Arts
Dedicated follower of fascism?
The ‘revelations’, 50 years after he drowned, that Le Corbusier was a ‘fascist’ and an anti-Semite are neither fresh nor…
Two batons better
The morning after the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra failed to elect a music director, I took a call from Bild-Zeitung, Berlin’s…
Yank bait
Here come the Yanks. As the summer jumbos disgorge their cargoes of wealthy, courteous, culture-hungry Americans, the West End prepares…
Sexed-up pacifism
Big-screen documentaries never change the world. Blackfish has not shortened the queues to see maltreated killer whales leap through hoops…
Lost boys
In Beryl Bainbridge’s novel An Awfully Big Adventure the producer Meredith Potter issues a doughty injunction on the subject of…
Woolf haul
People have been saying that Wayne McGregor’s new Woolf Works has reinvented the three-act ballet, but not so. William Forsythe…
Strange ways
BBC One’s 2015 choice of Sunday-night drama series is beginning to resemble the career of the kind of Hollywood actor…
Object lesson
The idea of using objects — salt, cod, nutmeg, silk — to turn history lessons into something popular and accessible…
Culture Buff
The Laird’s House at Skara Brae on Orkney overlooks the Neolithic settlement, uncovered in a huge storm in 1850. Predating…
Dedicated follower of fascism?
The ‘revelations’, 50 years after he drowned, that Le Corbusier was a ‘fascist’ and an anti-Semite are neither fresh nor…
Sexed-up pacifism
Big-screen documentaries never change the world. Blackfish has not shortened the queues to see maltreated killer whales leap through hoops…
Woolf haul
People have been saying that Wayne McGregor’s new Woolf Works has reinvented the three-act ballet, but not so. William Forsythe…
Moving pictures
About six years ago the first section of the now celebrated High Line was opened in New York and made…
Moving pictures
About six years ago the first section of the now celebrated High Line was opened in New York and made…
Two batons better
The morning after the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra failed to elect a music director, I took a call from Bild-Zeitung, Berlin’s…
Two batons better
The morning after the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra failed to elect a music director, I took a call from Bild-Zeitung, Berlin’s…
Strange ways
BBC One’s 2015 choice of Sunday-night drama series is beginning to resemble the career of the kind of Hollywood actor…
More Marx than Dante
Martin Gayford finds a few nice paintings amid the dead trees, old clothes and agitprop of the Venice Biennale
Funny business
What does it take to be a stand-up comic? Jackie Mason has absolutely no idea
Polite pillage
Forget the pollsters and political pundits — English National Opera called it first and called it Right when it programmed…
To the maddest max
No one goes slack-jawed in wonder at the movies any more. In our cyber-enabled times, kid designers can mega-pixelate any…
Four play
If Julian, Dick, George and Anne had become terrorists they’d have called themselves The Angry Brigade. It’s such a Wendy…
The lying game
My favourite scene in the first episode of the new series of Benefits Street (Mondays, Channel 4) — now relocated…
The lives of others
‘I call Zelma Cacik who may be living in London,’ says the announcer, in the clipped RP accent of the…
Shakespeare’s duds
I love Shakespeare. But when he pulls on his wellies and hikes into the forest I yearn for the exit.…
