Arts
Flimsy and pretentious sketches: Caryl Churchill’s Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp. reviewed
Caryl Churchill is back at the Royal Court with a weird collection of sketches. The first is set on a…
A cast of Antony Gormley? Or a pair of giant conkers? Gormley’s new show reviewed
While Sir Joshua Reynolds, on his plinth, was looking the other way, a little girl last Saturday morning was trying…
Violins of the ACO with Richard Tognetti
Every year is a year of anniversaries, not least 2020 with the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s voyage along the…
The poetry of sewers
‘Welcome,’ says our guide Stuart Bellehewe, with an imperious sweep of his arm, ‘to the cathedral of shit.’ Before us…
Radio 4’s The Art of Innovation is a series that — for once — deserves the label ‘landmark’
Radio 4, how do I love thee? Rather as one loves the flocked wallpaper that came with the house. It…
Gloriously un-PC: Ronan Bennett’s Top Boy reviewed
Sir Lenny Henry, the former comedian, is wont to complain to anyone who’ll listen that there isn’t enough ‘diversity’ on…
More Grace Kelly than Grace Jones: Welsh National Opera’s Carmen reviewed
How do you take your Carmen? Sun-drenched exotic fantasy with a side order of castanets, or cool and gritty, sour…
You may not wish to kiss the ground when you finally leave the cinema, but I did: The Goldfinch reviewed
The Goldfinch is an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Donna Tartt that centres on a great work of…
One for pauper-gawpers: Faith, Hope and Charity at the National reviewed
Tony Hawks’s musical, Midlife Cowboy, has transferred from Edinburgh to the Pleasance, Islington. At press night, the comedy elite showed…
Proggery beyond parody: Iggy Pop’s Free reviewed
Grade: D+ Pleasant memories — of hearing ‘Raw Power’ for the first time and later the amiably shambolic chug of…
See You at the Toxteth
The Toxteth is a hotel on Glebe Point Road in Sydney. Cliff Hardy probably called it a pub. Hardy was…
The untold story of Judy Garland
Judy Garland is now a myth, a paradigm and a warning: don’t let your daughter on the stage! It’s the…
Simon Rattle’s Messiaen is improving with age
Two flutes, a clarinet and a bassoon breathe a chord on the edge of silence. As they fade, the sound…
How refreshing to see a show about prejudice that barely mentions white people
Lynette Linton opens her stewardship of the Bush with a drama about racial and sexual bigotry. Four British women decide…
What’s the point of the Today programme?
What else is there to write about in the week that John Humphrys, that titan of the BBC airwaves, retires…
The rare gifts of Peter Doig
‘My basic intention,’ the late Patrick Caulfield once told me, ‘is to create some attractive place to be, maybe even…
Abba, Twitter vs Instagram, and papal selfies: the modern face of the Catholic Church
As a lifelong Catholic, I’ve often thought that two of the Church’s chief characteristics are a) how weird it is…
An eight-year-old’s dream: Muse at the O2 reviewed
‘Butterflies and Hurricanes’ by Muse was on heavy rotation on MTV at a time, 15 years ago, when my infant…
Is it time to give up on the Ibsen adaptations?
Pub quiz question: what do John Osborne, Brian Friel and Patrick Marber have in common? The answer is they’ve all…
Painful, funny — and with a brilliant twist: The Farewell reviewed
The Farewell is a quiet film that builds and builds and builds into a wonderful exploration of belonging, loss, family…
In Vogue
A kangaroo on the beach with a model was the unsubtle cover of Vogue in December 1965. It will be…
The many faces of William ‘Slasher’ Blake
‘Imagination is my world.’ So wrote William Blake. His was a world of ‘historical inventions’. Nelson and Lucifer, Pitt and…
Extremely predictable and extremely dull: Downton Abbey reviewed
The much-anticipated film version of Downton Abbey has arrived and I suppose you could describe it as the Avengers Assemble…
The rude, ripe tastelessness of John Eliot Gardiner’s Berlioz is the perfect antidote to Haitink’s Instagram Bruckner
Conducting is one of those professions — being monarch is perhaps another — where the less you do, the more…
With these documentaries, the BBC has lost any claim to impartiality
Because the rise of the Nazis is a topic so rarely mentioned these days, least of all in schools, the…
