Arts
A gorgeous evocation of the natural world
The world of artistic expression runs in a thousand ways. The Melbourne Symphony’s Spring Gala – paralleling the Opera’s Wagner…
The disappointment of 70 Up (so far)
In advance, I confidently imagined that 70 Up would be the big programme of the week. In the event, it…
What a great band Geese are
It’s a measure of Geese’s rise – their flight? – that, on Thursday night, the social media accounts of End…
The fearlessness of Steven McRae
Steven McRae ranked for a decade as the Royal Ballet’s star virtuoso – a fearless technician of dazzling precision, speed,…
Queen at Sea is a shattering watch
‘Old age’, Bette Davis once reportedly remarked, ‘ain’t no place for sissies’ and neither is Queen at Sea. It’s a…
A sumptuous set that’s too good for the play
The Children by Lucy Kirkwood is a life-or-death drama about three ageing boffins invited to fix a broken atomic power…
Rattle makes Schumann shine and sing
Phrenology, eh? It’s cobblers, plainly, but Robert Schumann didn’t know that and his biographer Martin Geck tells how in 1846,…
The new fourth plinth is decidedly misjudged
As I sat down to write this article, an artist friend phoned me to deliver a pithy but convincing defence…
The man trying to save Britain’s last great map library
In the heart of Bloomsbury, deep in the bowels of the UCL geography department, down corridors floored in institutional linoleum,…
A man of great suavity
They were both films that stay in the mind from a lifetime ago. Peter Pan is J.M. Barrie’s contribution to…
Why has the National chosen to put on this cumbersome old play?
The National Theatre’s latest show, written in 2003, has bundles of energy and ideas. A thrusting young reporter, Yvonne, investigates…
Billy Strings’s extraordinary and exhilarating new album
It’s easy to get the wrong idea about bluegrass – to imagine that this flinty shard of American traditional music…
The Grand Tour is the perfect TV to pass out to
The Grand Tour – aka Amazon does Top Gear – is back with a new trio of presenters. Whether you…
I much preferred it when the Gallaghers hated each other
Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger is a music documentary covering the band’s live tour last year. Fans were ecstatic…
Words are the most important part of any opera
The long days wane, summer fades and sure enough, the big international guest orchestras begin to land at the BBC…
Finally, a proper, grown-up retrospective from the Tate
A month ago in Hampstead, a work of art stopped me in my tracks. The piece was a vast rectangular…
The wonder of the Bayeux Tapestry
How the Froggies must be laughing. Such a gracious loan. So kind. Like England lending Henry V’s longbows to the…
The sexiest kind of rock star
It’s strange and sad what the world throws at us. We are assailed by musicals – a production of Reg…
Late Fame is exquisite
Late Fame stars Willem Dafoe as a postal worker whose single book of poetry – published nearly 50 years earlier…
Should we take Beryl Cook more seriously?
The late Victoria Wood described Beryl Cook as ‘Rubens with jokes’. This was flattering for an artist whose fat, eye-shadowed…
Festivals are destroying London’s great parks
You could have been forgiven for mistaking Hackney for the site of an El Alamein reunion the other Sunday. Victoria…
Finally: a museum that refrains from moralising
Hull is a city of many quirks, but I didn’t expect a mermaid. Seriously: an actual mermaid, mounted in a…
The violinist who told the Vienna Phil where to stick it
Grade: A The Viennese violinist Arnold Rosé (1863-1946) held a musical civilisation together. Brother-in-law of Mahler, friend to Brahms and…
Dalliance almost made me wish I were Australian
Kids, if you’re appalled by the idea of your parents’ generation having sex, look away now. I’m about to describe…
Marilyn Monroe was a bore
Who Killed Marilyn? is a new show about an old subject. Sharleen Cooper Cohen’s play examines the circumstances surrounding Marilyn’s…
