Arts
Giving Tate Modern a lift
Tate Modern, badly overcrowded, has built itself a £260 million extension to spread everyone about the place more. This means…
The great pretenders
There is fakery in the air. And maybe the French are done with deconstruction. A drone operated by a French…
Jane Austen on speed
Love & Friendship is based on the little-known Jane Austen epistolary novella, Lady Susan, which was not published until after…
Punk turns 40
There have been many punk exhibitions over the years so I can’t help but chuckle at the ‘experts’ who are…
Royal Court Theatre
If there were an Eddie the Eagle award for theatre — to recognise large reputations built on minuscule achievements —…
Royal Court Theatre
If there were an Eddie the Eagle award for theatre — to recognise large reputations built on minuscule achievements —…
Mind games
Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall enjoys the dubious status of a modern classic. A black mental-health patient, Christopher, is about to…
Mind games
Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall enjoys the dubious status of a modern classic. A black mental-health patient, Christopher, is about to…
Myth-making
For years I have been telling people that they should listen to, in the absence of staged performances, Enescu’s opera…
Myth-making
For years I have been telling people that they should listen to, in the absence of staged performances, Enescu’s opera…
Counting on sheep
Going Forward (BBC4, Thursdays) is a BBC comedy about the continuing adventures of Kim Wilde, the fat, cynical but lovable…
Baby love
I like Radio 4 — you can have it on in the background burbling away for hours and hours without…
Baby love
I like Radio 4 — you can have it on in the background burbling away for hours and hours without…
Speech impediment
‘So you’re going to see the gay sex opera?’ exclaimed my friend, open-mouthed. People certainly seem to have had some…
Gaudy! Bright! Loud! Fun!
Best of postmodernism: is that an oxymoron? Jonathan Meades thinks not
Happy ending
‘In many ways,’ Georg Baselitz muses, ‘I behaved against the grain of the times I grew up in.’ The era…
Close encounters
A story John Piper liked to tell — and the one most told about him — is of a morning…
First Lady of Pop Art
In 1961 the Venezuelan-American sculptor Marisol Escobar made a startling appearance at the New York artists’ group known as the…
Losing the plot
If a football manager produces a string of losses, the writing is on the wall and out he goes. He’s…
Pulling power
Monday’s ‘World on the Move Day’ on Radio 4 was a bold challenge to government policy and proof that radio…
Bard goes to Bollywood
The Globe’s new chatelaine, Emma Rice, has certainly shaken the old place up. It’s almost unrecognisable. Huge white plastic orbs…
Animal attraction
Let me start this week with an admittedly hard quiz question: in 1954, how did the sudden illness of Jack…
Memories, dreams, reflections
Heart of a Dog is a film by Laurie Anderson and it’s a meditative, free-associating rumination on life, loss, love…
Culture buff
It was a big week for art auctions; Sotheby’s grossed $14.2 million over May10 & 11, their best result since…
Gaudy! Bright! Loud! Fun!
In any epoch most of what is built is mediocre, though we may not realise it at the time because…
