Arts
Repetitive but compelling: Giacometti at the National Portrait Gallery reviewed
One day in 1938 Alberto Giacometti saw a marvellous sight on his bedroom ceiling. It was ‘a thread like a…
Self-pitying, despairing, often delusional: the real Marlon Brando
Listen to Me Marlon is a documentary portrait of Marlon Brando that has him burbling into your ear for 102…
What’s it like to talk to a serial killer?
‘I’ve never met a human being who doesn’t appreciate being listened to, being taken seriously,’ said Asbjorn Rachlew, the Norwegian…
The Last Kingdom is BBC2’s solemnly cheesy answer to Game of Thrones
The opening caption for The Last Kingdom (BBC2, Thursday) read ‘Kingdom of Northumbria, North of England, 866 AD’. In fact,…
Culture buff
Edward Albee posed the question in 1962: ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ The answer, it seems, is no one. There’s…
Self-pitying, despairing, often delusional: the real Marlon Brando
Listen to Me Marlon is a documentary portrait of Marlon Brando that has him burbling into your ear for 102…
Repetitive but compelling: Giacometti at the National Portrait Gallery reviewed
One day in 1938 Alberto Giacometti saw a marvellous sight on his bedroom ceiling. It was ‘a thread like a…
I doubt Goethe intended Werther’s sorrows to be as unremitting as this
There are some things the French do better than everyone else. Cheese, military defeats and extra-marital affairs are a given,…
I doubt Goethe intended Werther’s sorrows to be as unremitting as this
There are some things the French do better than everyone else. Cheese, military defeats and extra-marital affairs are a given,…
Shakespeare at his freest and most exuberant: The Wars of the Roses reviewed
The RSC’s The Wars of the Roses solves a peculiar literary problem. Shakespeare’s earliest history plays are entitled Henry VI…
Shakespeare at his freest and most exuberant: The Wars of the Roses reviewed
The RSC’s The Wars of the Roses solves a peculiar literary problem. Shakespeare’s earliest history plays are entitled Henry VI…
What’s it like to talk at length to a serial killer?
‘I’ve never met a human being who doesn’t appreciate being listened to, being taken seriously,’ said Asbjorn Rachlew, the Norwegian…
What’s it like to talk at length to a serial killer?
‘I’ve never met a human being who doesn’t appreciate being listened to, being taken seriously,’ said Asbjorn Rachlew, the Norwegian…
The Last Kingdom is BBC2’s solemnly cheesy answer to Game of Thrones
The opening caption for The Last Kingdom (BBC2, Thursday) read ‘Kingdom of Northumbria, North of England, 866 AD’. In fact,…
Colm Tóibín on priests, loss and the half-said thing
‘No matter what I’m writing,’ says Colm Tóibín, ‘someone ends up getting abandoned. Or someone goes. No matter what I’m…
The set's better than the characterisation: The Father at the Wyndham's reviewed
The Father, set in a swish Paris apartment, has a beautifully spare and elegant set. The stage is framed by…
Culture buff
A first novel, written in a ‘gothic’ style while the author was undertaking a creative writing course, published in 2000…
National Poetry Day's mistake: letting normal people do the reading
Imagine what Brennig Davies must have felt like just before 11 o’clock last Tuesday evening. The 15-year-old was about to…
Hunted blows a fresh breeze through the stale world of reality TV
Television used to employ entertainers to entertain the public. Back then you could count the channels on the fingers of…
Giselle has floored many a ballerina — it did so again last week
English has all sorts of emotive metaphors for how we feel about the ground. We’re floored. Or well grounded. Or…
The Program could do with a good dose of performance-enhancing drugs
The Program, as directed by Stephen Frears, is a biopic of Lance Armstrong, the American cyclist and ‘sporting hero’ who…
With this Tate Britain exhibition, Frank Auerbach joins the masters
No sooner had I stepped into the private view of Frank Auerbach’s exhibition at Tate Britain than I bumped into…
Why I’m glad my piano teacher spent more time chatting than teaching
At the entrance to Marylebone railway station is an old piano that anyone can play. Unfortunately, whoever had this sweet…
Ariadne shows the operetta composer Richard Strauss could have been
‘Oh, those Greeks! They knew how to live. What is required for that is to stop courageously at the surface,…
What is it about Bill Viola’s films that reduce grown-ups to tears?
What is it about Bill Viola's films that reduce grown-ups to tears? William Cook dries his eyes and talks to the video artist about Zen, loss and nearly drowning
