Arts
Brief encounter
I lost count long ago of the number of dinner parties and pub conversations where I’ve had to utter the…
Culture buff
He gave himself the name ‘Tennessee’; a creative and public relations masterstroke for a still unknown 28 year-old writer. Born…
Down and out
The prodigious streetdancer Tommy Franzén pops up everywhere from family-friendly hip-hop shows by ZooNation, Boy Blue and Bounce to serious…
Dudamel’s dilemma
On 8 March 2013, Gustavo Dudamel stood by the coffin of the Marxist autocrat Hugo Chavez and conducted the Simon…
Dudamel’s dilemma
On 8 March 2013, Gustavo Dudamel stood by the coffin of the Marxist autocrat Hugo Chavez and conducted the Simon…
Pop icon
The Coca-Cola ‘contour’ bottle is 100 years old. Stephen Bayley salutes a design classic
Double Dutch
‘Whoever wishes to devote himself to painting,’ Henri Matisse once advised, ‘should begin by cutting out his own tongue.’ Marlene…
Blunt weapon
Only a fool would mess with James Blunt. As his Twitter followers know, he has a sharp wit, and, as…
Farewell, ENO
It’s easy to forget what a mess of an art form opera once was. For its first 100 years it…
All in the mind
Big event. A new play from Sir Tom. And he tackles one of philosophy’s oldest and crunchiest issues, which varsity…
Stealing a march
Selma, the civil rights film that stars David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King, undoubtedly contains the best and most powerful…
Arab spring
Last weekend BBC Arabic celebrated 77 years since John Reith (as he then was) launched the first foreign-language service of…
Seeing the elephant
There were great numbers of young men who had never been in a war and were consequently far from unwilling…
Culture buff
Readers already know from this column something of the forthcoming Perth International Festival (13 Feb-7 Mar) with its huge Journey…
Blunt weapon
Only a fool would mess with James Blunt. As his Twitter followers know, he has a sharp wit, and, as…
Blunt weapon
Only a fool would mess with James Blunt. As his Twitter followers know, he has a sharp wit, and, as…
Japanomania
Peter Hoskin on the island nation that has taken over popular culture
Saved by Spotify
We have all read about the current woeful state of the CD industry — how it is 28 per cent…
Rubens wronged
The main spring offering at the Royal Academy, Rubens and His Legacy: Van Dyck to Cézanne, teaches two useful lessons.…
Give us a break
Gay plays crowd the theatrical canon. There are the necessary enigmas of Noël Coward, like The Vortex or Design For…
Jugglers v. dancers
January is something of a palate-cleanser for the year, as the London International Mime Festival flies in plane-loads of companies…
Cruel to be kind
Trash is the sort of film one desperately wishes to be kind about — heart supremely, if not burstingly, in…
Crime and punishment
In one of the more peculiar concerts that I have been to at the Royal Festival Hall, Vladimir Jurowski conducted…
Ebola shakes
By some quirk of fate, just as news reached the papers that the Scottish nurse who had contracted Ebola while…
The long goodbye
In January 1958, the British government began working on the significantly titled Operation Hope Not: its plans for what to…
