Arts
Everything is illuminated
One could honour God with prayer, of course, and build cathedrals, amass treasuries, turn choirs into stained-glass jewel boxes, carve…
The lying game
JT LeRoy was a teenage hustler who emerged from a childhood of abuse, drug addiction and homelessness to write about…
Hang the DJs
Electronic Dance Music is dying. You may not have noticed. It may not affect you directly. But it’s a really…
Hang the DJs
Electronic Dance Music is dying. You may not have noticed. It may not affect you directly. But it’s a really…
Heavenly bodies
Initially it must have been a nasty surprise. On 16 August 1972 an amateur scuba diver named Stefano Mariottini was…
Heavenly bodies
Initially it must have been a nasty surprise. On 16 August 1972 an amateur scuba diver named Stefano Mariottini was…
Flawed genius
An inspired decision to stage Jesus Christ Superstar in a summer theatre in Regent’s Park. The action takes place outdoors,…
Flawed genius
An inspired decision to stage Jesus Christ Superstar in a summer theatre in Regent’s Park. The action takes place outdoors,…
French connection
It takes a particularly wilful wit to alight on Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict as the perfect operatic nod to a…
French connection
It takes a particularly wilful wit to alight on Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict as the perfect operatic nod to a…
Fever pitch
It cost just £4/10s for 19-year-old Alan Dryland to buy a season ticket that would take him inside the stadium…
Fever pitch
It cost just £4/10s for 19-year-old Alan Dryland to buy a season ticket that would take him inside the stadium…
1966 and all that
In the song ‘All the Young Dudes’, David Bowie gamely tried to reassure the youth of the Seventies that, despite…
Dramatic effect
It was hard to believe that Monday morning’s introduction to the Italian writer Primo Levi on Radio 4 lasted for…
Losing their religion
Scriabin once suggested that the audiences for his music should be segregated according to their degree of personal enlightenment, with…
First impressions
The last boat I saw in the galleries on the Mound was a canoe that the Scottish painter Jock McFadyen…
All in the mind
Mark Morris, the most musically communicative and naturally lyrical of choreographers of the past 30 years (and an absentee from…
On full beam
What’s the best first opera for a sceptical adult first timer? It’s a favourite topic among opera buffs, and once…
Power failure
Fracking is a British tradition. Since 1969 more than 200 sites have used hydraulic fracturing ‘without environmental catastrophes’ according to…
Archibald portraits
‘A portrait is a painting with something wrong about the mouth’ is a quotation attributed to John Singer Sargent, painter…
Dahl by Spielberg
Nobody who witnessed it can have forgotten Mark Rylance summoning giants to his aid in Jerusalem. As Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron,…
Courageous Kemp
Before I set about reviewing Ross Kemp: The Fight Against Isis (Sky 1), I thought I’d have a glance to…
Losing their religion
Scriabin once suggested that the audiences for his music should be segregated according to their degree of personal enlightenment, with…
Dahl by Spielberg
Nobody who witnessed it can have forgotten Mark Rylance summoning giants to his aid in Jerusalem. As Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron,…
All in the mind
Mark Morris, the most musically communicative and naturally lyrical of choreographers of the past 30 years (and an absentee from…
