Arts
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…
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…
Tate Britain
Things have not been happy at Tate Britain for some time. Last year Waldemar Januszczak wrote an article culminating with…
Tate Britain
Things have not been happy at Tate Britain for some time. Last year Waldemar Januszczak wrote an article culminating with…
Public enemy
Stephen Bayley announces the launch of What’s That Thing?, The Spectator’s award for bad public art
All in the worst possible taste
In the giftshop at the new Elvis exhibition at the Dome, you can buy your own version of his flared…
Elephant in the room
In the centre of the new exhibition Sculpture Victorious at Tate Britain there is a huge white elephant. The beast…
Russia with love
They’re doing fantastic deals on five-star hotels in St Petersburg the weekend the Francis Bacon exhibition opens at the Hermitage.…
How J-Lo can you go?
Stateside critics, who panned Jennifer Lopez’s new film The Boy Next Door on its US release last month, may be…
Audience participation
Torben Betts is much admired by his near-namesake Quentin Letts for socking it to London trendies. Letts is one of…
Eurocrash and Eurotrash
Funny how things turn upside-down with time. A work of contemporary dance that made an iconoclastic splash decades ago is…
Twin peaks
Is there a more beautiful aria than ‘O mio babbino caro’ from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi? There are more overwhelming moments…
Glad to be Grey
Great works of art may have a strange afterlife. Deracinated from the world that created them they are at the…
What the doctor ordered
Sky1’s new hospital drama Critical (Tuesday) can’t be accused of making a timid start. Within seconds, an urgent request had…
Special effects
No phrase is better calculated to tense the neck muscles of a regular podcast listener than ‘We have something special…
