Arts
High and low
‘Besides feeble writing, there is a mixture of tragic-comedy and buffoonery in it, which Apostolo Zeno and Metastasio had banished…
The power of song
‘I went in at seven and came out aged 22,’ said Brian as he looked back on the day in…
Ziggurat of bilge
Ella Hickson’s new play analyses our relationship with oil using the sketch format. First, there’s a candlelit soap opera set…
Shady past
David Hockney: It is a kind of joke, but I really mean it when I say Caravaggio invented Hollywood lighting.…
Loach at his most Loach
I, Daniel Blake is a Ken Loach film about a Newcastle joiner who can’t work but faces a welfare bureaucracy…
Face time
As a chat-up line it was at least unusual. On 8 January 1927, a 46-year-old man approached a young woman…
Ziggurat of bilge
Ella Hickson’s new play analyses our relationship with oil using the sketch format. First, there’s a candlelit soap opera set…
Ziggurat of bilge
Ella Hickson’s new play analyses our relationship with oil using the sketch format. First, there’s a candlelit soap opera set…
High and low
‘Besides feeble writing, there is a mixture of tragic-comedy and buffoonery in it, which Apostolo Zeno and Metastasio had banished…
High and low
‘Besides feeble writing, there is a mixture of tragic-comedy and buffoonery in it, which Apostolo Zeno and Metastasio had banished…
The power of song
‘I went in at seven and came out aged 22,’ said Brian as he looked back on the day in…
The power of song
‘I went in at seven and came out aged 22,’ said Brian as he looked back on the day in…
Digging for the truth
The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb may well be one of the 20th century’s great stories — but naturally that doesn’t…
Grave goods
There’s a folder in my computer’s external hard drive in which you’ll find 24 complete recordings of the Bach Cello…
Overshadowing all the rest
We don’t know what Caravaggio himself would have made of Beyond Caravaggio, the new exhibition at the National Gallery which…
Going nowhere fast – and loud
As a general rule, I would not wish to spend nearly three hours in a mini-van with young people who…
Revenge of the robots
The other day James Lovelock, the sprightly 97-year-old inventor of Gaia theory, told a mildly surprised Guardian interviewer that he…
Box of tricks
Travesties is a multi-layered confection of art, song, literature and pastiche. Tiny snippets of it are true. In Zurich, in…
It’s (still) a man’s world
When Jane Garvey announced to the audience who had just ‘taken part’ in the 70th birthday celebrations of Radio 4’s…
Sinful treat
Shiny swags of gold cloth hang in front of the curtain before David McVicar’s production of Der Rosenkavalier, and that’s…
Adam Frandsen plays The Architect
First performed 21 years ago, it’s title was The Eighth Wonder. This year it is being revived under a cumbersome…
Muslim magic
In 1402, when the Turkic conqueror Temur, better known in the West as Tamerlane, was poised to do battle with…
Going nowhere fast – and loud
As a general rule, I would not wish to spend nearly three hours in a mini-van with young people who…
Overshadowing all the rest
We don’t know what Caravaggio himself would have made of Beyond Caravaggio, the new exhibition at the National Gallery which…
Grave goods
There’s a folder in my computer’s external hard drive in which you’ll find 24 complete recordings of the Bach Cello…
