Arts
Television Keep it in the family James Delingpole
‘By the way, my name is Max. I take care of them, which ain’t easy, because their hobby is murder.’…
The joy of going to a real concert…
I went to a concert! Not a livestream or download: a real concert, with real musicians, a real conductor, a…
We-ness rising
Back in March, I made a long-odds bet that Michelle Obama would be the Democratic party’s vice-presidential nominee. I knew…
American road trip
Like a lot of Australians I look at what is happening in America with sad bemusement if not alarm. Over…
A.N. Wilson
Kathy Lette says that during lockdown she has been reading Dickens. Her choice illustrates the enduring appeal of Charles Dickens…
‘Where I grew up, classical music was diversity’
Richard Bratby talks to Birmingham Opera Company’s new music director Alpesh Chauhan about his Brummie roots, Bruckner and how his BAME heritage is a non-story
Viva la vulva!
I spent half an hour this week listening to a woman make a plaster cast of her vulva. Kat Harbourne,…
His dark materials
Matteo Garrone’s live-action version of Pinocchio is visually sumptuous and there are some enchanting characters (my favourite: Snail). And unlike…
Stitches and bad-ass bitches
If it’s a test of a good documentary series that it takes us deep into an unknown, even unimaginable world,…
Grubby thumb prints and peeling glue
Among the spoils of a lockdown clear-out was a box of my grandmother’s books: Woolf, Austen, Mitford and The Complete…
Deep Purple: Whoosh!
Grade: B+ Less deep purple than a pleasant mauve. Ageing headbangers will note a lack of the freneticism that distinguished…
‘Theatre is back!’
So the madness continues. Planes full of passengers are going everywhere. Theatres full of ghosts are going bust. My first…
Australian arts
Back in my now rather distant days of regular residence in Britain, I listened regularly to a radio program called…
James Darling striding the shores of Limebuners’ Bay
‘Just as I am’ is the recurrent opening line of a hymn written in 1835 by Charlotte Elliott. It was…
Magnificent muddle
In the 62 years since I first heard and saw Don Carlo, in the famous and long-lasting production by Visconti…
Go figure
An oxymoron is a clever gambit in an exhibition title. The Whitechapel Gallery’s Radical Figures: Painting in the New Millennium…
Double trouble
American Pickle is a comedy based on a short story by Simon Rich, originally published in the New Yorker, and…
Sprinting in the sand
Dancing at Dusk captures the final rehearsal of a new version of Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring. It’s only…
Beauty and the beast
Michael Hann talks to Kevin Rowland about Dexys, insecurity and the cocaine years
Bonjour happiness
Soon, very soon now — even sooner than I imagined, if A Suitable Boy turns out to be as lacklustre…
Soho moonwalk
Back to the West End at last. After a four- month lay-off, I grabbed the first available chance to catch…
Victorian burglars
Spare a thought for Victorian burglars. Just when they thought they could go back to ransacking South Yarra mansions while…
Different words
If you’d been in our house during the Coon cheese debacle you would have heard me shouting at the TV:…
Method in the madness
First there were the home recitals: musicians playing solo Bach in front of their bookshelves, wonkily captured on iPhones. Next…
Greatness and idiocy
Is the world ready for the return of live rock music? On the evidence of the first gig in London…
