Arts
The best radio at the moment is on the BBC World Service
Online viewings of Conclave increased threefold following the death of Pope Francis last month. At least some of the traffic…
Anyone irritated by Springsteen’s speeches hasn’t been paying attention
No one who went to see Bruce Springsteen’s Broadway residency a few years back came away disappointed because they knew…
Beautifully played
Who would have thought? The arena concert version of Les Miserables, Claude Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil’s sung-through extravaganza is…
We’ve underestimated Francis Rossi
I have a friend who insists that had Status Quo hailed from Düsseldorf rather than Catford, they would nowadays be…
Architecture has hit a nadir at the Venice Biennale
Much of Venice’s Giardini this year was as boarded up as a British high street. The Israeli pavilion was empty,…
If you are of a certain age, you’ll really enjoy Tina Fey’s The Four Seasons
The Four Seasons is one of those shows you notice in the ‘Top TV Programmes on Netflix’ section, see it’s…
Christopher Wheeldon’s real gifts lie in abstract dance
Christopher Wheeldon must be one of the most steadily productive and widely popular figures in today’s dance world, but I’m…
Wes Anderson’s latest is as hollow as anything AI could come up with
AI is coming for everyone’s jobs, but especially mine. There is absolutely no good reason for The Spectator to keep…
Magnificent: The Deep Blue Sea, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, reviewed
Richard Bean appears to be Hampstead Theatre’s in-house dramatist, and his new effort, House of Games, is based on a…
The forgotten story of British opera
British opera was born with Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and then vanished for two-and-a-half centuries, apparently. Between the first performance…
Cinema has reached a nadir in the new Mission: Impossible
You have to time your arrival at cinemas carefully if you want to avoid the high-volume, rapid-fire edits of trailers…
Dark lowering road
Bill Henson, the greatest Australian photographer, has a show at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery at 6pm Friday 16 May. It’s…
Better than Hollywood: Netflix’s The Eternaut reviewed
‘Next time you do a review, you’ve got to find something you like. You’ve been far too negative,’ said the…
Our half-time scorecard on the Royal Opera’s Ring cycle
With Die Walküre, the central themes of Barrie Kosky’s Ring cycle for the Royal Opera are starting to emerge, and…
Decent redesign, ravishing rehang: the new-look National Gallery reviewed
A little under a year ago, it emerged that builders working on the redevelopment of the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing…
Tantalisingly ambiguous – or just plain baffling: Hallow Road reviewed
An 80-minute film which for almost all of the time features two people in a car mightn’t sound particularly ambitious.…
Budget Ballets Russes: BRB2’s Diaghilev and the Birth of Modern Ballet reviewed
Although I doff my hat to Carlos Acosta’s BRB2, Birmingham Royal Ballet’s junior troupe, for a reminder of what is…
Two hours of yakking about Israel: Giant, at the Harold Pinter Theatre, reviewed
Two hours of yakking about Israel. That’s all you get from Giant at the Harold Pinter Theatre. Endless wittering laced…
The odd couple: Austen and Turner at 250
History is full of odd couples: famous but unrelated people who happen to have been born in the same year.…
I think I’ve found the new Van Morrison
Young male singers won the right to be sensitive in 1963, when The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was released. And in…
A need for abasement
We sometimes forget how much opera provides a captivating alternative to classic drama but this was written all over Opera…
Delightful nostalgia for political wonks: The Gang of Three, at the King’s Head Theatre, reviewed
The Gang of Three gets into the nitty-gritty of Labour politics in the 1970s. It opens with the resignation of…
How tech ruined theatre
Poor John Dennis. In 1709, the playwright devised a novel technology to simulate thunder to accompany his drama Appius and…
The repetitiveness made me cry with boredom: Mark Pritchard and Thom Yorke’s Tall Tales reviewed
Grade: B+ You are in the wrong hands here for what is a homage to this duo’s favourite electronic music.…
