Arts
Pit full of snakes
What a cheering thing it is that David Szalay has won the Booker Prize for Flesh which is a masterpiece…
The best thing Cathy Marston has ever done
The Royal Ballet has scheduled what – on paper at least – looks like one of the most dismally dull…
The babyishness of Hunger Games on Stage
The Hunger Games is based on a 2008 novel about a despotic regime where brainwashed citizens are entertained with televised…
The cult of Powell & Pressburger’s I Know Where I’m Going!
I know where I’m going. I’m on the sleeper train chugging out of Euston and heading to Fort William. A…
The tedium of softboi rap
A male British rapper who is unafraid to show tenderness and vulnerability is not a particularly new phenomenon: Dave, Stormzy,…
London’s stupidest gallery
Everyone loves a private view, and I am no exception. I don’t know how many hours I must have spent…
The orchestra that makes pros go weak at the knees
Stravinsky’s The Firebird begins in darkness, and it might be the softest, deepest darkness in all music. Basses and cellos…
Pluribus is a mess
Pluribus is another drama set in the dystopian future. But on this occasion the integrity of the entire human race…
Disastrous adaptation of a wonderful book
The Thing With Feathers is an adaptation of Max Porter’s acclaimed novella about a widower who is left to raise…
‘Ballet is antiquated, and it works’: Royal Ballet principal Matthew Ball interviewed
The history of the male ballet dancer is a chequered one. In the early 19th century, he was the star…
Equal to any quirk
Richo is dead. The supreme fixer of the Labor party is gone. That wise and moderate man Brian Johns who…
The rise of psychedelia
On YouTube – and I urge you to look it up – there is a magnificent piece of footage from…
This Othello is almost flawless
Othello directed by Tom Morris opens with a stately display of scarlet costumes and gilded doorways arranged against a backdrop…
Was Queen Victoria’s doctor the first psychoanalyst?
Queen Victoria began to experience dark visions after giving birth to her second child. Concerned that she might have inherited…
Mrs Göring is far too sympathetic: Nuremberg reviewed
Nuremberg is one of those films that falls short on everything it wants to be and everything it could be.…
In defence of Katie Mitchell
Janacek’s The Makropulos Case is a weird and very wonderful opera, but its basic plot isn’t hard to follow. Still,…
This exhibition made my companion gasp
Numerous research academics have contributed to this highly cogent show celebrating the craftspeople of Ancient Egypt. My pre-teen companion, though…
Labour’s war on heritage
Britain’s heritage is slowly going up in smoke. Medlock Mill was Manchester’s oldest standing textile mill until it burnt down…
Bleak but gripping: Channel 4’s Trespasses reviewed
Yeats famously summarised Ireland in the four words, ‘Great hatred, little room’. But, as Louise Kennedy’s 2022 debut novel Trespasses…
The brilliance of her technique
It’s strange the way comedy lives. A legion of the young continue to listen to Pete and Dud or watch…
One of the best plays about the 1980s ever staged
Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty has been turned into a stage show directed by Michael Grandage. We’re in the…
What a joy La Fille mal gardée is
The winter nights may be drawing in and everyone is down with stinking colds as the civilised world inexorably disintegrates,…
Film and TV are run by satanists
I once came up with a brilliant idea for a children’s Sunday-evening TV series. It would follow the adventures of…
Violin concertos from two Broadway legends
Grade: B+ The 20th century, eh? What a lark that was. Vladimir Dukelsky studied in Kiev under Glière and looked…
