Arts feature
Still life
Lloyd Evans finds the newly returned Edinburgh Fringe quieter, more low-key — and all the better for it
West End pearl
The newly renovated Theatre Royal Drury Lane has seen it all and staged it all, says Robert Gore-Langton
Apocalypse now
Stuart Jeffries takes the ferry to Orford Ness, a strange shingle spit on the Suffolk coast, where art mingles with death
Money, money – and music
Art is supposed to emerge from poverty but extreme wealth does not preclude talent, as the history of composers proves. By Richard Bratby
North star
Claudia Massie on the unjustly neglected artist Joan Eardley, who deserves to be ranked alongside Auerbach, Bacon and de Kooning
Sense and sensibility
Zoe Dubno on the rise of the ‘sensitivity reader’, a seductively cheap way for publishers to cancel-proof their books
Bohemian rhapsody
Rosie Millard is transported to the Impasse Ronsin, a tiny, squalid cul de sac in Paris’s 15th arrondissement that was once the centre of the modern-art world
Queen of Bohemia
Nina Hamnett’s art has long been overshadowed by her wild, hedonistic life, but that is changing, says Hermione Eyre — and about time
The people’s choice
Richard Bratby talks to one of Britain’s most successful impresarios about his promoter’s nose, Arts Council spinelessness and ENO madness
Two sides of the Storey
Jasper Rees remembers David Storey, giant of postwar English culture and wry teller of tales, whose newly published memoir is perhaps his most remarkable work
Still Can do
Krautrock pioneer Irmin Schmidt talks to Graeme Thomson about taking risks, playing badly and ignoring the Brits
Ai-Da Vinci
Stuart Jeffries discusses beauty, Yoko Ono and the world’s disappointments with the first robot artist
Saint or sinner?
The verdict is still out on Thomas Becket, says Dan Hitchens, but there’s no doubting the brilliance of the art he inspired
‘I’m not interested in moral purity’
Michael Hann talks to St Vincent about Sheena Easton, Stalin and performing in five-inch heels
‘Where are the Rambos?’
James Delingpole talks to comic-book writer Mark Millar about the joy of Catholicism, our sorry lack of male action figures and his childhood superpower
Napoleon dynamite
Theo Zenou on Kubrick’s fascination with the fallen Emperor
The great unveiling
The way an object is stored can magnify its beauty and enhance expectation. Joanna Rossiter wonders whether the opening up of galleries will have the same effect on an art-starved public
Theatre’s final taboo – fun
The stage has become a pleasure-free zone in which snarling dramatists fight over their pet political causes, says Lloyd Evans
The Mozarts of ad music
Richard Bratby meets the hidden men and women composing melodies to make you buy
Woman of the cloth
Laura Freeman considers how artists have depicted one of the strangest and most touching of the Stations of the Cross
Bop till you drop
Stuart Jeffries on the dark history of dance marathons
Culture shock
Richard Bratby on the post-Covid exodus of talent from the performing arts
‘His paintings are perfectly meant for our times’
Musa Mayer talks to Hermione Eyre about her father Philip Guston’s cancellation and her fear that he will for ever be known as the artist who painted the Ku Klux Klan
Bedroom pop
A short history of lo-fi, by Robert Barry
Divine revelation
Rosie Millard gets her gloved hands on one of the world’s most lavish – and expensive – art books
