Arts
Not tuned in
When Winston Went to War with the Wireless is the clumsy and misleading title of a new play about John…
Fighting talk
It isn’t easy selling out Wembley Stadium with its capacity of between 70,000 and 90,000 (depending on the exact arrangement).…
Innocent pertness
There are times when anyone might decide to throw in scanning the range of literature and art and music and…
Split decision
In the opening minutes of Best Interests (Monday and Tuesday), an estranged middle-aged couple made their separate ways to court,…
Lost in space
My witty friend whispered that Wayne McGregor’s new ballet Untitled, 2023 put her in mind of Google HQ – it’s…
Rocky peaks
One of the earliest jukebox musicals has returned to the West End. When the show opened in 2002 the author,…
To die for
There are a lot of corpses on stage at the end of Charles Edwards’s production of Tristan & Isolde for…
Amazing Grace
Some artists need flash bombs to make an impression on stage. Some need giant screens. Some need to run around…
Cutting edge
There’s a nice irony to the title Salon Paintings when the salon in question is a barbershop, an irony that…
‘Be original or die!’
Hermione Eyre on Yevonde, the pioneering 1930s photographer whose colour portraits evoke a vanishing world
A staggering performance
It would be wrong to belittle the Rembrandt exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria because the emphasis is on…
Weird and wonderful
A puzzle at Hampstead Theatre. Literally, a brain teaser. Its new production, Re-member Me, is a one-man show written and…
Alsatian string-breaker
One of the most intriguing piano concertos of the late 19th century is unknown to the public – and no…
Let’s twist again
Imagine if you had the power always to tell whether or not someone was lying. You’d have it made, wouldn’t…
Nepo daddies
Rob Grant releases his debut album, Lost at Sea, this week. A 69-year-old millionaire and former ad man, furniture exec…
Fire and fizz
Are you supposed to laugh at the end of Don Giovanni? Audiences often do, and they did at the end…
False notes
Chevalier is a biopic of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, whom you’ve probably never heard of, as I hadn’t. He…
All the rage
Welcome back to Room 101, which has returned to the radio – after nearly 30 years on TV – and…
One hundred years of humiliation
By the 1800s, the mechanical clock had become a status symbol for wealthy Chinese. The first arrived with Jesuit missionaries…
Cloth of heaven
Jonathan Ruffer calls for the return to Britain of the Tudor tapestry that proclaims the birth of the Church of England
A campy and colourful role
It’s good to report that the latest revival of The Rocky Horror Show with Jason Donovan as Frank-N-Furter is true…
Home truths
Can we know an artist by their house, asks Laura Freeman
The ex factor
Mrs Doubtfire is a social comedy about divorce. We meet Miranda, a talentless, bitter mother, who tires of her caring…
