Arts
Literate and sensitive romance: Falling Into Place reviewed
Falling Into Place is a love story written by Aylin Tezel, directed by Aylin Tezel, and starring Aylin Tezel. That’s…
The gloriously impure world of Edward Burra
Every few years the shade of Edward Burra is treated to a Major Retrospective. The pattern is long established: Edward…
Compelling: Little Simz’s Lotus reviewed
It is not uncommon for (predominantly male) music critics to invert the ‘great man/great woman’ dictum in order to suggest…
Thrilling: Garsington’s Queen of Spades reviewed
Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades is one of those operas that under-promises on paper but over-delivers on stage. It’s hard…
Excruciating: Sirens reviewed
You had a narrow escape this week. I was about to urge you to watch Sirens, the latest iteration of…
Provocative, verbose and humourless: Mrs Warren’s Profession reviewed
George Bernard Shaw’s provocative play Mrs Warren’s Profession examines the moral hypocrisy of the moneyed classes. It opens with a…
Craggy man of integrity
Sometimes you’re just too clapped out to attend the most sparkling bit of theatre and so it was for your…
A lovely album: Saint Leonard’s The Golden Hour reviewed
Grade: A+ The kids with their synths and hip producers, dragging the 1980s back: I wish they would stop. It…
Fascinating royal clutter: The Edwardians, at The King’s Gallery, reviewed
The Royal Collection Trust has had a rummage in the attic and produced a fascinating show. Displayed in the palatial…
A remarkable story: The Salt Path reviewed
The Salt Path is an adaptation of the best-selling book by Raynor Winn. It tells the true story of how…
Sincere, serious and beautiful: Glyndebourne’s Parsifal reviewed
‘Here time becomes space,’ says Gurnemanz in Act One of Parsifal, and true enough, the end of the new Glyndebourne…
Why is the BBC making stuff up about Jane Austen?
Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius began by saying that ‘getting into her mind isn’t easy’ – something you’d never…
Everyone should see the Globe’s brilliant new production of The Crucible
Sanity returns to the Globe. Recent modern-dress productions have failed to make use of the theatre’s virtues as a historical…
Those remaking Threads mustn’t soften the horror
I was 11 years old when I saw the mushroom cloud go up but this wasn’t Hiroshima or Nagasaki in…
Museums: open up your vaults!
At any one time eighty per cent of the art owned by Britain’s many museums and public art galleries will…
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…
