Arts
Face value
When Richard III’s bones were unearthed in a Leicester car park, Frankie Boyle suggested the headline ‘Bent royal found at…
Face value
When Richard III’s bones were unearthed in a Leicester car park, Frankie Boyle suggested the headline ‘Bent royal found at…
Madeleine moments
I’d just heard (on catch-up) Jenny Abramsky (a former director of BBC radio) telling Gillian Reynolds (the esteemed radio critic…
Madeleine moments
I’d just heard (on catch-up) Jenny Abramsky (a former director of BBC radio) telling Gillian Reynolds (the esteemed radio critic…
Piers Lane
David Speers was irritated when Bronwyn Bishop spoke about the Sydney International Piano Competition when he wanted her to dish…
Split decision
In 1992 I wrote a column that was published under the headline ‘It’s Time to Split the Tate’. To my…
Out of this world
It is London in the summer of 1871. Queen Victoria has just opened the Royal Albert Hall in memory of…
Highly illogical
Matteo Garrone’s first English-language film is a baroque fantasy based on Pentamerone (Tale of Tales), the 17th-century collection of fairy…
Swan upping
Was Tamara Rojo, when she danced Swan Lake last Saturday at the Albert Hall, thinking as she shaped each phrase,…
I dream of Genie
Gauche, perhaps, to complain about Aladdin but it slightly deserves it. The terrific Genie opens the show and then disappears…
I dream of Genie
Gauche, perhaps, to complain about Aladdin but it slightly deserves it. The terrific Genie opens the show and then disappears…
Wardrobe malfunction
It is at the Coliseum that I have seen the most wonderful Tristan and Isoldes of my life, both of…
Wardrobe malfunction
It is at the Coliseum that I have seen the most wonderful Tristan and Isoldes of my life, both of…
Women of substance
Three women, three writers, three very different life experiences. On Monday afternoon the artist Fiona Graham-Mackay introduced us to Imtiaz…
Women of substance
Three women, three writers, three very different life experiences. On Monday afternoon the artist Fiona Graham-Mackay introduced us to Imtiaz…
My big fat Gypsy fortune
In his latest documentary for the This World series, the Romanian film-maker Liviu Tipurita could have been forgiven for treading…
Conductor Antony Walker
He was the most successful and influential composer of the classical period; Josef Haydn (1732-1809) wrote 108 symphonies, 68 string…
These foolish things
No reliable statistics exist — it’s not the sort of thing you can audit — but England is surely the…
The lost world
Every now and then, with great infrequency (alas), a film comes along that is like no other and completely knocks…
Let’s talk about sex
At one time, Damien Hirst was fond of remarking that art should deal with the Gauguin questions. Namely, ‘Where do…
Doing bird
A decade ago, the French pianist and poly-math Pierre-Laurent Aimard announced that he was ‘very bored to live in a…
Doing bird
A decade ago, the French pianist and poly-math Pierre-Laurent Aimard announced that he was ‘very bored to live in a…
Profit and loss
Bertolt Brecht took The Threepenny Opera from an 18th-century script by John Gay and relocated it to Victorian London. This…
Profit and loss
Bertolt Brecht took The Threepenny Opera from an 18th-century script by John Gay and relocated it to Victorian London. This…
No laughing matter
Rossini is the meat-and-two-inappropriately-shaped-veg of summer opera; he’s the wag in the novelty bow tie, the two satyrs shagging enthusiastically…
