Arts
Killing time
Jez Butterworth’s new play The Ferryman is set in Armagh in 1981. Quinn, a former terrorist, has swapped the armed…
A method to his madness
His cartoons were semi-serious responses to societal problems, as this extract from Adam Hart-Davis’s new book shows
Bingeing on Bach
Coined in 1944, ‘completism’ is a modern term for a modern-day obsession. What began as a phenomenon of possession —…
Teenage kicks
Imagine living in a country where the average age is under 16 (in the UK it’s currently 40 and increasing)…
Serial offenders
Since completing season two of the brilliant Narcos, I’ve been unsuccessfully looking for a replacement serial drama that is more…
Blondie: Pollinator
Ah, Blondie. Those happy days of glorious power pop, chilly disco and rich, fruity vocals — Debbie Harry yearning away…
Secrets and spies
Spare a thought for Emil Gilels, still revered today by Russians as the foremost pianist of the Soviet era. The…
Mild things
English Touring Opera is playing safe this spring, with Tosca and Patience, and was rewarded, in Cambridge at least, with…
Sins of the flesh
Obsession at the Barbican has a complicated provenance. The experimental Belgian director Ivo van Hove adapted the show from a…
Elioth Gruner 1882-1939
Last week I lunched at the Coogee Pavilion on the most perfect day. The scene before me was almost identical…
Remembrance of things past
If you want to appreciate why the return of Twin Peaks is so significant, then you need to know something…
Farming today
There are bigger entities landing at your local multiplex this week. An ancient indestructible franchise is re-re-(re-)booted in Alien: Covenant.…
Animal magnetism
Picasso had a thing for bulls. Martin Gayford talks to the artist’s friend and biographer. Sir John Richardson about a lifelong obsession
Animal magnetism
‘I frequently went to bullfights with Picasso,’ Sir John Richardson remarked, quite casually, as he showed me around the exhibition…
Stand and deliver
Some opera-lovers prefer concert performances to full stagings. I don’t. It’s that whole Gesamtkunstwerk thing: opera needs to be seen…
Masonic bodge
Left-wing groupie Paul Mason has written a costume drama about the suppression of the Paris commune in 1871. We meet…
Alexander Campbell
Inheriting abilities from one’s parents is one of the happy accidents of birth. A remarkable example of inheritance of exceptional…
The unhappy Prince
A tragic flaw is one thing — every hero should have one — but Mayerling’s Rudolf, a syphilitic drug addict…
Dome truths
It was 50 years ago today, Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play. The result was a popular masterpiece. Thirty…
Thatcher’s Britain with her knickers down
Two 16-year-old schoolgirls from a sink estate in Bradford find fun and happiness by shacking up with a middle-aged married…
Put a spell on you
Many of the mediums from which art is made have been around for a long time. People have been painting…
Discovery channels
Bashing the BBC often becomes a popular blood sport in times of political instability, and especially if the left is…
Arms race
Like most documentaries, Britain’s Nuclear Bomb: The Inside Story (BBC4, Wednesday) began by boasting about all the exclusives it would…
Beyond comprehension
The London Philharmonic Orchestra’s ‘Belief and Beyond Belief’ season is drawing to a close, without making it in any degree…
Isaiah Firebrace (centre) with Myf Warhurst and Joel Creasy
It’s been going since 1956. The 62nd season of the Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Kiev, Ukraine, starts…
