I went to the Plus One Gallery last night for their Tjalf Sparnaay exhibition of hyperrealist pictures. His Fried Egg, double (show here) and Large Salad Bowl II, with lemon, were the highlights of a remarkable exhibition, and if photo-realism or hyperrealism is your thing, Sparnaay is considered to be at the cutting edge of the genre.

Some weeks ago I told you that The Shawshank Redemption, one of the most successful films of all time, would be opening in London as a play. The box office opened yesterday, and the first night will be on Sunday 13th September at 4.00pm. The management has decided not to have performances on Monday evenings, but instead to have a Sunday matinee - an interesting idea which has become common in New York. This has the double benefit for the public of being able to attend a late matinee and still get home at a reasonable hour, while giving the actors the Sunday and Monday evenings off. And in any case, Mondays have been notoriously bad for box offices in the West End for years.

Last night I attended the Chris Beetles annual Summer Show at his gallery in St James's. The show is dominated by several magnificent pictures by Albert Goodwin (1845-1932) and some wonderful Badmins. Illustrated here is a Goodwin watercolour, Soller Port Majorca.




But I suspect it's the next show that's going to cause considerable interest, when Ian Botham will open a cricket cartoon exhibition. Lovers of that great sport will be able to indulge themselves buying cricket cartoons (old and new) at very sensible prices. More details to follow.

A busy weekend began on Saturday with the opening of Art Contact's sculpture exhibition at Limberhurst Arts Centre in Horsheath, Cambridge. They have a wide selection of modern sculptures on display, and I particularly liked Dorothy Brook, Pierre Dimantopoulo, Mel Fraser, Teo San Jose and Nicolas Moreton (whose 'Sunrise' is shown here). As the prices range from £125 to £25,000 there's something for everyone, and if you're in the area, it's well worth a visit.

On Sunday, Mary and I held our summer party at the Old Vicarage to celebrate our 43rd wedding anniversary. Mary now likes to use the marquee for a charity event in the evening, which makes it a very busy day with some 300 guests attending each event. We got very lucky with the weather despite the forecast showers, as the sun appeared at 12.30 as the first guest arrived, and we had clear skies for the next 8 hours. The summer party ended around 4.30pm. When the last guest had departed, I dashed into the house to see how Federer and Roddick were getting on, arriving with the final set at eight-all; an hour later, we had a champion. I went back into the garden to listen to Trinity College Choir sing in aid of Addenbrooke's Abroad, a charity which sends doctors and nurses to different parts of the world so that their expertise can be passed on. The choir were magnificent, and I then foolishly decided to invite Donald Sinden and Frank Finlay to join me on stage to draw the raffle. The two old thespians had the audience in fits of laughter and I expect it's a raffle none of us will forget. Like the others, the two great men gave their services for nothing, mind you, it's quite something when you have to end your careers drawing a raffle at the Old Vicarage Grantchester.

I attended David Frost's annual summer party last night, and this year he didn't need the Wimbledon roof, as the weather was perfect for an evening drinks party. Esther Rantzen charged across the lawn to ask what I felt about her standing as an Indpendent candidate for Luton at the next General Election, where it's clear she'd be a popular candidate. However, I pointed out to her that independents rarely win at a general election, because they get lost in the overall battle, whereas their best chance is always in a by-election and then holding on to the seat. She seemed very determined to give it a go, although she clearly hasn't made up her mind. We were joined by John Madejski, lamenting the fate of Reading Football Club, and moments later by Ken Livingstone, who told me in great detail about his forthcoming memoirs - although he avoided answering the question as to whether he would stand for Mayor of London again. Stuart Rose told an amusing story that he'd asked the board of Marks & Spencer if they were at any time considering sacking him, could they do it in the morning as he hadn't had a relaxed lunch for several years. He didn't seem to mind the fact that the press were now describing him as a benign dictator, as he felt that was what Britain needed right now - but he was quick to add that he wasn't available.

I'm getting so old that I didn't recognise half the bright young things who were moving from group to group, but I didn't embarrass David this year as I once did in the past, when asking Sol Kerzner what he did for a living. As I was leaving, David Cameron came rushing in, not late, having just come on from The Spectator party. It has always been the lot of the Leader of the Opposition that most evenings they have to attend at least 3 or 4 different functions, especially with an election less than a year away.

Any young actor or actress who wants to attend a masterclass on their chosen profession, should go and see Duet for One by Tom Kempinski at the Vaudeville Theatre on the Strand. But they'll have to hurry, because the show closes in August. The play tells the story of a concert violinist who contracts MS and how her brilliant career is curtailed. She is married to a brilliant conductor/composer, so one can be forgiven for thinking that Mr Kempinski had Jacqueline du Pre and Daniel Baremboim in mind when he wrote the piece. Henry Goodman plays the Freudian like figure of Dr Feldmann, and Juliet Stevenson the violinist, Stephanie Abrahams. I've been told so often by actresses that in England you can have a promising career until the age of 30, and then suddenly there are no parts for you, and only the truly great who do not have to rely on looks alone, can hope to survive. Well Juliet Stevenson certainly falls into that category, as at one point in the play she portrays a dowdy, middle-aged woman, with no interest in how she looks. Henry Goodman gives his usual excellent performance (he was the finest Shylock I've ever seen), playing a man desperately attempting to remain professional and uninvolved, while with only the subtlest turn of the head or a glance down at his highly polished shoes, you realise that the tragedy that has beset his patient is also beginning to affect him. This may sound a dull, almost incomprehensible subject for an evening's entertainment, but don't be fooled, it's quite magnificent from beginning to end, and indeed the last compelling line is both memorable and chilling.

Popped over to the Oval a few hundred yards down the road, to do an auction for Cancer Research UK. This was truly a duty call, because they gave my wife's hospital, Addenbrooke's, £20m for their new research centre, and are currently funding the scientists working at the centre £13m a year. There was a Q&A session after dinner with the Australian cricketers Ian Harvey and Stuart Law and our Twenty20 wicket keeper James Foster - universally acknowledged as the best wicket keeper in England. But as he modestly pointed out, while Matt Prior retains a test average of around 50, it's hard to displace him. He also reminded us that he's 29 years old and not the person the selectors will be considering in the long term. After the function, I strolled home with Mike Hollingsworth, one of the charity's executives, who told me that Cancer Research last year raised £400m - every penny needed because 600 people a day are told they have cancer. That's the bad news. The good news is that while in the 1980s 50% of people diagnosed with cancer died within a year, now they can be expected to survive another decade. What an amazing achievement. The pages of our newspapers are filled with the death of Michael Jackson, but how many people could name the man who founded the Genome project and won the Nobel prize? Forgive me for thinking that Sir John Sulston's achievement is quite the equal of Michael Jackson's.

Mary and I attended Opera East's extravaganza at Childerley Hall near Cambridge on Saturday evening. We indulged in Mozart, Verdi, Britten and Tchaikovsky, while eating strawberries and cream. I can't pretend to have a great knowledge of opera, or even a particular love of it, but I am bound to say that I thought Ji-Min Park, the South Korean tenor, and South African baritone Dawid Kimberg were quite magnificent, and even a layman could understand why so many people are saying they have spectacular careers ahead of them.

On Friday I went to Barn Hall in Beaconsfield to do an auction for the NSPCC. Because I feared the traffic coming out of London would be horrendous, I arrived 40 minutes early and used the time to walk around the magnificent grounds. The trees, so beautifully planned and so many in variation, were a delight, and whoever is responsible for keeping the gardens in such fine shape deserves great praise. The event was held in a giant marquee, and was hosted by Tracy Ian, wife of the successful theatre producer, David Ian (The Sound of Music, Grease, La Cage aux Folles, Chicago, etc). The auction raised £70,600, and for the first time I had a Harley Davidson motorbike to auction (£17,000). David had a large grin on his face, partly because The Sound of Music on tour starring Connie Fisher, opens on July 26th in Cardiff, and has a £7.2m advance - the highest theatre advance for a tour in British history. He also whispered in my ear that he and Paul Elliott are bringing The Shawshank Redemption to London in September after a sell-out six week run in Dublin. As I'm an angel in both these productions - my only chance of ever being an angel - I returned home with a grin on my face.

I have loved the game of rugby football all my life, so naturally was sitting in front of the tv at 2.00pm on Saturday for the British Lions match against South Africa. I was appalled that Schalk Burger was not sent off for eye gouging in the first minute. It's an automatic red card in the law book, and why the ref and linesman didn't carry this out is beyond me. I met Burger the last time South Africa were in London - a charming and delightful young man who at his peak, was unquestionably one of the great players in the game, which only added to my sadness at the spectacle we witnessed in South Africa.

I have a message that those journalists in their high positions who only watch great internationals seem to have missed. During the rugby season in this country, every Sunday 300 children come to Cambridge RFC and other grounds all over the country to play mini-rugby. I will tell you now, many mothers will not be allowing their children to turn up if they think their cheekbones will be broken or their eyes gouged. And who can blame them? If South Africa are that determined to win at any cost, then let them have the World Cup. Why don't we just send out two teams with machine guns and they can all shoot each other, then whoever has the most team members alive at the end can be declared the holders of the Rugby World Cup?

The Lions coach, Ian McGeechan, a thoroughly decent and courageous man, said without hestiation it was not the game he had been brought up to play, while one of the Sky commentators had the nerve to say, "Oh it's just modern rugby." Well if it is, the game is doomed. When professionalism first came in I used to laugh when Denis Thatcher said it would all end in tears. I'm not laughing quite so much now.