Arts
Matthew Sweet: Catspaw
Grade: A– The early 1990s were a lovely time for rock music: Beck, Sparklehorse, Sugar, Green on Red and Royal…
Sea fever
From ancient Greece to TikTok: Alexandra Coghlan on the pulling power of shanties
You’ll wish you were gay
To promote his new drama series about Aids in the early 1980s, Russell T. Davies insisted in an interview that…
They had it coming
This year marks three decades since Robert Maxwell fell naked to his death from the deck of his yacht, The…
Bar-room ballet
Thank God for the fast-forward button. Sadler’s Wells had planned a tentative return to live performance last month but the…
Spirit worlds
The Fabulist Fox Sister is a one-man show about the three American women who are credited with inventing the trade…
On The Beach
The aftermath of Australia Day seems like an appropriate time to watch On the Beach, for a belated first time,…
Elijah Moshinsky
Earlier this month, the opera world sadly absorbed the news of the death of Elijah Moshinsky. Born in Shanghai in…
Sitting pretty
With the arts world still largely in hibernation, the launch of a big podcast is as close as we get…
Into the jaws of hell
Southwark Playhouse is beating the latest lockdown with a zingy new musical about social media. The performers, Francesca Forristal and…
Life in the fast lane
DeLorean: Back from the Future was one of those documentaries — for me at least — that takes a story…
The bimbofication of art
Galleries are awash with gimmicky paintings that look like they’ve been designed by algorithm. Dean Kissick on the rise of zombie figuration
What lies beneath
Just before the outbreak of the second world war a discovery was made in a riverside field at Sutton Hoo…
The KLF: Solid State Logik 1
Grade: A What a miracle the KLF were: an elaborate practical joke at the expense of the music industry, seemingly…
The rise of opera film
I’m still waiting for the Royal Opera to step up. Nearly a year into the Covid crisis and what do…
The Investigation
Slowly, after what seemed like infinite, malingering delays, virus-driven, the world of arts and entertainment is starting to open again…
Masked opera
We were all excited to be there. You would have thought that we hadn’t been to an opera performance. Well,…
Paul McCartney: McCartney III
Grade: A- The greatest songwriter of the 20th century, or just one of the top two or three? Who…
King of chat
In my parents’ house, the radio is always tuned to one of two stations: Magic FM and LBC. When Magic…
Think twice
The White Tiger is adapted from the Booker-prize winning novel (2008) by Aravind Adiga. It is directed by Ramin Bahrani…
No thesps required
Flight has been hailed as a new form of dramatic presentation — prefab theatre. It’s great to look at. A…
Britain’s got talent
Brexit and Covid have pushed us out of the common musical market and thrown us back on homegrown sprouts. Good, says Norman Lebrecht
Perfectly pointless
‘What the world needs now is a black and white pastiche of classic 1950s and 1960s sitcoms reviving two Marvel…
Bridgerton
Who would have thought that Netflix would score so sumptuously with a Regency soap that flaunts colourblind casting like a…
Banks, the new biography of Joseph Banks by Grantlee Kieza reviewed
One of the most eligible bachelors in England, he was strong, handsome, well-educated, adventurous and a fabulously rich young man.…
