Arts
Building block
High-Rise is Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novel, and it is deeply unpleasant, if not deeply, deeply unpleasant. (Ideally,…
Second thoughts
You revisit an old love with wariness. Time’s passed for both of you — sharp edges have been smoothed, and…
Repeat prescription
Walter Sickert was once shown a room full of paintings by a proud collector, who had purchased them on the…
Time out of mind
The Maids is a fascinating document. Written in 1947, Jean Genet’s drama portrays a pair of serving girls who enact…
Time out of mind
The Maids is a fascinating document. Written in 1947, Jean Genet’s drama portrays a pair of serving girls who enact…
Original sin
The Royal Opera has bitten the bullet so far as Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov goes, and opted to stage the original…
Original sin
The Royal Opera has bitten the bullet so far as Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov goes, and opted to stage the original…
Home and away
Four programmes, four very different kinds of radio, from a classically made drama to weird sonic ramblings, via the best…
Home and away
Four programmes, four very different kinds of radio, from a classically made drama to weird sonic ramblings, via the best…
Greedy greenies
‘We have a problem. Yes. At the wind farm.’ Any conspiracy thriller with lines like that has definitely got my…
God’s messenger
Damian Thompson talks to the great Bach conductor — and strict Calvinist — Masaaki Suzuki
Paranormal activity
In 1896, a group of five young Swedish women artists began to meet regularly in order to access mystical zones…
Round-up of new opera
A mixed year so far for new opera. A few really dismal things have appeared from people who should know…
Pride and prejudice
Jonathan Lynn, co-author of Yes Minister, has excavated the history of France during the two world wars and discovered dramatic…
The human factor
Anomalisa is an animated film written by Charlie Kaufman, and while the temptation is to label it a midlife crisis…
Girl power
Hurrah for Radio 3 and its (long-overdue) efforts to give us music not just performed by women but composed, and…
Just what the doctor ordered
Every now and then, a costume drama comes along that’s so daringly unconventional as to make us re-examine our whole…
Culture Buff
Asked recently whether I thought Opera on the Harbour was really opera, I replied emphatically that it is. No one…
God’s messenger
When the Japanese conductor Masaaki Suzuki leads his forces in a performance of a Bach cantata, does he worry that…
The human factor
Anomalisa is an animated film written by Charlie Kaufman, and while the temptation is to label it a midlife crisis…
Pride and prejudice
Jonathan Lynn, co-author of Yes Minister, has excavated the history of France during the two world wars and discovered dramatic…
Pride and prejudice
Jonathan Lynn, co-author of Yes Minister, has excavated the history of France during the two world wars and discovered dramatic…
Girl power
Hurrah for Radio 3 and its (long-overdue) efforts to give us music not just performed by women but composed, and…
Girl power
Hurrah for Radio 3 and its (long-overdue) efforts to give us music not just performed by women but composed, and…
Just what the doctor ordered
Every now and then, a costume drama comes along that’s so daringly unconventional as to make us re-examine our whole…
