Arts
A fashion series made by people who hate fashion: Apple TV+’s La Maison reviewed
I’m a bit disappointed – déçu, as we Francophiles like to say – with La Maison. When French TV drama…
Joker: Folie à Deux makes me long for the Joker of my childhood
Joker: Folie à Deux is the sequel to Joker (2019), and you have to admire Todd Phillips for returning with…
The BBC Singers Centenary Concert was toe-curling
When does a new opera enter the repertoire? Judith Weir’s Blond Eckbert has only had a couple of UK productions…
I agree with pop’s war on iPhones – but King Canute might want a word
Before each show on the recent The The tour – reviewed in these pages last week – the pre-recorded voice…
At Las Vegas’s Sphere I saw the future of live arts
Does Elon Musk have a good eye for the aesthetic? Earlier this month, the Tesla magnate took a break from…
Distinctive ambitions
It will be fascinating to see the retrospective of work by Jan Senbergs who died this year and who looms…
Melodramatic body-horror – but I don’t regret seeing it: A Different Man reviewed
Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man is ‘a darkly comic psychological thriller’ that plays like an inverted Beauty and the Beast.…
Faultless visuals – shame about the play: the National’s Coriolanus reviewed
Weird play, Coriolanus. It’s like a playground fight that spills out into the street and has to be resolved by…
Heartfelt and thought-provoking: Eugene Onegin, at the Royal Opera, reviewed
The curtain is already up at the start of Ted Huffman’s new production of Eugene Onegin. The auditorium is lit…
Have today’s TV dramatists completely given up on plausibility?
In advance, Ludwig sounded as if it was aimed squarely at the Inspector Morse market. Set among spires of impeccable…
What has become of the Wellcome Collection?
In 2022 the Wellcome Collection caused a stir by closing its Medicine Man exhibition on the grounds that it was…
The world is on fire – yet navel-gazing still reigns in pop
There is no better cultural weather vane than pop. It’s not that pop singers possess incredible analytical skills – they…
‘Some pianists make me shake with anger’: Vikingur Olafsson interviewed
At the BBC Proms this year, an Icelandic pianist dressed like a Wall Street broker played a slow movement from…
Maturity and tenderness
So now it is spring and that carnival season with its promise of Melbourne Cups and AFL grand finals hits…
Like The Joker, but less pretentious: The Penguin reviewed
Doctor Who fans may remember that after the show’s triumphant return in the early 2000s, we found out that showrunner…
The fascinating mechanics of striking a deal
If you wish to know how to become a master negotiator, a formidable body of books will now offer to…
Expressive and eloquent: Northern Ballet’s Three Short Ballets reviewed
Ballet companies have become dismally timid about exploring their 20th-century heritage: everything nowadays must be either box-fresh new or a…
A box set for those on the spectrum: Markus Poschner’s Bruckner Symphonies reviewed
Grade: B+ Anton Bruckner wrote 11 symphonies – Numbers One to Nine plus a student exercise and the formidable rejected…
How some of the most derided bands of all time are making a comeback
The fate of the pop musician – at least the pop musician below the top tier of stardom – has…
Baffling and plainly nuts – but worth it: Megalopolis reviewed
Megalopolis, which draws parallels between the fall of the Roman empire and modern-day America, is a film by Francis Ford…
The ethics of posthumous pop albums
‘At the record company meeting/ On their hands – at last! – a dead star!’ Back when Morrissey was more…
The art inspired by the 1924 Paris Olympics was a very mixed bag
George Orwell took a dim view of competitive sport; he found the idea that ‘running, jumping and kicking a ball…
Committed performances – but who was the granny? Northern Ireland Opera’s Eugene Onegin reviewed
It’s a critic’s job to pick holes in the dafter aspects of opera productions, but in truth audiences are usually…
The show belongs to Jonathan Slinger and Ben Whishaw: Waiting for Godot reviewed
Waiting for Godot is a church service for suicidal unbelievers. Those who attend the rite on a regular basis find…
