Arts
Angst and cant
What if? is the engine of every great story. What if the toys came to life when their owner left…
Valda Wilson as Theodora
Mostly I’m more interested in what is to come than in what’s already been, but I have let my mind…
Question time
If you were to see one film about American whistle-blower Edward Snowden — there is no law saying you have…
O come, let us adore him
On 27 July 1613 a man prostrated himself in the church of San Pedro Mártir in Toledo, having first made…
O come, let us adore him
On 27 July 1613 a man prostrated himself in the church of San Pedro Mártir in Toledo, having first made…
Question time
If you were to see one film about American whistle-blower Edward Snowden — there is no law saying you have…
Brahms’s benders
‘Brahms and Liszt’ is a lovely bit of rhyming slang, but it doesn’t have the ring of authenticity. Can you…
Brahms’s benders
‘Brahms and Liszt’ is a lovely bit of rhyming slang, but it doesn’t have the ring of authenticity. Can you…
Angst and cant
What if? is the engine of every great story. What if the toys came to life when their owner left…
Angst and cant
What if? is the engine of every great story. What if the toys came to life when their owner left…
Gardeners’ world
For the past few weeks I have been working my way through Decca’s gigantic set of every note Mozart wrote…
Gardeners’ world
For the past few weeks I have been working my way through Decca’s gigantic set of every note Mozart wrote…
Northern exposure
In this season of watching and waiting as we approach Christmas and year’s end, radio has a precious role. At…
Northern exposure
In this season of watching and waiting as we approach Christmas and year’s end, radio has a precious role. At…
Cosy catastrophe
When I was a child in the 1970s, the two big excitements of the run-up to Christmas were first the…
Arthur Streeton And the Sunlight Clasps the Earth 1895
Last week you could have done some Christmas shopping at the Mossgreen and Sotheby’s art auctions in Sydney. You might…
Instant gratification
Instant photography already existed long before Edwin Land, the ingenious inventor and founder of Polaroid, went for a walk with…
No peace, no pussy
The bizarro concept of a ‘President-elect Trump’ came to pass despite the wishes, clearly stated on the stump, of the…
Trivial pursuits
Robert Rauschenberg, like Autolycus in The Winter’s Tale, was a ‘snapper-up of unconsidered trifles’. Unlike Shakespeare’s character, however, he made…
All I want for Christmas
Comfort and joy. That’s what the song talks about, and that’s what the classic Christmas movies deliver. Whether it’s Die…
Audience with the King
Elvis Aron Presley departed this world on 16 August, 1977. Even if you delight in conspiracy theories and believe the…
From first to last
As the dreaded season of goodwill approaches, the Royal Opera has mounted two revivals of pieces that are interestingly contrasted:…
On the road
‘We’re going to get lots of negative attention from environmentalists,’ he cackled, great puffs of blue-grey smoke emerging from the…
Closing credits
BBC1’s The Missing has been one of the undoubted TV highlights of 2016. Yet, even thrillers as overwhelmingly thrilling as…
Of ice and men
An ice floe. Two anglers. Months to kill. That’s the premise of Nice Fish by Mark Rylance and Louis Jenkins.…
