Lovely features ... Peter O'Toole and Jodie Whittaker in Venus
So, lovers of art and arty lovers, where are the places of culture most like to get your juices a-running on this day of all days, the feast of St Valentine? Tell us your favourite arty-date places, but meanwhile, here are some of our own.
1. According to a sacred British tradition laid down in the Magna Carta, the doughty sons and daughters of Albion only get frisky when they're trolleyed. Gallery private views where the wine flows freely are therefore to be sought out. Theatre bars, ditto, but to be chosen with care. We are not talking a depressingly warm gin and tonic in a dreary West End ruin. The best theatre bars in London are the Young Vic and the Royal Court (both designed by the same architectural practice, Haworth Tomkins; those boys sure do love their bars, and we salute them for it).
2. Rooms with views. Tate Modern - the Members' Room if you want an unmatched panorama of St Paul's Cathedral relatively free from hoi polloi; the ambience is reasonably conducive to conspiratorial lovebird action. The viewing room at the very top of the Baltic in Gateshead on an empty day. The view to the marshes from Snape Maltings in Suffolk is heartstopping.
3. Somewhere you've actually thought about. Start your date beside the rude Fragonard (Girl on a Swing) at the Wallace Collection; or if you're a couple of boys, the fabulous Warren Cup in the British Museum (alas, the photo in the link here does not show quite what extreme naughtiness is being indulged in on the main part of the object). Or beneath the hilarious Before and After pictures in the Hogarth exhibition at Tate Britain (usually in the Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge).
4. Wow them. The Royal Opera House is, undeniably, super-swanky, date-worthy territory. And if you've got the wherewithal to take a girl to Glyndebourne, why hold back?
