Arts
Dark tales
The work of John Banville — Booker-winning novelist and impeccably high-minded literary critic — might seem an unlikely source for…
Royal mail
It’s rare for the public to be given access to the Royal Archives. They are housed in the forbidding Round…
Royal mail
It’s rare for the public to be given access to the Royal Archives. They are housed in the forbidding Round…
Royal mail
It’s rare for the public to be given access to the Royal Archives. They are housed in the forbidding Round…
Thinking games
Forget the pedantic classifications of genres, styles and schools. When it comes to dance performances, it all boils down to…
Worshipping Bach
When I was first learning about classical music, 50 years ago, the scene was more streamlined than it is now.…
Worshipping Bach
When I was first learning about classical music, 50 years ago, the scene was more streamlined than it is now.…
Camera shy
Award-winner Bill Forsyth tells William Cook why he was happy to walk away from film-making
Dazzling caper
Joan Littlewood’s greatest disservice to the theatre was to champion ‘the right to fail’, which encouraged writers and directors to…
People and their prophets
On paper, Moses und Aron might seem intractable and abstract: a 12-tone score setting a libretto that meditates on God,…
Land of Overkill
If a gang of knife-wielding toddlers ever presses you for the name of the best Disney film, Sleeping Beauty (1959)…
Dipping should be outlawed
Admit it. Say it! ‘My name is Blah and I am a boxaholic.’ Life on hold, marriage in bits, job…
Out of the shadows
Lynn Chadwick was born 100 years ago in London, and died in 2003 at his Gloucestershire home, Lypiatt Park, where…
Comic genius
On Harry and Paul’s Story of the Twos (BBC 2, Sunday), there was a particularly cruel sketch in which Paul…
Listen and learn
Much praise has been lavished on Radio 2’s 500 Words short-story competition, the winners to be announced on Friday’s Chris…
Past lives
Eighty-seven Hackford Road, SW9, is unremarkable but for a blue plaque telling the world that Vincent van Gogh once lived…
Past lives
Eighty-seven Hackford Road, SW9, is unremarkable but for a blue plaque telling the world that Vincent van Gogh once lived…
Past lives
Eighty-seven Hackford Road, SW9, is unremarkable but for a blue plaque telling the world that Vincent van Gogh once lived…
Firmly in focus
Lloyd Evans talks to the good-natured theatre director Polly Teale
Running out of time
If I live as long as my father, I’ll be checking out on 9 December 2017. Since every man in…
Square dance
Josef Albers (1888–1976) is best known for his long engagement with the square, which he painted in exquisite variation more…
Rare treat
In Venice, around 1552, Titian began work on a series of six paintings for King Philip II of Spain, each…
Balanchinian ideal
George Balanchine’s Serenade, the manifesto of 20th-century neoclassical choreography, requires a deep understanding of both its complex stylistic nuances and…
Loss of heart
In all its minute details, Der Rosenkavalier is rooted in a painstakingly stylised version of Rococo Vienna that, paradoxically, is…
Brain power
How do you write a play? Here’s one theory. Put a guy up a tree, throw rocks at him, get…
