Arts
Chance would be a fine thing
It’s been a turbulent year, and not just in the outside world. Inside radio, digital is changing not just when…
Weird and wonderful
As you’ve probably noticed, TV critics spend a lot of their time trying to identify which other programmes the one…
Deplorable entertainment
Buried Child is a typical Sam Shepard play. The main character, Dodge, is a brain-damaged alcoholic cripple stuck in a…
Royal Opera House production of King Roger
Soon after the Norman Conquest of England (1066 and all that) Count Roger Hauteville of Normandy took control of Sicily.…
Apocalypse now
Gerald Barry loved playing organ for Protestants as they allowed him a lie in. Then they found out he wasn’t…
Apocalypse now
Gerald Barry loved playing organ for Protestants as they allowed him a lie in. Then they found out he wasn’t…
Brahms’s benders
‘Brahms and Liszt’ is a lovely bit of rhyming slang, but it doesn’t have the ring of authenticity. Can you…
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…
Cosy catastrophe
When I was a child in the 1970s, the two big excitements of the run-up to Christmas were first the…
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…

























