Arts
Reels on wheels
Tanya Gold on the rise and fall of drive-in cinema
Containing multitudes
It might seem a bit of a stretch to see deep similarities between Michaela Coel (young, female, black and currently…
Relief
Recently I touched on the subject of evaluating works of art prompted by what seemed to me rather an empty…
Jessie Traill: A biography
She could have been one of our great-aunts. She was from that remarkable generation of educated, unmarried women who chose…
Scouse style
Richard Bratby on Britain’s oldest and ballsiest orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, which has taken on everyone from gang leaders to Derek Hatton
Neil Young: Homegrown
Grade: B+ Neil Young has been mining his own past very profitably for a long time now, disinterring a seemingly…
No laughing matter
The RSC’s 2014 version of Much Ado is breathtaking to look at. Sets, lighting and costumes are exquisitely done, even…
Half baked
Some cinemas have reopened, with the rest to follow by the end of the month, thankfully. But the big, hotly…
Rooms with a view
Not long after the pubs, big galleries have all started to reopen, like flowers unfolding, one by one. The timing…
Floor show
Sophie Haigney on the weird and wonderful world of hotel carpets
The day the music died
Britain’s choirs are facing oblivion. Yet they’re also terrified of returning. One story explains why. Picture this innocent choral-society scene…
Wendy Bowman, 2019 by David Darcy Darling Portrait Prize 2020
She is not a theoretical or idealogical environmentalist. Wendy Bowman became an activist when her crops were ruined by polluted…
A drive on the wild side
When a 90-minute documentary is introduced with the words ‘This is the M25’, you’d be within your rights not to…
Going underground
Leaf Arbuthnot and Igor Toronyi-Lalic on the new cultural rebels
Dysfunctional music by dysfunctional people
A star is born, but instead of emerging into the world beaming for the cameras, he spits and snarls and…
The Bard in the bedroom
Nicholas Hytner’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream opens in a world of puritanical austerity. The cast wear sombre black costumes and…
Audio onanism
In Beeb-dominated Britain, the commercial triumph of podcasting — epitomised by Spotify’s recent £100 million deals with Joe Rogan and…
The great pretender
In the past Werner Herzog has given us a man pushing a ship up a mountain, a 16th-century conquistador going…
Creative destruction
For three months art lovers have had nothing but screens to look at. As one New York dealer complained to…
Keith Urban using a Maton guitar, recording Gimme Shelter in Olympic Studios, London
We are critical of ourselves for not designing or manufacturing things any more. Well, there is a contrary example in…
New word order
I was going to write about Monument Valley, and I suppose I will eventually, but first I have to write…
Beige-washed Burton
The BBC has been having a good pandemic. Stuck at home, a generation raised on podcasts and YouTube has discovered…
Homage to Avalonia
Televising Glastonbury has changed the festival, and in turn transformed television, says Graeme Thomson
Age of stuckism
I’m in Mayfair and I’m boarding an airplane. Or rather, I’m boarding an approximation of an airplane. In the centre…
Nearly nul points
This comedy stars Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams as an Icelandic duo whose biggest dream is to represent their country…
