Arts
Barbara Hannigan needs to stop conducting while singing
Last week, Barbara Hannigan conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in Haydn, Roussel, Ravel and Britten, though to be honest she…
Netflix’s Adolescence is seriously flawed
Bradley Walsh: Egypt’s Cosmic Code may sound like a pitch by Alan Partridge – but, impressively, the programme itself manages…
Never mind the cracks
If you wanted confirmation that the world can change dramatically you need only remember the Berlin Wall coming down in…
A treat for nostalgic wrinklies: Punk Off!, at the Dominion Theatre, reviewed
Punk rock, packaged, parcelled, and boxed up as a treat for nostalgic wrinklies. That’s the deal with Punk Off!, a…
I’m warming to Meghan Markle – only joking
You know that urge when you’ve got friends coming for the weekend and you just have to spend the previous…
Irresistible: Osipova/Linbury reviewed
One of the few indisputably great ballerinas of her generation, Natalia Osipova is a magnificent exemplar of the Russian school,…
The filthy side of Dame Myra Hess
The photograph on the cover of Jessica Duchen’s magnificent new biography of Dame Myra Hess shows a statuesque lady sitting…
The art of sexual innuendo
Paula Rego’s 2021 retrospective at Tate Britain demonstrated that, among art critics, ambiguity is still highly prized as a measure…
‘The possibilities of paint are never-ending’: Sir Frank Bowling interviewed
‘I’m full of excitement waiting for this to dry out,’ Sir Frank Bowling exclaims. We are sitting in his studio,…
A luminous new recording of The Dream of Gerontius
Grade: A– There’s a species of music-lover who enjoys pointing out that Elgar isn’t played much on the Continent –…
Silly, moving and imaginative: Steven Wilson’s The Overview reviewed
Progressive rock never died. Whenever some grizzled punk soldier next appears on a BBC4 documentary relaying their version of that…
Devotion and betrayals
There is a Roman saying, ‘What the barbarians started the Barberinis completed’ with reference to one of the great dynastic…
Cartoonish, sub-Armando Iannucci comic caper: Mickey 17 reviewed
Mickey 17 is the latest film from the South Korean writer-director Bong Joon-ho, who won an Oscar for Parasite and…
Finneas has little to offer without his sister Billie Eilish
No truth is more self-evident than that there are those whose best emerges only when they are paired with others:…
Brian Cox’s Bach has to be heading for Broadway
The Score is a fine example of meat-and-potatoes theatre. Simple plotting, big characters, terrific speeches and a happy ending. The…
A blast: Leigh Bowery!, at Tate Modern, reviewed
Tate Modern’s latest exhibition is a bizarre proposition on so many levels. Its subject, the Australian designer, performer, provocateur and…
A dancing, weightless garland of gems: Stephen Hough’s piano concerto reviewed
Stephen Hough’s new piano concerto is called The World of Yesterday but its second ever performance offered a dispiriting glimpse…
The greatest paintings are always full of important unimportant things
Goya to Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Oskar Reinhart Collection, at the Courtauld, consists of a selection of 25 absorbing paintings…
The true birthplace of the Renaissance
The baby reaches out to touch his mother’s scarf: he studies her face intently, and she focuses entirely on him.…
Anjelica Huston is comprehensively upstaged in the BBC’s new Agatha Christie
Coincidentally, two of this week’s big new dramas began with a fourth wall-busting declaration of their narrative methods. At the…
In every kind of film
The fact that the eminent Irish actor Stephen Rea is doing Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape at the Adelaide Festival from…
Shakespeare as cruise-ship entertainment: Jamie Lloyd’s Much Ado About Nothing reviewed
Nicholas Hytner’s Richard II is a high-calibre version of a fascinating story. A king reluctantly yields his crown to a…
Pamela Anderson is a thing of wonder: The Last Showgirl reviewed
The Last Showgirl stars Pamela Anderson as a Las Vegas dancer who has reached the end of her career (too…
An exhilarating, uneven survey of an outstandingly eccentric British surrealist
Ithell Colquhoun was always a bit of a mystery surrealist. Her greatest hit is the unsettling, dream-like ‘Scylla’ (1938), a…
Real artists have nothing to fear from AI
Christie’s is making digital-art history again – or at least trying to. Between 20 February and 5 March, it is…
