Arts
Internal affairs
Over 20 years ago I wrote about Giambattista Tiepolo in The Spectator. Shortly afterwards I went to visit Howard Hodgkin…
Hide and seek
Two films for you this week, one of which is surprisingly good and one of which does not surprise in…
Going underground
When Wireless Nights hit the Radio 4 airwaves in the spring of 2012, I was not at all sure about…
Let’s hear it for the boys
Girls creator Lena Dunham has received criticism from all sides. Detractors on the right see her as an exhibitionist provocateur.…
Beyond belief
As we know from all those newspaper articles and actress interviews, there’s a scandalous lack of high-profile British TV dramas…
All’s well that ends well
There’s a moment in the finale of Beethoven’s Appassionata sonata when the frenzied piano writing turns unexpectedly jolly. The late…
Denial has rarely looked so good
Ceci n’est pas une Partenope. Forget the warring classical kingdoms of Naples and Cumae: this is surrealist Paris in the…
Royal prerogative
No one should complain that My Country; a work in progress is a grim night out. It’s rare for a…
Michael Parekowhai The English Channel, 2015 stainless steel, 257 x 166 x 158 cm.
Australians have a proprietorial interest in Captain James Cook but of course he belongs to the whole world. That is…
The odd couple
Only once did Michelangelo sign a sculpture. It was the ‘Pietà’ of 1497–1500, and he did so using an incomplete…
Got the message?
To cut to the chase, my ten-year-old daughter really liked Beauty and the Beast. And given you’re probably going to…
Mirror, mirror
The exit signs were switched off and the stalls were in utter darkness. One by one, 15 invisible dancers, their…
His dark materials
The enticingly subversive films of Paul Verhoeven were very tempting to me as a schoolboy. When I hit 14, the…
Tail-end Terry
It is often said that Terence Rattigan’s ‘thing’ was his homosexuality and that his disguising of it coloured everything he…
Ersatz erudition
Harry Potter, who uses the stage name Daniel Radcliffe, is a producer’s delight. By now it’s becoming clear that the…
Fatal distraction
I don’t think that I have left a theatre many times feeling as depressed and irritated as after the Royal…
A matter of life and death
It was the crime story that showed us just how much China has changed since its years of social, political…
Tapestry in progress: Gordian Knot, 2016
For a creative arts organisation to operate successfully in Australia for 40 years is an achievement in itself. The Australian…
To die for
Down the Mighty River with Steve Backshall (BBC2) was perfect Sunday-night TV — one of the most enjoyable adventure travelogues…
Paradise lost
The American dream was a consumerist idyll: all of life was to be packaged, stylised, affordable and improvable. Three bedrooms,…
Victim mentality
Elle has been described as ‘a rape revenge comedy’, which seems unlikely, and also as ‘post-feminist’, which is likely as,…
Home help
There have been many explanations for what happened in the Italian Renaissance. Some stress the revival of classical antiquity, others…
Scottish power
‘Perhaps in this world nothing ever happens without purpose,’ sings old, blind King Arkel in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, and…
Keeping the faith
Perhaps surprisingly, in these secular times, Radio 4 keeps up its annual (and very Reithian) tradition of holding a series…
On the money
Fans of tough investigative journalism should probably avoid Channel 4’s How’d You Get So Rich? Presenter Katherine Ryan’s main tactic…
