Arts
On the trail of Piero
Piero della Francesca is today acknowledged as one of the foundational artists of the Renaissance. Aldous Huxley thought his ‘Resurrection’…
You’ve been framed
‘I like ordinary people,’ says the extraordinary photographer Martin Parr, pushing a few high-concept smoked sprats around his plate at…
Bottom Gere
The Benefactor is both a bad film and a thoroughly inexplicable one. It’s one of those what-were-they-thinking projects that wastes…
Hellzapoppin’
The 20th-century painter who called himself Balthus once proposed that a monograph about him should begin with the words ‘Balthus…
Kit-car Chekhov
Director Robert Icke has this to say of Chekhov’s greatest masterpiece: ‘Let the electricity of now flow into the old…
Kit-car Chekhov
Director Robert Icke has this to say of Chekhov’s greatest masterpiece: ‘Let the electricity of now flow into the old…
ENO must go…
Last week Darren Henley, chief executive of Arts Council England, revealed that opera receives just under a fifth of the…
ENO must go…
Last week Darren Henley, chief executive of Arts Council England, revealed that opera receives just under a fifth of the…
…Long live ENO!
The three most moving, transporting death scenes in 19th-century opera all involve the respective heroines mounting a funeral pyre —…
…Long live ENO!
The three most moving, transporting death scenes in 19th-century opera all involve the respective heroines mounting a funeral pyre —…
Just Williams
It’s tempting to believe that somewhere in the bowels of Broadcasting House in London the voice of Kenneth Williams is…
Just Williams
It’s tempting to believe that somewhere in the bowels of Broadcasting House in London the voice of Kenneth Williams is…
Night moves
The Night Manager (BBC1, Sunday) announced its intentions immediately, when the opening credits lovingly combined weapons and luxury items. ‘Blimey,’…
Brothers grim
What is a serious film festival doing opening with Ethan and Joel Coens’ turkey Hail, Caesar!? James Woodall reports from Berlin
Internal affairs
The ten vignettes that punctuate the white walls of the Ingleby Gallery invite us to step into the many-chambered mind…
Notes on a scandal
How could it possibly go wrong? The magnetic, seething Russian star Natalia Osipova playing the tragic woman in John Singer…
Not a pretty sight
‘Forget Downton Abbey!’ exhorts David Pountney in the programme for Figaro Forever, Welsh National Opera’s season of Beaumarchais operas, The…
Kerching, Mr Bing
Here’s how to set yourself up for a fall. You stage the world première of your debut play in the…
Touching the void
Scholarly filmgoers may recall a movement that sprouted from Danish soil called Dogme 95. It worked to a Spartan set…
The write stuff
The deadline for Radio 2’s 500 Words competition falls next Thursday. Children between the ages of five and 13 are…
Marty’s way
Vinyl (Sky Atlantic) — the much-anticipated series, co-produced by Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger, about the 1970s New York record…
Culture buff
Conde Nast was the publisher of Vogue Australia in 1965. That was the year I started with Vogue but, much…
Brothers grim
One of the more obscure winners in recent years of the Berlin film festival’s Golden Bear was a version of…
Touching the void
Scholarly filmgoers may recall a movement that sprouted from Danish soil called Dogme 95. It worked to a Spartan set…
Notes on a scandal
How could it possibly go wrong? The magnetic, seething Russian star Natalia Osipova playing the tragic woman in John Singer…
