Arts
Culture buff
Jane Turner is to play a mother with a difficult daughter. No, it’s not a stage version of Kath &…
Un-Beaton
The odds were a hundred to one against him. Brought up in bourgeois Bayswater by genteel parents, Cecil Beaton was…
Autumn round-up
This has been an extraordinarily exciting fortnight, on and off stage. Premieres in anything from ice-skating to classical ballet, charismatic…
Un-Beaton
The odds were a hundred to one against him. Brought up in bourgeois Bayswater by genteel parents, Cecil Beaton was…
On the waterfront
The current redevelopment of the city’s riverside is a lost opportunity to reclaim the Thames for Londoners, says Ellis Woodman
Dumb and dumber
Christopher Nolan’s futuristic epic Interstellar isn’t a clever film, or even a dumb film with a clever film trying to…
Privates on parade
One day, as a student — or so the story goes — Egon Schiele called on Gustav Klimt, a celebrated…
Russian revelation
Anyone who thinks opera singers and orchestral players are overworked should spare a thought for the Mariinsky Opera on its…
Trick or treat
Jonah and Otto is a lost-soul melodrama that keeps its audience guessing. Where are we? The Channel coast somewhere. Indoors…
Gospel truth
‘I’m starting to think that all of the world’s major problems can be solved with either oyster sauce or backing…
Object lessons
What Radio 3 needs is a musical version of Neil MacGregor. The director of the British Museum and now a…
Country folk
Twenty minutes into BBC4’s The Heart of Country (Friday), there was a clip of Chet Atkins, country music’s star producer…
Gospel truth
‘I’m starting to think that all of the world’s major problems can be solved with either oyster sauce or backing…
Gospel truth
‘I’m starting to think that all of the world’s major problems can be solved with either oyster sauce or backing…
Pop provocateur
After years of being effectively banned from exhibiting in his own country, Allen Jones finally reaches the RA with his first major UK retrospective. Andrew Lambirth meets him
The only way is Essex
Stephen Bayley revisits the ambitious, and for its day visionary, campus that is Essex University for its 50th birthday celebrations
Artists’ little helpers
A 19th-century London artists’ supplier named Charles Roberson offered imitation human beings for sale or rent, with papier-mâché heads, soft…
Art of grunting
Mr Turner may be the gruntiest film of the year, possibly the gruntiest film ever. ‘Grunt, grunt, grunt,’ goes Mr…
Becoming Rothko
Mark Rothko was an abstract artist who didn’t see himself as an abstract artist — or at least not in…
Rough-Huhne
I love Grayson Perry. You might almost call him the anti-Russell Brand: a genuinely talented artist who also has some…
Mis-en-Mars
You have to hand it to the Russians. They beat us into space, beat us to sexual equality, and a…
Sexy ladies
This season of live Met relays got off to a most impressive start, with an electrifying account of Verdi’s tenth…
Cultural revolution
We have read about the remarkable opening up of China in recent years: how many people live there and how…
Ballet’s battle royal
English ballet erupted out of the second world war in the hands of the rival choreographers Frederick Ashton and Robert…
Men behaving badly
Start with a joke. Neville’s Island. Get it? Laughing yet? Are your ribs splitting into pieces? It’s a cracker, isn’t…
