Arts
A luminous new recording of The Dream of Gerontius
Grade: A– There’s a species of music-lover who enjoys pointing out that Elgar isn’t played much on the Continent –…
Silly, moving and imaginative: Steven Wilson’s The Overview reviewed
Progressive rock never died. Whenever some grizzled punk soldier next appears on a BBC4 documentary relaying their version of that…
Devotion and betrayals
There is a Roman saying, ‘What the barbarians started the Barberinis completed’ with reference to one of the great dynastic…
Cartoonish, sub-Armando Iannucci comic caper: Mickey 17 reviewed
Mickey 17 is the latest film from the South Korean writer-director Bong Joon-ho, who won an Oscar for Parasite and…
Finneas has little to offer without his sister Billie Eilish
No truth is more self-evident than that there are those whose best emerges only when they are paired with others:…
Brian Cox’s Bach has to be heading for Broadway
The Score is a fine example of meat-and-potatoes theatre. Simple plotting, big characters, terrific speeches and a happy ending. The…
A blast: Leigh Bowery!, at Tate Modern, reviewed
Tate Modern’s latest exhibition is a bizarre proposition on so many levels. Its subject, the Australian designer, performer, provocateur and…
A dancing, weightless garland of gems: Stephen Hough’s piano concerto reviewed
Stephen Hough’s new piano concerto is called The World of Yesterday but its second ever performance offered a dispiriting glimpse…
The greatest paintings are always full of important unimportant things
Goya to Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Oskar Reinhart Collection, at the Courtauld, consists of a selection of 25 absorbing paintings…
The true birthplace of the Renaissance
The baby reaches out to touch his mother’s scarf: he studies her face intently, and she focuses entirely on him.…
Anjelica Huston is comprehensively upstaged in the BBC’s new Agatha Christie
Coincidentally, two of this week’s big new dramas began with a fourth wall-busting declaration of their narrative methods. At the…
In every kind of film
The fact that the eminent Irish actor Stephen Rea is doing Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape at the Adelaide Festival from…
Shakespeare as cruise-ship entertainment: Jamie Lloyd’s Much Ado About Nothing reviewed
Nicholas Hytner’s Richard II is a high-calibre version of a fascinating story. A king reluctantly yields his crown to a…
Pamela Anderson is a thing of wonder: The Last Showgirl reviewed
The Last Showgirl stars Pamela Anderson as a Las Vegas dancer who has reached the end of her career (too…
An exhilarating, uneven survey of an outstandingly eccentric British surrealist
Ithell Colquhoun was always a bit of a mystery surrealist. Her greatest hit is the unsettling, dream-like ‘Scylla’ (1938), a…
Real artists have nothing to fear from AI
Christie’s is making digital-art history again – or at least trying to. Between 20 February and 5 March, it is…
Spreads emotions like jam: Festen, at the Royal Opera House, reviewed
Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new opera Festen opened at Covent Garden earlier this month, and reader, I messed up. I broke my…
I think I’ve found the perfect TV series
Drops of God is one of those gems of purest ray serene that cable TV prefers to keep hidden in…
Shades of Berlin Bowie and Ian Curtis: Hamish Hawk, at Usher Hall, reviewed
I am a regular attendee at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh’s most ornate and venerable concert venue. On more than one…
Knowing how to cast
Simone Young conducted Mahler’s Third at the Opera House on Wednesday 19 February and with its dense lyricism, its lush…
The new Civ is gorgeous and richly rewarding
Grade: A- It has been nearly ten years since addicts of the empire-building simulator Civilization – or Civ, as players…
How to write a piano concerto
My Piano Concerto, The World of Yesterday, began with an email during one of the darker days of the pandemic:…
I’ve had it with Pina Bausch
My patience with the cult of Pina Bausch is wearing paper thin. She was taken from us 16 years ago,…
Proudly dumb – and all the better for it: The Monkey reviewed
The monkey is an organ-grinder’s monkey toy. Wind up the key jutting out of its back, and its lips will…
Soothing and glorious: Fashion Neurosis reviewed
Sometimes the mind needs to take a break. And I can’t think of a better stopping-off place than the soothing,…
