Arts
A gurgle of merriment
Chekhov is tricky. He’s not someone we think of as uproarious but the playwright himself used sometimes to complain that…
The Trainspotting musical is made for cruise ships
Plenty of critics have mocked Trainspotting – the musical (with lyrics and music by Irvine Welsh and Stephen McGuinness, respectively)…
I suspect a lot of TV is AI-generated
AI slop is not a new phenomenon. But it is becoming more prevalent as the lazy, the modish and the…
Is this really the best Charli XCX can do?
Of the three creative pursuits that give Charli XCX’s eighth album its title, the English pop star seems least interested…
Bring back the old Tube seat designs!
Enid Marx once pondered ‘whether postage stamps are fine or industrial art. In my view the question rests on the…
The concert of the year
Ah, so that’s where the kangaroo comes in! Garsington Opera produces a souvenir mug each summer decorated with cartoons of…
The new Spider-Man is a triumph of Hollywood professionalism
Remember Peter Parker? By the end of the last instalment of the Spider-Man movies, No Way Home, we were the…
What’s the point of Unesco?
The FIM-92 Stinger missile is not a subtle weapon. An anti-aircraft rocket, capable of launching a high-explosive ‘fire and forget’…
High Antipodean
The death of that fabled cricketer Sir Garfield Sobers – one of the greatest all-rounders who ever lived – is…
A Sound of Music with brains as well as heart
If you’re interested in how words work with music, the collected lyrics of Stephen Sondheim are an investment you’ll never…
Wet Leg have become a proper rock band
Everyone uses the word ‘indie’ to describe a style of music. And Pulp and Wet Leg are two bands that…
The invincibility of menopausal women in TV drama
Ride or Die began with a typical day for a fiftysomething woman in a TV drama. Having assassinated a Russian…
The finest vacuum-cleaner romance you will see
A Useful Ghost is the best sex-with-a-vacuum-cleaner film I’ve seen in a while – or perhaps ever. It is deeply…
The finest music ever composed by a Breton naval officer
Grade: B+ There’s a special art in making something difficult appear effortless, and the string trio is a supreme test.…
This J. Edgar Hoover musical is destined for Broadway
Here Comes J. Edgar! has a brash poster featuring a cross-dressing FBI agent in fishnet tights with his thighs splayed…
The Victorian Hieronymus Bosch
No one paints fairyland like Richard Dadd (1817-86). In ‘The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke’, 1855-64, he reveals a teeming congregation of…
A Treasury on YouTube
It’s strange how much we take for granted the world we inherit, which is available to us on YouTube for…
In defence of Little House on the Prairie
You can tell things have started to get really bad by the fact that they’re bringing back Little House on…
A funny, unorthodox Much Ado About Nothing
You may need to do a spot of homework before attending Tilly No-Body at the Arcola. Acted and written by…
Confessions II gets thrillingly close to vintage Madonna
There comes a point in the career of any established artist when looking backwards seems to be the only possible…
The Odyssey is shallow and tiring
The Odyssey is Christopher Nolan’s relentless, deafening three-hour take on Homer’s epic poem, and while it is technically impressive filmmaking…
The greatest symphony that no one’s heard of
I’ve been listening to a symphony that I would describe as an almost perfect masterpiece by a composer of towering…
Damien Hirst should burn down his gallery
I love my friends at the loucher fringes of the art world, but every now and again, someone does something…
Three cheers for Britain’s most unabashedly elitist school
As we ponder the ups and downs of our sporting record this summer, it might be worth noting our unquestioned…
To be trans Hamlet or not to be
Is there something strange about seeing a great comedian who identifies as a trans woman do a solo Hamlet, the…
