Arts
Space odyssey
Rachel Whiteread is an indefatigable explorer of internal space. By turning humble items such as hot-water bottles and sinks inside…
Face time
The inimitably pukka voice of Jacob Rees-Mogg echoed through Radio 4 on Thursday morning. He was not, though, talking about…
Rockies horror show
Tin Star, the latest Sky Atlantic drama, has a comfortingly familiar premise: Jim Worth (Tim Roth), an ex-detective from London…
Northern rock
A fortnight ago, the debut album by a young British guitar band entered the chart at No. 6. You might…
DIY Bohème
The Royal Opera’s one production that, it has always confidently been claimed, need never be replaced has been replaced. John…
Age concern
Stephen Sondheim’s Follies takes a huge leap into the past. It’s 1971 and we meet two middle-aged couples who knew…
Vivica Genaux
Founded in 2002, Pinchgut Opera has presented 19 rarely performed works with such distinction that its audience has grown along…
Art of darkness
Stephen King, 69, has sold more than 350 million books, and tries not to apologise for being working-class, or imaginative,…
Bowled over by Bruckner
The two Proms concerts given on consecutive evenings by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra were well planned: a short opening work,…
The National: Sleep Well Beast
Grade: A– There are plenty of websites where fans try to discern, without any success, what in the name of…
Made in Port Talbot
Port Talbot, on the coast of South Wales, is literally overlooked. Most experience the town while flying over it on…
Male order
The starting point for Taylor Sheridan’s crime-thriller Wind River is explicitly stated at the end when the following words come…
The listening project
As Classic FM celebrated its quarter-century on Wednesday with not a recording but a live broadcast of a concert from…
Second thoughts
I had planned to review David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s new Channel 4 sitcom Back without constantly referring to their…
Keeping it in the family
A new orthodoxy governs the casting process in Hollywood. An actor’s ethnicity must match the character’s. If you extend this…
Anne-Sophie Mutter
These are good times for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Chief Conductor Davis Robertson announced a glamorous 2018 Season. The Board…
Silent films
On 15 September 1888 Vincent van Gogh was intrigued to read an account of an up-to-date artist’s house in the…
Viennese whirl
‘First performance: Vienna, October 3, 1880’ declares the programme for Opera della Luna’s new production of Johann Strauss’s The Queen’s…
Marion Hall Best in Marimekko, 1968
Her shop was one of the glories of Rowe Street, itself one of the glories of old Sydney, before it…
Moral maze
Una is a psychological drama about a woman who was abused by a man when she was 12, and who…
Snap, crackle and op
Stand in front of ‘Fall’, a painting by Bridget Riley from 1963, and the world begins to quiver and dissolve.…
Straight to hell
No, The State (Channel 4) wasn’t a recruiting manual for the Islamic State, though I did feel uneasy about it…
Animal or vegetable?
Against by Christopher Shinn sets out to unlock the secrets of America’s spiritual malaise. Two main settings represent the wealthy…
‘Smile, segue and shut up’
Three weeks before Classic FM launched, I was on the radio in Hong Kong, introducing hits by Rick Astley and…
Moor and more
In 1824 an ambitious teenage actor fled to England from his native New York where he had been beaten up…
