Arts
Olafur Eliasson’s art is both futuristic and completely traditional – which is why I love it
Superficially, the Olafur Eliasson exhibition at Tate Modern can seem like a theme park. To enter many of the exhibits,…
If you’re a white middle-aged male, Ramblin’ Man Fair is the festival for you
Last weekend, in a pleasant park outside Maidstone, a most unusual rock festival took place. For one thing, it was…
Uncomfortable and distasteful: Marianne & Leonard reviewed
Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love is Nick Broomfield’s documentary chronicling the muse-artist relationship between Marianne Ihlen and Leonard Cohen.…
King’s College choristers at ease
It was a beautiful autumn morning when we went up to Cambridge for a meeting at King’s College. Christopher Hogwood…
From the NHS to Bayreuth: Norman Lebrecht talks to midwife-turned-opera singer Catherine Foster
Every summer for the past six years, Bayreuth has risen to its feet to acclaim an English Brünnhilde. Catherine Foster,…
A brief history of tea
It had to happen. Since almost everything became either ‘artisan’ or ‘curated’, conditions have been ripe for a curator of…
A sonic masterclass: the Silesian String Quartet at Wigmore Hall reviewed
Of all the daft notions about the classical music business, the daftest is that it’s a business at all. Seriously:…
Pure hagiography – the BBC’s Extinction Rebellion: Last Chance To Save The World?
I’m beginning to feel like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers: almost the last person on Earth who…
How to talk to astronauts
Television has the pictures but the most spine-tingling moments in the recordings from the Apollo space missions are the bursts…
The greatest actor in the world couldn’t salvage David Hare’s batty adaptation: Peer Gynt reviewed
The National Theatre’s boss, Rufus Norris, has confessed that he ‘took his eye off the ball’ when it came to…
Completely and utterly and entirely blown away: the Lion King reviewed
The Lion King is Disney’s photorealistic CGI remake of the beloved, hand-drawn 1994 original that, for many children, offered a…
Paul Dyer conducting the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
Only a person who is more or less my age can have a direct recollection of the 1953 coronation of…
‘It could be a disaster’: Jim Broadbent talks to Stuart Jeffries about his latest role
‘I live completely anonymously,’ whispers Jim Broadbent down the phone from Lincolnshire. Nonsense, I counter. You’re one of the most…
Full of wonders: Takis at Tate Modern reviewed
Steel flowers bend in a ‘breeze’ generated by magnetic pendulums. This is the first thing you see as you enter…
A cartoonish look at migration: Europe at the Donmar reviewed
Europe. Big word. Big theme. It was used by David Greig as the title of his 1994 play about frontiers…
Steve Bannon will be thrilled by The Brink
The Brink is Alison Klayman’s documentary portrait of Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist (he shaped the ‘America First’…
Deft, elegant and genuinely chilling: Garsington’s Turn of the Screw reviewed
Think of the children in opera. Not knowing sopranos and mezzos, pigtailed and pinafored or tightly trousered-up to look child-like,…
You leave awe-struck but also a bit frazzled: Holland Festival’s Aus Licht reviewed
In Stockhausen’s Klavierstück XI hands become fists, arms and elbows clubs, shoving, pounding and ker-pow-ing the keyboard to near oblivion.…
An important story but not for the faint-hearted: Deadliest Day podcast reviewed
One of the advantages that podcasts have over the scheduled array of programmes is the space that can be given…
Reminds you how uncomplicatedly thrilling the first moon landing was: BBC2’s 8 Days reviewed
As the title suggests, 8 Days: To the Moon and Back (BBC2, Wednesday) comprehensively disproved the always questionable idea put…
Shakespeare in Love
For centuries plays have been derived from novels, myths and legends but only recently have we become used to plays…
The women who invented collage – long before Picasso and co.
The art-history books will tell you that sometime around 1912, Picasso invented collage, or, actually, perhaps it was Braque. What…
Testosterone and passion: Royal Opera’s Marriage of Figaro reviewed
Another turn around the block for David McVicar’s handsome 1830s Figaro at the Royal Opera — the sixth since the…
Kanye wipes the floor with David Letterman
My plan to cut the BBC out of my life entirely is working well. Apart from the occasional forgivable lapse…
No masterpieces but there are beautiful touches: Félix Vallotton at the RA reviewed
Félix Vallotton (1865–1925) was a member of the Nabis (the Prophets), a problematically loose agglomeration of painters, inspired by Gauguin…
