Arts
Pulp fiction
Hot, languorous, sizzling… I was thinking what an ideal show Matthew Bourne’s noir comedy is to watch on a summer’s…
Orchestral infallibility
Watching the Berlin Philharmonic going into conclave to choose a successor to Simon Rattle — after countless hours of secret…
Orchestral infallibility
Watching the Berlin Philharmonic going into conclave to choose a successor to Simon Rattle — after countless hours of secret…
Affairs in squares
On all those comic lists of the world’s shortest books (Great Italian War Heroes, My Hunt for the Real Killers,…
Wild things
Are adventure playgrounds set to make a comeback, asks Maisie Rowe
Salieri’s revenge
Magical transformations are a commonplace of opera. We see our heroes turned into animals, trees, statues; witness wild beasts turned…
Portrait of the artist as a madman
Charles Dickens’s description of Cobham Park, Kent, in The Pickwick Papers makes it seem a perfect English landscape. Among its…
Has-Bean
Richard Bean, the country’s most bankable playwright, knocks out a new script every four months. Thanks to the success of…
Sweeney Plod
The Legend of Barney Thomson is the directorial debut of actor Robert Carlyle, and it’s one of those black comedies…
Space case
The idea that Radio 2 should be sold off by the BBC to a commercial rival is as nonsensical as…
Institutional feminism
Some revelations, it seems, are capable of being endlessly repeated while still remaining revelations. Think of all the books, articles…
Culture buff
It’s the play with no name, literally. Chekhov’s first play, written in 1878, was never completed despite its estimated five…
Sweeney Plod
The Legend of Barney Thomson is the directorial debut of actor Robert Carlyle, and it’s one of those black comedies…
Wish list
Compilation schompilation. Having been in music for as long as I have you would think I had a good idea…
Wish list
Compilation schompilation. Having been in music for as long as I have you would think I had a good idea…
Institutional feminism
Some revelations, it seems, are capable of being endlessly repeated while still remaining revelations. Think of all the books, articles…
The London ear
It’s easy to tag the city’s terrain by writer. But what, wonders Philip Clark, might a map of its music look like?
All you need is love
What could induce a grown-up, rational, childless person to go to see the ballet of Cinderella? You’ll expect to cringe…
He wuz robbed!
Lucas Debargue, a 24-year-old French pianist, came fourth in the finale of the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow on 30 June,…
To tell you the truth…
True Story is based on the book True Story, which is itself based on a true story, so there is…
Scholarship and folly
It has often been related how, towards the end of his long life, a critical barb got under J.M.W. Turner’s…
Eastern promise
These are nervous times at the opera. When should we expect the gratuitous rape scene? Will the director relocate the…
Night at the circus
Easy playwright to get on with, Ben Jonson. His world is simple, his tastes endearing. He likes golden-hearted swindlers and…
Tax return
Make no mistake: the Proms, whose 2015 season was launched last night, would not, could not, exist without the BBC,…
Wish list
Annie Nightingale 25 July 2015 9:00 am
Compilation schompilation. Having been in music for as long as I have you would think I had a good idea…