Arts
The weirdness of Britain present and past
The new series of Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema began with an episode on British comedy films. As ever, Kermode…
They wouldn’t let it lie
The comedy Blithe Spiritwas written by Noël Coward in 1941. It is, essentially, about a séance going wrong and a…
The trying game
Rosie Millard dispels the myth that persistence is always rewarded
Englishness vs California dreaming
On Archewell Audio, Harry and Meghan’s new podcast, ‘love wins’, ‘change really is possible’, and ‘the courage and the creativity…
Brendel the Dadaist
How many people are celebrating the fact that, last week, one of Europe’s most inspired writers about music, modern art…
‘We knew there was greatness in these songs’
Graeme Thomson talks to Steve Diggle, front man of Buzzcocks, about orgasms, boredom and Pete Shelley
New year pleasures
There are things to bring us pleasure in this new year. The opera has opened The Merry Widow (until 16…
People’s galleries
Ignore the activists, says Tristram Hunt, Alexander von Humboldt’s Enlightenment project, embodied in a flash new Berlin museum, deserves celebrating
A pan-European cheese dream
The best moment in the Vienna Philharmonic’s annual New Year’s Day Concert comes after the end of the advertised programme.…
It’s in the bag
‘Of course, I am obstinate in defending our liberties and our law — that is why I carry a big…
Minimalist’s dream
Love Letters by A.R. Gurney began life as an epistolary novella about two childhood friends, Andy and Melissa, whose on-off…
The secret history
Andrei Konchalovsky’s Dear Comrades! is based on a true event and set in 1962 in the Russian city of Novocherkassk…
Superb but depraved
The Serpent is the best BBC drama series in ages — god knows how it slipped through the net —…
Orson Welles
It seems on the face of it the oddest proposition on earth. David Fincher, the famous Hollywood director of Fight…
The Australian Ballet
It is indeed a new era. The Australian Ballet announced its 2021 season under the new artistic direction of David…
The pleasures of four-play
One of the few social activities not yet prohibited under lockdown laws is four-handed piano playing. I don’t mean sitting…
Merry blooming Christmas
No one captures better than Raymond Briggs the ambivalence that many of us feel towards the festive season, says Daisy Dunn
Yes man
Rod Liddle talks to Rick Wakeman about lockdown, the Sex Pistols, and how you can’t have opinions any more
Fright night
Good evening! Come shivering on in through the garden side door, my friends, and distance yourselves in a semi-legal fashion…
A romcom with very little com
In Black Narcissus, based on the novel by Rumer Godden, five nuns set off for a remote Himalayan palace in…
Whodunnit?
The Master of Flémalle was one of the first painters to depict in detail the reality of ordinary things. But who was he? Martin Gayford finds a prime suspect
All in the worst possible taste
Potted Panto is a 70-minute parody presented by two burlesque comedians. Jeff is a tall, playful bungler and his colleague,…
A fine romance
Sylvie’s Love is an exquisitely styled, swooning, old-school, period Hollywood romance and while it has been described as ‘glib’ in…
Blessed be the fruit
Laura Freeman is transported by J.C. Volkamer’s astonishingly beautiful ode to the citrus
Ambassador, you are really spoiling us
In classical music circles, Christmas arrives with the overture to Handel’s Messiah. Or so they’ll tell you. In truth, festivities…
