham” in the obligatory demotic) shares his characteristically clear vision of the meaning and value of the concept. Readers who are familiar with his judgments will be delighted to read the characteristically robust and straightforward prose in which he expounds his theme. 

Dominic Regan and Sean Jones suggest the best restaurants to visit in order to obtain good wine at a fair price.  

You have cause to celebrate. Perhaps you have just been paid for that case you did late last century. The proverbial moron in a hurry can find good wine but the art is to find it at a fair price. Here are some suggestions. 

A powerful and thought provoking film, finds Felicity Gerry  

In the Land of the Free is the sort of thought provoking film which does not require a hemp shirt. A powerful film, which suffers the disadvantage of being labelled a documentary, about three prisoners held for decades in solitary confinement in an American prison. The film received its European Premiere at Curzon Cinema Soho on 25 March as part of the 14th Human Rights Watch Film Festival sponsored by Time Out and followed by a discussion moderated by Terry Waite CBE who gave a moving account of his own detention. Human Rights Watch has published several reports on prison facilities in the United States of America (for further information visit: www.hrw.org/en/united-states/us-program/prison-and-detention-conditions).