Arts
Forget Robin Hood and Girl in the Spider’s Web – Shoplifters is the film to see this week
The major releases this week are Robin Hood, as a big Hollywood retelling, and The Girl in the Spider’s Web,…
They. Cannot. Write. Songs: Mumford & Sons reviewed
Grade: D+ I promise you this isn’t simply class loathing. Yer toffs have contributed to British rock and pop and…
Richard Tognetti and the ACO
As leader of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Richard Tognetti has never done quite what was expected, other than to be…
The facts – and fiction – of piracy
Avast there, scurvy dogs! For a nation founded on piracy (the privateer Sir Francis Drake swelled the exchequer by raiding…
A charming celebration of Vuillard’s muse – his mum: Barber Institute’s Maman reviewed
Fin-de-siècle Paris was not just the art capital of the world, it was also the fashion capital. In 1901, 300,000…
Britten’s War Requiem almost sounded like a masterpiece – but it’s isn’t, is it?
‘What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?’ We’ve heard a lot, lately, of the knell that tolls through the…
What does the commonplace cruelty of Red Dead Redemption say about our times?
Every era has its western. For 30 years, from The Big Trail through to The Searchers, John Wayne reigned supreme…
Radio 3 had the most simple yet effective way of reflecting on war’s impact
Amid all the remembrance, Radio 3 came up with a simple yet effective way of reflecting on war’s impact. Threaded…
Lorenzo Lotto’s 16th century portraits come startlingly close to photography
You can, perhaps, glimpse Lorenzo Lotto himself in the National Gallery’s marvellous exhibition, Lorenzo Lotto: Portraits. At the base of…
To say this is a ‘once in a generation’ exhibition seems absurdly modest
‘The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians; between these two means of death…
How does David Attenborough know what the monkeys are thinking?
The opening episode of BBC1’s Dynasties — the new Attenborough-fronted series from the Natural History Unit — introduced us to…
The ideal album for getting rid of guests over Christmas: Yoko Ono’s Warzone reviewed
Grade: A+ Ooh, you can have some fun with this when the unwanted guests swing by this Christmastide. These are…
A mess: Fantastic Beasts reviewed
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is the sequel to the Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find…
Lee Evans’s acrobatic clowning is the best thing about Pinter Three
Pinter Three appeals to opposite poles of the play-going spectrum. The birdbrains like me will enjoy the music-hall sketches while…
Helen Thomson and Caroline Brazier
By my count, the 2019 Season will be the 40th produced by the Sydney Theatre Company. The coming season is…
For the sake of art as much as society, it’s time to stop remembering the war
A cascade of poppies falls from ‘weeping windows’ across Britain. A 50-metre drawing of Wilfred Owen appears in the sand,…
One of the best plays I’ve ever seen: I and You at the Hampstead Theatre reviewed
Lauren Gunderson’s play I and You opens in the scruffy bedroom of 17-year-old Caroline. Lonely, beautiful and furious, she’s unable…
Like today’s conceptual artists, Burne-Jones was more interested in ideas than paint
‘I want big things to do and vast spaces,’ Edward Burne-Jones wrote to his wife Georgiana in the 1870s. ‘And…
Thanks to Making a Murderer, Wisconsin’s bovine incompetence has been exposed
I wonder if Wisconsin has any idea what an international embarrassment it has become? By rights it ought to be…
When the first world war ended, many soldiers were left with ‘a terrible empty feeling’
‘It was so unreal,’ said one of the first world war veterans about the long-awaited Armistice. It was the most…
Why David Byrne deserves every penny he makes from his tour
Let’s get the ‘was-it-good?’ stuff out of the way first. Yes, it was good. It was better than good. It…
Exquisite and riveting: Wildlife reviewed
Wildlife is an adaptation of the 1990 novel by Richard Ford about a family coming apart at the seams, and…
One of the last living avant-gardists speaks – Gyorgy Kurtag on his new Beckett opera
Arriving in Budapest, I receive a summons I cannot refuse. Gyorgy Kurtag wants to see me. Famously elusive, the last…
There’s nothing radical about Mike Leigh’s films
So there I was in Soho Square on a cold and rainy morning, nibbling my complimentary almond croissant and eagerly…
Nadine Garner
As the most subscribed theatre company in the country, the Melbourne Theatre Company can be deservedly proud of its long…
