Arts
Losing heart
In 2015, the first series of Humans (Sunday) was apparently Channel 4’s most watched home grown drama since The Camomile…
Napoleon dynamite
I shall never forget my first encounter with Abel Gance’s Napoleon. I saw it under the most unpromising circumstances —…
Just kidding
Amadeus by Peter Shaffer is haunted by its own antecedents. Viewers are apt to feel that a new production lacks…
Napoleon dynamite
I shall never forget my first encounter with Abel Gance’s Napoleon. I saw it under the most unpromising circumstances —…
Heaven knows they’re miserable now
The Light Between Oceans is one of those films that comes issued with a handy how-to-use manual. Shudder as hero…
Mistaken identity
The Romanovs were a hot topic in 1967: it was the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, memories of Ingrid…
Enigma variations
On 2 August 1933 one of the more improbable meetings of the 20th century took place when Albert Einstein had…
Just kidding
Amadeus by Peter Shaffer is haunted by its own antecedents. Viewers are apt to feel that a new production lacks…
Just kidding
Amadeus by Peter Shaffer is haunted by its own antecedents. Viewers are apt to feel that a new production lacks…
Buried treasure
Wexford is to opera-goers what casinos are to gamblers. The uncertainty, the hope, the exhilaration — they’re all a crucial…
Buried treasure
Wexford is to opera-goers what casinos are to gamblers. The uncertainty, the hope, the exhilaration — they’re all a crucial…
Music matters
There’s nothing new about Radio 3 tearing up the schedules, temporarily abandoning regular favourites such as Private Passions, The Early…
Music matters
There’s nothing new about Radio 3 tearing up the schedules, temporarily abandoning regular favourites such as Private Passions, The Early…
Losing heart
In 2015, the first series of Humans (Sunday) was apparently Channel 4’s most watched home grown drama since The Camomile…
Contours of the mind
In Australia, I have been told, the female pubic area is sometimes known as a ‘mapatasi’ because its triangular shape…
Net effect
As a documentary-maker, Werner Herzog is a master of tone. His widely parodied voiceovers — breathy, raspy, ominous — are…
Halloween hire
To use a vulgar phrase, I can’t get my head around this exhibition. It seems anything but ‘vulgar’. Daintily laid…
Romantic modern
In 1932 Paul Nash posed the question, is it possible to ‘go modern’ and still ‘be British?’ — a conundrum…
Going Dutch
In debates about what should and should not be taught in art school, the subject of survival skills almost never…
A night at the circus
The Royal Opera’s latest production is Shostakovich’s The Nose and to paraphrase Mark Steyn, whatever else can be said about…
Identity crisis
You may not listen to them every year. Or even to every lecture in the current series. But the survival…
March of the makers
Until earlier this year, a squat sculpture nestled rather unobtrusively outside 20 Manchester Square in Marylebone, an address once made…
The lying game
‘Adam Curtis believed that 200,000 Guardian readers watching BBC2 could change the world. But this was a fantasy. In fact,…
Sweet and sour
Great subject, terminal illness. Popular dramas like Love Story, Terms of Endearment and My Night With Reg handle the issue…
La Belle Époque
Farce is a difficult theatrical form to write and to stage successfully. Farce operates beyond reality; a farce must establish…
