Arts
Tony Slattery is still a miraculously gifted comedian
Some of the marketing efforts by amateur impresarios up in Edinburgh are extraordinary. I was handed a leaflet for a…
Will you last beyond the madeleine? Radio 4’s In Search of Lost Time reviewed
The madeleine upon which Proust’s seven-volume epic In Search of Lost Time pivots makes its significant appearance after just 18…
Why this première felt important: James MacMillan’s Fifth Symphony reviewed
All symphonies were sacred symphonies, once. Haydn began each day’s composition with a prayer, and ended every score with the…
The Octopus in My House left you with an overwhelming sense that octopuses are astonishing
Professor David Scheel, the presenter of a BBC2 documentary on Thursday, instantly brought to mind that American scientist in The…
Love me tender
Pedro Almodovar can sometimes be overly flamboyant if not out-and-out nuts — let us never talk about I’m So Excited!…
Culture Buff
A new book reminds us, perhaps unintentionally, that not everything that has mattered in the performing arts started with the…
‘I’ll miss Brexit when it’s solved’: Frank Skinner interviewed
Only one thing makes Frank Skinner nervous. ‘Water. Water scares me. I don’t get nervous on stage. Just in swimming…
Where are the art fans in Edinburgh? Getting their eyes frazzled by Bridget Riley
The old observatory on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill may be the most favourably positioned art venue in the world. Recently resurrected…
West Side Story’s flick-knife-to-the-guts thrill never landed its final blow
It was as though Damien Hirst had confessed a secret passion for Victorian watercolours, or Lars von Trier had admitted…
Lap-dancing with ISIS, the real Monica Lewinsky and one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen: Edinburgh Fringe roundup
Clive Anderson’s show about Macbeth, ‘the greatest drama ever written’, offers us an hour of polished comedy loosely themed around…
Daffy charm and diabolo tricks: Bolshoi’s The Bright Stream reviewed
The Bright Stream is a ballet about a collective farm. Forget everything you know about collectivism — the failed harvests,…
I agree with Jeremy Deller – the birth of acid house was a revolution that changed Britain
Jeremy Deller’s Everybody in the Place: an Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992 (BBC4) began with some footage of kids queuing…
DiCaprio and Pitt are transfixing: Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood reviewed
Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is a sprawling tale set in Hollywood in 1969, against…
Maxine Peake
We live in a time of paradoxes. The NSW Parliament has just legislated for terminations to be performed from 22…
Woke gurus, capitalist communists and a future film star: Edinburgh Fringe roundup
The locals probably can’t bear the Edinburgh festival. Their solid, handsome streets are suddenly packed with needy thesps waving and…
An exhibition about dogs, chosen by dogs: Dog Show reviewed
Stepping into any art gallery, the last thing you expect to be greeted by is a cacophony of barking and…
Silly but stellar: Bolshoi Ballet’s Spartacus reviewed
It’s togas-a-go-go as the Bolshoi bring Yuri Grigorovich’s 1956 ballet Spartacus to the Royal Opera House. Oh dear, I did…
Two sides to every story
Maybe the equality inspectors at the corporation didn’t get the chance to vet Richard Littlejohn’s series for Radio 2, The…
Bracing and provocative – but would Wagner have approved? Arcola’s Rheingold reviewed
When it comes to the opening of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, Mark Twain probably put it as well as anyone: ‘Out…
Lucian Freud insisted a forgery could be as great as the real thing. Was he right?
Perhaps we should blame Vasari. Ever since the publication of his Lives of the Artists, and to an ever-increasing extent,…
Sweet but formulaic: Blinded by Light reviewed
Once upon a time two men sat in a New York bar lamenting the state of Broadway. So they decided…
Reliably odd but the deranged proggery grates: King’s Mouth by The Flaming Lips reviewed
Grade: B- So a queen dies as her giant baby is being born. The baby grows very big indeed and…
Sylvia in Houston
Houston is a prosperous Texan city, the hub of the US oil and gas industries. And home to the city’s…
Why haven’t we heard of the extraordinary Finnish artist Helene Schjerfbeck?
Last year I found myself giving a lecture in Helsinki. When I came to the end, I asked the audience…
The woman who wrote Afghanistan’s electoral laws lives on a houseboat in Bristol
By the age of eight Vaira Vike-Freiberga had learnt that life was both ‘very strange and very unfair’. Her baby…
