Arts
The male gaze
Everybody Wants Some!! is a comedy written and directed by Richard Linklater, which is the good news, but it’s set…
Shaw thing
T.E. Lawrence is like the gap-year student from hell. He visits a country full of exotic barbarians and after a…
The power of song
You might not think that the Eurovision Song Contest (screened live from Stockholm tonight) could have any connection with how…
Something to crow about
There’s no way of saying this without shredding the last vestiges of my critical credibility, but this new Ben Elton…
Roberto Alagna as Pinkerton at the Met 2016
Born in France of Sicilian parents, Roberto Alagna has been one of the opera world’s outstanding tenors for nearly 25…
Death metal
With its loud guitar riffs and even louder fashion, heavy metal has always been ripe for ridicule. In its mid-1980s…
The male gaze
Everybody Wants Some!! is a comedy written and directed by Richard Linklater, which is the good news, but it’s set…
Surreal, strange and scatological
Why do we put one work of art beside another? For the most part museums and galleries tend to stick…
Unsung hero
One of the greatest choral symphonies of the 20th century, entitled Das Siegeslied (Psalm of Victory), has been heard only…
Unsung hero
One of the greatest choral symphonies of the 20th century, entitled Das Siegeslied (Psalm of Victory), has been heard only…
Shaw thing
T.E. Lawrence is like the gap-year student from hell. He visits a country full of exotic barbarians and after a…
Shaw thing
T.E. Lawrence is like the gap-year student from hell. He visits a country full of exotic barbarians and after a…
Divine comedy
You have to be quite silly to take Gilbert and Sullivan seriously. But even sillier not to. G&S is still…
Divine comedy
You have to be quite silly to take Gilbert and Sullivan seriously. But even sillier not to. G&S is still…
The power of song
You might not think that the Eurovision Song Contest (screened live from Stockholm tonight) could have any connection with how…
The power of song
You might not think that the Eurovision Song Contest (screened live from Stockholm tonight) could have any connection with how…
Something to crow about
There’s no way of saying this without shredding the last vestiges of my critical credibility, but this new Ben Elton…
Deluded divas
Were Florence Foster Jenkins and her fellow culprits touchingly heroic, cynically fraudulent or just plain bonkers? Rupert Christiansen reports
Literary lap dance
Great excitement for play-goers as a rare version of a theological masterpiece arrives in the West End. Doctor Faustus stars…
Wings of desire
Maria Sibylla Merian was a game old bird of entrepreneurial bent, with an overwhelming obsession with insects. Born in Frankfurt…
Last words
This, my 479th, is to be my last contribution as a regular columnist to The Spectator. I have written here…
Bell canto
Cursed, or perhaps blessed, with almost no visual memory at all, I had almost completely forgotten what the Royal Opera’s…
Striking the wrong note
Before we turn our attention to Florence Foster Jenkins — but if you can’t wait, it’s so-so — I feel…
Fade to grey
Every ballet company wants a box-office earner. But why Scottish Ballet’s leader Christopher Hampson kept on at David Dawson until…
Paul McCartney
It’s slightly galling, after years of sticking up for Paul McCartney, to read a new biography of the bloke and…
