Arts
Why I’m addicted to Australian MasterChef
Why is Australian MasterChef so much better than the English version? You’d think, with a population less than a third…
Mildly pleasant 1980s hard rock: ‘Angry’, by the Rolling Stones, reviewed
The new Rolling Stones single, supposedly their best in many a decade, is called ‘Angry’. And while on the surface…
Someone stop Kenneth Branagh: A Haunting in Venice reviewed
A Haunting in Venice is Kenneth Branagh’s third Poirot film (after Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the…
Why is Frans Hals still not considered the equal of Rembrandt?
Why is Frans Hals still not considered the equal of Rembrandt, asks Craig Raine
Poets don’t stink
The Australian Book Review poetry prize is upon us again and it’s worth mentioning that the ABR editor Peter Rose,…
Lyrical and dreamlike: A World of Private Mystery – British Neo-Romantics, at the Fry Art Gallery, reviewed
‘My daughter’s moving to Saffron Walden, away from all this,’ said the railway man at Stratford station, gesturing at the…
Lacks any air of mystery, foreboding or darkness: Macbeth, at the Globe, reviewed
Macbeth at the Globe wants to put us at our ease and make us feel comfortable with the play’s arcane…
The best new album I’ve heard this year: Being Dead’s When Horses Would Run reviewed
Grade: A– The point of a sudden, abrupt change in the time signature and instrumentation of a song is to…
Subtle, psychologically twisty drama: BBC3’s Bad Behaviour reviewed
Bad Behaviour is a decidedly solemn new Australian drama series with plenty to be solemn about. It was billed in…
The Strokes are always terrible – why do I keep going back to see them?
Quite when the concept of coolness became a thing is uncertain, even to etymologists. As early as 1884, an academic…
Every crumb of Kurtag’s music is a feast: Endgame, at the Proms, reviewed
The fun starts early in Beckett’s Endgame. Within minutes of opening his mouth, blind bully Hamm decides to starve his…
A euphoric meat-and-two-veg programme: Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich/Paavo Jarvi, at the Proms, reviewed
We used to call it a ‘meat and two veg’ programme, back in my concert planning days: the reliable set…
The best drama without any drama that you’ll see: Past Lives reviewed
Past Lives is an exquisite film made with great precision and care about what could have been, even if what…
‘People thought I was insane’: Graham Nash on the birth of Crosby, Stills and Nash
Adam Sweeting talks to Graham Nash about Joni Mitchell, the Hollies and the birth of Crosby, Stills and Nash in the Laurel Canyon idyll of the 1960s
Everybody’s friend
It was cheering in its way to hear, from the lips of that shrewd urbane man Tony Burke, that 246…
Doesn’t get better than this: The Threepenny Opera, at Edinburgh International Festival, reviewed
It’s the Edinburgh International Festival, and Barrie’s back in town. Once, Edinburgh was pretty much the only place that you…
Invention and irreverence: Lankum, at The Queen’s Hall, reviewed
In a few days, Lankum will most likely win the 2023 Mercury Music Prize for their fourth album False Lankum…
The rise of vampirism in Silicon Valley
The Immortals, which begins on Radio 4 this week, is not for the faint-hearted. While it professes to be about…
Depardieu’s Maigret is the best yet: Maigret reviewed
Georges Simenon’s lugubrious detective Maigret has appeared in umpteen screen adaptations and dozens of actors have played him. Now it’s…
The greatest artist chronicler of our times: Grayson Perry, at the Edinburgh Art Festival, reviewed
The busiest show in Edinburgh must be Grayson Perry: Smash Hits which, a month into its run, still has people…
Like an episode of Play School: Dr Semmelweis, at the Harold Pinter Theatre, reviewed
Bleach and germs are the central themes of Dr Semmelweis, written by Mark Rylance and Stephen Brown. The opening scene,…
Fast cars, minimalist design and en suite bathrooms: the real Rachmaninoff
Fast cars, minimalist design and en suite bathrooms: Richard Bratby visits the composer’s starkly modern Swiss home
The masterful technique
Isn’t it weird to hear reports of eminent curators at the British Museum leaving because various priceless artworks (often of…
At the Science Gallery I argued with a robot about love and Rilke
A little-known fact about the Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument, the first sampling synthesiser, introduced in 1979, is that it incorporated…
