Arts
Cheap thrills
Noël Coward was so right that his words have become a cliché: it is indeed extraordinary how potent cheap music…
Live and let die
Remember when 2020 was going to be Beethoven year? There were going to be cycles and festivals, recordings and reappraisals;…
Belgravia
Belgravia is the rather coldly beautiful residential part of London bounded by Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Buckingham Palace. It is also…
Enclosure acts
‘I don’t want to do my work. I want to go for a walk. I want to eat all the…
A sting in the tale
Did the US secretly write a power ballad in order to bring down the Soviet Union? That’s the question behind…
The 1975: Notes on a Conditional Form
Grade: B+ Just what you wanted. An opening track that matches banal piano noodling to an address by Greta Thunberg.…
South Bank Centre
I must have written about this subject 100 times in 30 years and I’m still having to restate the bloody…
Dallas with violins
On the face of it, a French-language drama about a Parisian symphony orchestra mightn’t sound like the most action-packed of…
Good grief
Sea Wall, by Simon Stephens, is a half-hour monologue about grief performed by Andrew Scott. The YouTube clip has been…
Small wonder
John Constable’s paintings of a tiny corner of rural Suffolk teach us to see the beauty on our doorstep, says Martin Gayford
Allen key
A Rainy Day in New York is Woody Allen’s 49th film and it’s not been without its troubles. When accusations…
Sydney Opera House during Vivid Sydney Festival
To state the obvious, these are extremely testing times for the performing arts and live entertainment generally. Although galleries are…
From joy to dissolution
At the start of Elgar’s Second Symphony the full orchestra hovers, poised. It pulls back; and then, like a dam…
The real deal – or not
One of the stranger things that happened in the period just before lockdown was the sudden disappearance of audiences from…
Cobweb-thin
Hats off to the Lawrence Batley Theatre for producing a brand-new full-length show on-line. Stephen Fry, with avuncular fruitiness, narrates…
Sex, drugs and disappointment
If I could live my life over again my plan used to be that I’d make my fortune very early,…
Catastrophe
At the outset of lockdown I gave you my list of top mustn’t-watch films — that is, the ones that…
Doo-wop deity
He toured with Little Richard, sang with Van Morrison, inspired the Beatles and Paul Simon. Graeme Thomson talks to Dion, one of the last living links to the early days of street-corner rock ’n’ roll
Uplift
If eight weeks in lockdown have brought out my baser impulses (biscuits by the sleeve, total renunciation of waistbands), it’s…
Cover of May issue of Apollo
We are all being digitised one way or another. Performing arts companies, not able to perform, are gamely putting themselves…
There’s something about dairy
You may be asking yourself: have I reached that point in lockdown where I’m watching Icelandic dramas about the price…
Macbeth at the movies
The world’s greatest playwright ought to be dynamite at the movies. But it’s notoriously hard to turn a profit from…
Swanky, stale and sullen
The summer music festival has had its day, says Norman Lebrecht
The escape artist
Arena: The Changin’ Times of Ike White (Monday) had an extraordinary story to tell — but one that, halfway through…
Surfer’s paradise
The full addictive potential of classical YouTube needs to be experienced to be understood. And let’s be honest, there are…
