Arts
A fight to the Finnish
When I went into the Sisu screening I knew only that it was a Finnish film, so was expecting an…
Station to station
Exiting Peckham Rye station, you’re not aware of it, but standing on the platform you can see a mansard roof…
Back to black
Michael Hann on the most enduring of pop subcultures
Strange bedfellows
What a whirlwind the world of the arts can be. Gabrielle Carey who changed forever the image of teenage girlish…
Death on the Nile
The most controversial aspect of Netflix’s new drama-documentary Queen Cleopatra – not least in Egypt – was the casting of…
Girl’s world
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is an adaptation of Judy Blume’s seminal young adult novel (1970) about an…
Top gear
Normally, when you look at portraits you feel obliged to focus on the sitter. But quite often you’re thinking, ‘Ooh,…
Ladies first
In the rush to right the historical gender balance, galleries have been corralling neglected women artists into group exhibitions: the…
Irish ayes
I was listening the other week to a solo album by an ageing rock guitarist, once terrifically famous. It was…
How do I hate thee?
A new play, The Misandrist, looks at modern dating habits. Rachel is a smart, self-confident woman whose partner is a…
Florid flummery
Lightning sometimes strikes twice. English Touring Opera hit topical gold last spring when, wholly by coincidence, they found themselves touring…
Me and Mr Jones
Adam Sweeting talks to the documentary-maker Nick Broomfield about the forgotten Rolling Stone
Rattle and HM
It’s funny to think that at the very moment when King Charles was going through his Coronation, pledging service and…
Cheap and cheerful
Fulfilling its sacred duty to serve regions that higher culture tends to avoid, Birmingham Royal Ballet made a midweek visit…
‘Painting was always waiting for me’
Claudia Massie talks to the botanical painter Emma Tennant about grief, finding success later in life, and her love of twigs
Primer time
The Motive and the Cue breaches the inviolable sanctity of the rehearsal room. The play, set in New York in…
A feast for the ears
Sir Hubert Parry was upgraded from knight bachelor to baronet by King Edward VII in 1902, and my goodness he…
The end is in sight
Plan 75 is a dystopian Japanese drama about a government-sponsored euthanasia programme introduced to address Japan’s ageing society. Aged 75…
Early birds
As the owner of a radio alarm clock, I could theoretically start listening to the Today programme before I’m even…
Sad-face emoji
Whether by accident or design, the mathematical theme of Ed Sheeran’s previous album titles (+, ×, ÷ and = respectively)…
No laughing matter
As stage directions go, the The Magic Flute opens with a zinger. ‘Tamino enters from the right wearing a splendid…
A saint for all seasons
Laura Gascoigne on the pulling power of St Francis of Assisi
Dragons, broomsticks and whatnot
It was saddening to hear of the death of the poet John Tranter the other week. For those of us…
Rabbit redux
With the current taste for remakes of erotic-thriller movies of the 1980s and ’90s, these are certainly good times for…
