More from Arts
The new Civ is gorgeous and richly rewarding
Grade: A- It has been nearly ten years since addicts of the empire-building simulator Civilization – or Civ, as players…
The problem of back-story in drama
Olga in Three Sisters, the opening speech: ‘Father died just a year ago, on this very day – the fifth…
What makes a good title?
Liszt’s compositions tend to have descriptive titles – ‘Wild Chase’; ‘Dreams of Love’ – whereas Chopin avoided titles. Thomas Wentworth…
The Natural History Museum’s new Evolution Garden is inspired
The Natural History Museum is one of the most beautiful buildings in London, but its gardens have long been a…
The latest Dragon Age game is unbearably right-on
Like all other forms of culture, video games offer a way to escape from, or reflect on, reality through fiction.…
Lovingly designed, touching and immersive: Neva reviewed
Grade: A- There’s a very faint echo of Jeff VanderMeer’s unheimlich Southern Reach Series in the new indie side-scroller Neva.…
Tate’s finances are on the skids and I think I know why
Among the many destructive after-effects of the pandemic, the impact of two years of lockdowns has had serious consequences for…
Why is Elon Musk obsessed with Diablo IV?
Grade: A- I usually try to write about new games, but indulge me in addressing Blizzard’s open-world dungeon crawler Diablo…
Charming and silly: Sam & Max – The Devil’s Playhouse reviewed
Grade: B Readers of a certain age (mine, roughly) may have fond memories of 1993’s Sam & Max Hit the…
Children have the Proms. Grown-ups head to Salzburg. Snob summer
Salzburg Festival doesn’t mess about. The offerings this year include an adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain in Lithuanian, a…
Can video games be funny?
Grade: B+ Games can be exciting, puzzling, scary, competitive and – occasionally – moving. Can they be funny? Not often.…
Gorgeous and deeply absorbing: Manor Lords reviewed
Grade: A ‘God games’, as they used to be called, have a storied history. SimCity, Civilisation and the excellently sadistic…
Entirely pointless and extremely pleasant: House Flipper 2 reviewed
Grade: B+ Most video games challenge the player’s problem-solving skills, reaction time or hand-eye co-ordination. But a handful of them…
Has all the charisma of Chernobyl: Manchester’s Aviva Studios reviewed
There is a (possibly apocryphal) story about William Morris, where he spends most of his time in Paris inside the…
Why intellectuals love Disney
This month marks the 100th anniversary of Walt Disney’s company. The first cartoons it was founded to produce – the…
Why everyone should go to life-drawing classes: Claudette Johnson interviewed
While looking at Claudette Johnson’s splendid exhibition Presence at the Courtauld Gallery, I kept trying to pin down an elusive…
