Melly Still's 'magnificent' staging of Benjamin Britten's stormiest work

Clouds are gathering over Welsh National Opera (WNO), where funding cuts threaten the future of its larger productions, said Richard Morrison in The Times. The case for keeping them going is well made by WNO's terrific new staging of "Peter Grimes": it's a reminder that if you want a "full-blooded" operatic experience, then "you need the clout of a proper orchestra and chorus". In Melly Still's atmospheric staging, the "razor-sharp playing and spine-chilling singing" of the company's threatened orchestra and chorus bring Benjamin Britten's "still startlingly atmospheric 1945 score" wonderfully to life.

"Peter Grimes" is the tragic story of a lonely, alienated fisherman in a small town on the Suffolk coast, who is responsible for the death of one young apprentice and then for another. Still updates the story from around 1810 to a "callous, tacky 1980s community", and creates a setting that is "symbolic, surreal and stylised": an upturned fishing boat hangs ominously over a largely bare stage.

Her production, said Rian Evans in The Guardian, "brilliantly captures the tortured guilt, small-minded bitching and flashpoints of volatility" among the villagers. The tenor Nicky Spence, debuting in the title role, makes a sympathetic Grimes; and the various locals ranged against him are "all equally vividly drawn and sung". Their "mob mentality, baying for blood, has the seething force of a wild and cruel sea".

To my taste, there is too much "fussy quasi-choreographic action" during the sea interludes within Britten's score, said Nicholas Kenyon in The Daily Telegraph. Overall, though, this is a "magnificent show delivered in difficult circumstances". The singing and orchestral playing, conducted by Tomáš Hanus, are superb. Spence's portrayal of Grimes is "inspired", presenting him as a "burly, wide-eyed innocent who gleams with delight at the prospect of fishing". WNO may be "in choppy financial waters", but this excellent staging of Britten's stormiest work "makes a compelling case for keeping it afloat".

Mayflower Theatre, Southampton on 30 April, then touring until 7 June

by Jon Stock

Although he is little known today, the psychiatrist William Sargant was once "lauded by the medical establishment as a brilliant maverick", said Ian Sansom in The Daily Telegraph. Long considered a "pioneer of radical psychiatric treatments", he was praised by the British Medical Journal on his death in 1988 as an "iconoclast" and a "brilliant teacher". Yet in "The Sleep Room", the thriller writer Jon Stock's first work of non-fiction, he emerges as a "sadist and a zealot" who "left a trail of broken lives in his wake".

Sargant was a proponent of "physicalist" psychiatry – the idea that all mental problems are at root physical. Dismissive of talking cures, he believed in invasive, aggressive treatments: inducing deep-sleep therapy, or "continuous narcosis"; electroconvulsive therapy (ECT); and lobotomy. While he claimed his approach was "practical", in reality his treatments were "based on little more than faith, bolstered by a messianic conviction in his own methods". And as Stock shows, they did untold damage. Absorbing and meticulous, his book is an "utterly shocking yet all-too-familiar story of medical overreach".

The bulk of his account is focused on the "Sleep Room", which Sargant operated at St Thomas' Hospital, London between 1964 and 1973, said Francesca Angelini in The Sunday Times. There, anxious or depressed patients, invariably women, were sedated for 20 hours a day and were woken "only to be washed, fed and given ECT". Many stayed for months. Sargant claimed the treatment "reprogrammed disturbed minds", but former patients reported suffering severe memory loss and other forms of brain atrophy; one called it a "brutal annihilation of my character". Using interviews and medical records, Stock argues convincingly that the Sleep Room was "home to a scandal that the medical establishment has done its best to forget".

Stock captures the remarkable extent to which, throughout his career, Sargant was "given a free hand" to do what he liked, said Miranda Seymour in the Financial Times. During the War, he was able to conduct experiments on "disorientated ex-servicemen", injecting them with powerful sedatives to prepare them for "massive jolts" of ECT. Later, although "ugly rumours" spread about the Sleep Room, including charges that sexual abuse took place, no formal investigations were ever made; and Sargant finished his career at the Priory Hospital in Roehampton, treating private patients. A "gripping exposé of a troubling and troubled man", Stock's book is an absorbing – if "chilling" – read. 

Talented screen star with a difficult reputation

At the age of 17, Val Kilmer became one of the youngest students ever admitted to the drama school at the prestigious arts conservatory The Juilliard School, in New York, said The Times. There, he co-wrote and acted in a play that was staged at The Public Theater. His plan was to become a classically trained Shakespearean actor; but although he did some stage work (he starred in productions of "Hamlet" and the Jacobean tragedy "'Tis Pity She's a Whore") it was in Hollywood that he rose to prominence. With his chiselled jaw, pouty lips and undeniable charisma, he made millions by starring in blockbuster movies. Yet Kilmer, who has died aged 65, never stopped taking his craft, and himself, extremely seriously.

In his debut movie, the 1984 spoof spy caper "Top Secret!", he played a hip-shaking rock star who is embroiled in a plot to reunify Germany. The film showed off his comic skills and his song and dance talent, but Kilmer kept asking about his character's motivations. "The boys always wanted me to have more fun," he reflected later, "but I wanted to be good, and I took it all way too seriously." On the set of "Top Gun" (1986), he spent hours in his trailer devising a backstory to explain why his character – "Iceman", the rival to Tom Cruise's "Maverick" – was so arrogant. His fellow cast members on that film would remember him as outgoing and fun, but Kilmer's on-set perfectionism and temperamental outbursts soon led to him being marked down as one of the most difficult actors in Hollywood.

His first lead role in a major film was as Jim Morrison in "The Doors" (1991). He'd spent a year preparing, and his performance was highly praised: the surviving members of The Doors found his portrayal of the singer "spooky". But while in character during an audition, he had allegedly punched an actress who was up for the role of his girlfriend, though no assault was scripted. In 1995, global fame beckoned when he was given the lead role in "Batman Forever", but he hated the experience. The bat suit was so restrictive, he could scarcely breathe in it, he said, let alone act. The director, Joel Schumacher, called him "childish", "impossible" – and "psychologically troubled". During the making of "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (1996), he behaved so badly, Marlon Brando accused him of confusing "your talent with the size of your pay cheque". Director John Frankenheimer said he'd never work with him again, for any money, under any circumstances. "Even if I was directing a film called 'The Life of Val Kilmer', I wouldn't have that prick in it," he said.

Val Kilmer was born in LA in 1959, the son of a millionaire property developer. His parents divorced when he was nine, and in 1977 his younger brother drowned – a tragedy that haunted him for years. He started acting at school, where his classmates included Kevin Spacey, and won his first acting job aged 12. It was in a commercial for a cheeseburger, but as he didn't like the burger, he couldn't get into character and walked away. Years later, he would say he was "challenging, not demanding, and I make no apologies for that". Despite his reputation, he remained sought after, said The Guardian, and won acclaim for roles in a range of films, from the violent thriller "True Romance" (where he played the ghost of Elvis Presley) to the western "Tombstone" (as a foppish Doc Holliday), to the action caper "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", with Robert Downey Jr.

He was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014. As a Christian Scientist, he initially resisted treatment, but at the behest of his two children he had chemotherapy and two tracheotomies. In 2021, he appeared in a documentary about his life, Val, based on his 800 hours of home video. It made little mention of his temper, being focused instead on his childhood, his wide-ranging artistic interests and his personal life, including his eight-year marriage to the British actress Joanne Whalley, the mother of his children. His last film appearance was in 2022's "Top Gun: Maverick". In it, Iceman has mellowed and become an admiral, but is dying of throat cancer himself, and his voice is rendered by a computer.