Arts
Del Toro’s Frankenstein offers nothing new
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein stars Oscar Isaac (Baron Victor Frankenstein) and Jacob Elordi (‘the creature’) and retells the basics of…
My unofficial music teacher
In the early 1970s my father moved offices and I was plucked out of my cosy prep school in Surrey…
The Two Roberts drank, danced, fought – but how good was their art?
The Two Roberts, Robert MacBryde (1913-66) and Robert Colquhoun (1914-62), are figures of a lost British bohemia. Both born in…
Lice combs, vaginal syringes and cesspits: at home in 17th century Holland
The room is dark, the lighting deliberately low. At its centre stands a solitary object: a yellow and green earthenware…
The melancholy genius of Joseph Wright of Derby
If you lived in the 1760s and were affluent enough – and curious enough – science could be a family…
The necessity of love
Everyone has been preoccupied with television and the way in the wake of Covid we have seen the streamers (and…
Let’s face it, Sleeping Beauty is a bit of a bore
Let’s face it, The Sleeping Beauty runs the high risk of being a bit of a bore. A wonderfully inventive…
Dimes Square on screen
I can’t watch films anymore without looking at my phone. If I watch a film on my laptop, I’ll be…
Perfection: Hampstead Theatre’s The Assembled Parties reviewed
The Assembled Parties, by Richard Greenberg, is a rich, warm family comedy that received three Tony nominations in 2013 following…
There is little sadder than the death of a language
The last Yana-speaker in the world died in 1916. When Ishi was born, the Yana were still a small but…
Peak wackiness: Lanthimos’s Bugonia reviewed
Bugonia is the latest film from Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite, The Lobster, Poor Things) and it’s about a conspiracy theorist…
Unesco are idiots
Of all the moronic decisions made by cultural organisations over the past 50 years, probably the most insulting and retrograde…
The joy of Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing
If you didn’t already know that Down Cemetery Road was based on a novel Mick Herron wrote before the Slough…
A cracking little 1967 opera that we ought to see more often
Ravel’s L’heure espagnole is set in a clockmaker’s shop and the first thing you hear is ticking and chiming. It’s…
No band should play Ally Pally
The last time Gillian Welch and David Rawlings played in London it was a different world: the world of David…
Transcending the cloaks and jewellery
Mrs Warren’s Profession (in selected cinemas from October 23) is one of Shaw’s ‘Plays Unpleasant’ and it’s an extraordinary play…
Why I love blowing up worms
Grade: B+ War, as we all know, is hell. But if it involves small squeaky annelids blowing each-other up with…
The new Springsteen biopic is cringe
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is a biopic of ‘the boss’ starring Jeremy Allen White. It is not cradle to…
The best artist alive? Probably
Taking place every October in Regent’s Park, the Frieze fair is probably the biggest event in London’s art calendar. It…
The staggering beauty of Fra Angelico
In 1982, Pope John Paul II surprised a few people by beatifying Fra Angelico, the 15th-century Dominican friar from near…
A great comedy about a terrible sport
I’m trying to think of things I’m less interested in than American football. The plant-based food section? Taking up my…
The triumph of classical architecture
It is very hard to imagine the University of Oxford ever constructing a modernist building again. This is the significance…
Why was the 19th century so full of bigots and weirdos?
Da Vinci’s Laundry is based on an art world rumour. In 2017, Leonardo’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ sold at Christie’s for $450…
A Magic Flute that will make you weep
English Touring Opera has begun its autumn season and the miracle isn’t so much that they’re touring at all these…
Fionn Regan has gone method Worzel Gummidge
Watching the Mercury Music Prize on television last week, I remembered that Fionn Regan’s debut album, The End Of History,…
