Arts
Talking books
If ever I found myself at a pretentious literary party obliged to play David Lodge’s ‘Humiliation’ game and to confess…
Stephen Sondheim
I came out in a rash when I heard that Emma Thompson was to star in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd…
Culture buff
In her memoir Must You Go?, Antonia Fraser records an exchange between her husband Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett in…
50 shades of beige
My moment of the week was stumbling into the shocking, fantastical Cabinet of Curiosities in the Alexander McQueen show at…
Stephen Sondheim
I came out in a rash when I heard that Emma Thompson was to star in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd…
Stephen Sondheim
I came out in a rash when I heard that Emma Thompson was to star in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd…
Shock and awe
Alexander McQueen may have been a prat but at least he was an interesting one, says Shura Slater
The power of nightmares
It is not impossible to create good art that makes a political point, just highly unusual. Goya’s ‘Third of May’…
Brought to book
Suite Française is being billed as a second world war romance about ‘forbidden love’ and, in this regard, it is…
Suite nothings
One of last year’s unexpected treasures was a novelty show by Defibrillator that took three neglected Tennessee Williams plays, all…
Gone girl
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson loved little girls. He loved to tell them stories, he loved to feed them jam, he loved…
Passage to India
After a month cooped up in a Scottish castle, no internet, no TV, and no radio, watching hectic snowflakes billowing…
The Turner effect
By my calculations, the remake of Poldark (BBC1, Sunday) is the first time BBC drama has returned to Cornwall since…
Culture buff
Nowadays we don’t often look to modern Greece for inspiration except for its physical beauty and the charm of its…
Back to the future
How Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, made 33 years ago, foresaw the way we live today, by William Cook
Monet maker
When it was suggested that a huge exhibition of Impressionist paintings should be held in London, Claude Monet had his…
Whose line is it anyway?
Songwriting credits are, as we know, not always to be trusted. Since the dawn of music publishing, there has always…
GBH meets BS
When I was a kid, I was taught by a kindly old Jesuit whose youth had been beguiled by George…
Moore or less
There’s always seemed something masklike about Julianne Moore’s face: she seems walled in by her beauty. When she smiles, the…
From one extreme to another
When is an opera not an opera? How much can you strip and peel away, or extend and graft on…
Worthy of Riefenstahl
My favourite bit of The Great European Disaster (BBC4, Sunday) was the lingering shot that showed golden heads of corn…
Dream team
The aching hum of crickets. The susurrus of reeds. The lapping of waves. The unmistakable noise of a sound technician…
Tate Britain
Things have not been happy at Tate Britain for some time. Last year Waldemar Januszczak wrote an article culminating with…
Culture buff
So familiar, Miriam Margolyes seems like one of us. Well, she is actually, because she took out Oz citizenship and…
Whose line is it anyway?
Songwriting credits are, as we know, not always to be trusted. Since the dawn of music publishing, there has always…
