One nasty moment aside, the ENB’s Manon is superlative
If you like the BBC’s Les Misérables, you’ll love English National Ballet’s Manon. Manon, in Kenneth MacMillan’s telling, is The…
If you’ve got taste, you don’t look at Instagram to decorate your home
You can tell something about national character from the way a country clears its cupboards. In the States they have…
The homesick Brit’s guide to Paris
‘Yes, it’s here!’ says the sign above the English épicerie in Paris. ‘Yes, at last,’ thinks the starved expat wandering…
January as you would wish it: Royal Ballet’s Les Patineurs reviewed
The Royal Ballet’s Les Patineurs is January as you would wish it. No slush, no new-year sales, no streaming chest…
After five days of being snowed in, awe and wonder starts to wear off
It took three hours for cabin fever to set in. Last Christmas, snowed in at the Oxfordshire homestead, my brother…
You’ll have shivers down your spine and tears in your eyes: Royal Ballet’s Nutcracker reviewed
Not another Nutcracker, I thought on the way to the Opera House. Haven’t we had our fill of Sugar Plums?…
Has the Royal Ballet found its hero?
The Royal Ballet is a company in search of a prince. It has no lack of dancing princesses. You could…
How could anyone object to the Royal Ballet engaging in cultural appropriation?
La Bayadère opens with a sacred flame and ends with an earthquake. In between, Marius Petipa’s ballet of 1877 gives…
Everything is now an Instagram photo op
On Sunday morning, in Puy-en-Velay, I climbed the 275 volcanic steps to the tiny chapel of Rocher Saint-Michel d’Aiguilhe. There,…
Horrors of the house of wax: Little, by Edward Carey, reviewed
The reader of Edward Carey’s Little must have a tender heart and a strong stomach. You will weep, you will…
Why Mayerling is a #MeToo minefield
Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling is a #MeToo minefield. Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary is a serial seducer, a man of many…
Bellini vs Mantegna – whose side are you on?
Sometimes Andrea Mantegna was just showing off. For the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, he painted a false ceiling above the…
A brief history of unicorns
After the England football team beat Tunisia at this summer’s World Cup, they celebrated with a swimming-pool race on inflatable…
Save us from Tiger, the posh Poundland of tat
There is a Tiger on the loose. It is stalking our high streets. It is prowling our train stations. It…
The artist who breathes Technicolour life into historic photographs
There is something of The Wizard of Oz about Marina Amaral’s photographs. She whisks us from black-and-white Kansas to shimmering…
The view from Paris: ‘Why are Brexiteers so stupid?’
‘Problème est masculin; solution est féminine,’ says Brigitte, the adored French teacher at the British embassy in Paris. Good way…
A smidge of self-indulgence amid the power and grace: Akram Khan’s Xenos reviewed
‘Comedy Sunil Lanba, Salman Quaraishi, Omar Syed…’ Names play from a crackling gramophone. We hear what they were before the…
Only the south of France could silence Henry James
‘Saint-Tropez?’ said the French mother of a friend. ‘C’est un peu… “tacky”.’ She was distressed to think of our taking…
Patrick Heron’s paintings are exhilarating – his colours dance, pulse & boff you on the nose
Patrick Heron’s paintings of the 1950s melt like ice creams. You want to run your tongue along the canvas and…
Is it any wonder children can’t express themselves when all they have is emojis?
Smiley face. Sad face. Smoochy face. Sick face. Edvard Munch ‘Scream’ face. How are you feeling today? Any of the…
No one can beat Mary Cassatt at painting mothers and children
A lady licking an envelope. An intimate thing. It might be only the bill from the coal-man she’s paying, but…
My life in Paris as a Diplomatic Wag
The French President says he wants to rule as a Jupiter — but he doesn’t look like a Jupiter to…
How Rodin made a Parthenon above Paris
‘My Acropolis,’ Auguste Rodin called his house at Meudon. Here, the sculptor made a Parthenon above Paris. Surrounded by statues…
Spend, spend, spend at the court of Philip IV of Spain
‘Nine hours,’ boasted my friend the curator about his trip to the Prado. Nine! Two hours is my upper limit…
Monet painted London not brick-by-brick, but light-by-shade
The Savoy was too sumptuous, complained Claude Monet, returning to the hotel in 1904. His rooms — one for sleeping,…
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