Artiste: Elspeth Wilkes

OperaUpClose have set their version of Verdi’s classic in the 1920s, with some beautiful period costumes and a few prettily observed production details It’s a big story on a very small scale.

The King’s Head Theatre in Islington is, as one might suspect from the name, in the back of a pub. Founded in 1970, it was the first pub theatre to open in London since Shakespeare’s time. Housed in a back room that used to contain a boxing ring, it is tiny: tightly packed seating for maybe 60 or 70 people and an unelevated stage, beginning where the seating stops.

“I’m an old man, but I’m profoundly optimistic about nothing.”Francis Bacon said no end of fascinating things, about painting, art, life, everything really. So listening to his thoughts, especially when guided along by an interviewer as expert as Melvyn Bragg, was always going to make for an entertaining evening.