Arts
Ultimately hard to resist: Elbow reviewed
Our relationships with bands are often very like our relationships with people. Some are pure and lasting love. Some start…
Disconcerting but often delightful new Bach transcriptions
Grade: B Everyone loves the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Rather fewer people love the sound of an unaccompanied organ,…
Woody Allen without the zingers: Materialists reviewed
Celine Song’s first film, the wonderful Past Lives (2023), earned two Oscar nominations. So expectations were riding high for Materialists.…
I love how awful My Oxford Year is
The punters are saying My Oxford Year is a disaster. ‘Predictable, uninspiring and laughable,’ complains some meanie on Rotten Tomatoes.…
The rise of cringe
No one wrote programme notes quite like the English experimentalist John White. ‘This music is top-quality trash,’ proclaims his 1993…
The problem with psychiatrists? They’re all depressed
Edinburgh seems underpopulated this year. The whisky bars are half full and the throngs of tourists who usually crowd the…
How the railways shaped modern culture
Cue track seven of Frank Sinatra’s 1957 album Only the Lonely and you can hear Ol’ Blue Eyes pretending to…
Modest, interesting – no masterpieces: Millet at the National Gallery reviewed
Jean-François Millet (1814-75). One Room. 14 items. Eight paintings. Six drawings and sketches. Modest, interesting. No masterpieces. The show appeals…
Getting down and dirty
It’s splendid to be sitting at the very front of the Playhouse watching a new musical from the Melbourne Theatre…
The terrifying charisma of Liam Gallagher
You’d have thought Wembley Stadium was a sportswear convention, so ubiquitous were the three stripes down people’s arms from all…
Wittily wild visions: Abstract Erotic, at the Courtauld, reviewed
If you came to this show accidentally, or as a layperson, it could confirm any prejudices you might have about…
What a slippery, hateful toad Fred Goodwin was
Make It Happen is a portrait of a bullying control freak, Fred Goodwin, who turned RBS into the largest bank…
Rattigan’s films are as important as his plays
A campaign is under way to rename the West End’s Duchess Theatre after the playwright Terence Rattigan. Supported as it…
The excruciating tedium of John Tavener
The Edinburgh International Festival opened with John Tavener’s The Veil of the Temple, and I wish it hadn’t. Not that…
A mafia drama like no other
The Kingdom is a mafia drama like no other. It’s directed by Julien Colonna whose father was a Corsican mob…
Worth watching for Momoa’s gibbous-moon buttocks alone
If you enjoyed Apocalypto – that long but exciting Mel Gibson movie about natives being chased through the jungle with…
A vibrant, complex character
We’re preoccupied with the horrors of what can happen with the internet and Australia thinks it can lead the world…
The NHS is to blame for Bonnie Blue
Channel 4’s documentary begins as the ‘adult content creator’ Bonnie Blue (real name: Tia Billinger, 26, Derbyshire) prepares to beat…
Be warned: the new Naked Gun is actually funny
As the lights went down for The Naked Gun – the ‘legacy sequel’ to the spoof cop franchise – I…
One of the best productions of Giselle I have ever seen
Giselle is my favourite among the 19th-century classics. Blessed with a charming score by the melodically fertile Adolphe Adam and…
Pacy, fast-moving and graphically lavish: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 reviewed
Grade: B+ Tony Hawk is an old guy these days. The most famous sk8r boi ever to have lived is…
Edinburgh Fringe’s war on comedy
Every day my inbox fills with stories of panic, madness and despair. The Edinburgh Fringe is upon us and the…
Why I don’t get the blues
The Louisiana bluesman Buddy Guy is releasing a new album this week. It is called Ain’t Done With The Blues…
The demise of South Park
President Trump has a very small willy. His boyfriend is Satan. He’s a con man who will sue you for…
Three cheers for the Three Choirs Festival
The Welsh composer William Mathias died in 1992, aged 57. I was a teenager at the time, and the loss…
