Arts
The rise and fall of Sicily
A few weeks ago, I looked out on the Cathedral of Monreale from the platform on which once stood the…
Bitter sweet
The French master film-maker Jacques Audiard has never been anywhere near Hollywood plot school. His films contain gathering menace —…
An American in Paris
Paris Opera Ballet plays hard to get. It doesn’t deign to travel all the way over here, thanks to a…
Sound and fury
There was a genteel brouhaha last year — leaders in the Times, letters to the Telegraph, tutting in the galleries…
Modernist cul-de-sac
The intransigence of Maxwell Davies, Boulez and Stockhausen is coming home to roost. Here were three composers, famous if not…
Modernist cul-de-sac
The intransigence of Maxwell Davies, Boulez and Stockhausen is coming home to roost. Here were three composers, famous if not…
Close encounter
Sunset Boulevard is a tale of fractured glory with Homeric dimensions. The movie presents Hollywood as a never-ending Trojan War…
Close encounter
Sunset Boulevard is a tale of fractured glory with Homeric dimensions. The movie presents Hollywood as a never-ending Trojan War…
Comic relief
Comic opera is no laughing matter. Seriously, when was the last time you laughed out loud in the opera house?…
Comic relief
Comic opera is no laughing matter. Seriously, when was the last time you laughed out loud in the opera house?…
Intolerable cruelty
It was a toss-up on Sunday between the atmosphere in the Radio Five Live Sports Extra studio in Kolkata for…
Intolerable cruelty
It was a toss-up on Sunday between the atmosphere in the Radio Five Live Sports Extra studio in Kolkata for…
Singing Ireland into being
In recent years there’s been a fashion for arts documentaries presented by celebs rather than boring old experts — presumably…
The future is here
With the release of Oculus Rift – virtual reality you can buy from a shop – cinema will never be the same again, says Peter Hoskin
Old masters
The Fitzwilliam Museum is marking its bicentenary with an exhibition that takes its title from Agatha Christie: Death on the…
Love at first sight
Now the kids are back for the school holidays, I have a licence to watch complete trash again. No more…
The kids are all right
In a remote fishing village a lone figure confronts an unexplained death, standing tormented but unbroken against fate, the community…
Funny boys
Sir Ken’s excellent West End residency continues with a sugar-rich confection. Sean Foley has adapted and updated an elderly French farce…
Good clean fun
I once forced some pals on a skiing holiday to spend an afternoon off the slopes watching Chalet Girl. Suffice…
Black magic
Ballet’s romantic mantra could be summed up by John Keats’s ballad ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’, in which a young…
Crossing continents
Could radio, and in particular a weekly soap, have a role to play in the Syrian crisis? You might think,…
Culture buff
A glamorous program for the special Brisbane Baroque will transport music lovers straight to a baroque heaven. From April 8…
The future is here
Oculus Rift. It sounds like something from a science fiction novel, and in many ways it is. Its release this…
Good clean fun
I once forced some pals on a skiing holiday to spend an afternoon off the slopes watching Chalet Girl. Suffice…
Black magic
Ballet’s romantic mantra could be summed up by John Keats’s ballad ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’, in which a young…
