Arts
Is work really more fun than fun?
Wouldn’t it be marvellous if instead of going to work every day we could contract out the tedium to avatars…
Sweeping exit
It will be fascinating to see what Jamie Martín, the head of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, makes of Mahler’s Second…
The problem of back-story in drama
Olga in Three Sisters, the opening speech: ‘Father died just a year ago, on this very day – the fifth…
Stylish facsimile of Carol Reed’s film: Oliver!, at the Gielgud Theatre, reviewed
Oliver! directed by Matthew Bourne is billed as a ‘fully reconceived’ version of Lionel Bart’s musical. Very little seems to…
Opera North’s Flying Dutchman scores a full house in cliché bingo
The overture to The Flying Dutchman opens at gale force. There’s nothing like it; Mendelssohn and Berlioz both painted orchestral…
A cheaper, shinier, more processed Chris Stapleton: Brothers Osborne reviewed
If you were a frequent viewer of Top Gear in its Clarkson/Hammond/May era, there is a particular laugh you will…
Extraordinary: The Seed of the Sacred Fig reviewed
The Seed of the Sacred Fig is by the Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof and all you need to know is…
The thankless art of the librettist
Next week, after the première of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new opera Festen, the cast and conductor will take their bow. All…
Stately, sly and well-mannered: BBC1’s Miss Austen reviewed
It is a truth universally acknowledged that lazy journalists begin every piece about Jane Austen with the words ‘It is…
Booze now has its own Rest is History-style podcast
Intoxicating History is the perfect title for drinks expert Henry Jeffreys and food critic Tom Parker Bowles’s new podcast. Its…
FKA Twigs is the most interesting pop musician we have right now
Grade: A Hell, there’s a lot not to like, or even to be a little suspicious of, with this young…
It ain’t me, Bob
It’s always a bit extraordinary how much an art form lives on the legends it has created. Everyone is looking…
Not a complete waste of time: Netflix’s La Palma reviewed
Netflix is the television equivalent of pasta and ready-made pesto: a slightly desperate but acceptable enough stand-by when you’ve got…
Miserable but compelling: Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths reviewed
Pansy is meant to be a sympathetic figure, but I felt sorrier for those who had to put up with…
The maudlin, magical world of Celtic Connections
Is it possible to find a common thread running through the finest Scottish music? If pushed, one might identify a…
Classical music has much to learn from Liverpool
They do things their own way in Liverpool; they always have. In 1997 the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra launched a…
An excellent sixth-form drama project: Santi & Naz, at Soho Theatre, reviewed
Santi & Naz is a drama set in the Punjab in 1947 that uses an ancient and thrilling storyline about…
‘Innovation is not enough’: meet visionary English painter Roger Wagner
In the side chapel of the church of St Giles’, at the northern apex of the historic Oxford thoroughfare, hangs…
The rediscovery of the art of Simone de Beauvoir’s sister
An exhibition of the art of Hélène de Beauvoir (1910-2001), sister of the great Simone, opened in a private gallery…
What a sad thing Strictly Come Dancing has become
Those of a violently masochistic disposition would have heartily enjoyed the Saturday matinée of the Strictly Come Dancing: Live Tour…
Nothing like a Dame
Art takes every possible shape and size. The exhibition of Japanese ukiyo-e prints (running at the National Gallery of Australia…
Like lying down in front of a bulldozer: the Jesus Lizard, at the Electric Ballroom, reviewed
Many indie types from the 1980s and 1990s were secretly metal fans. But it’s not something they ever really wanted…
A classy potboiler – but it’s no Citizen Kane: The Brutalist reviewed
The Brutalist, which is a fictional account of a Jewish-Hungarian architect in postwar America, has attracted a great deal of…
Was Brazil the real birthplace of modernism?
A paradox of art history: to understand the artists of the past, it helps to study how, and where, they…
