Arts
The only way is Sussex
In a national vote on which county’s landscape best embodies Englishness, every county would presumably vote for itself. But when…
‘I’ve ended up looking for pixies’
Revd Steve Morris talks to former Damned drummer Rat Scabies about his journey from punk rock to the Holy Grail
Rite of summer
It’s a strange period of relaxation, isn’t it? The post-Christmas and New Year period in the lead up to Australia…
Pure, heavenly escapism
The Unfriend is a smart new family comedy which opens on the sunlit deck of a cruise ship. Peter and…
Things fall apart
The great country singer George Jones was famed not just for his voice, but also for his drinking. Once, deprived…
Procession of eccentrics
For around a decade now, Grayson Perry has been making reliably thoughtful and entertaining documentary series about such things as…
With added Spice
‘We hope you enjoy the performance,’ announced the Tannoy before the lights went down for How did we get here?…
A crash course in all things Hispanic
‘Spain must be much more interesting than Liverpool,’ decided the 12-year-old Archer M. Huntington after buying a book on Spanish…
Cheesy feat
There can’t be anyone anywhere who hasn’t somehow been touched by a Steven Spielberg film. Some of us, for example,…
Mersey boy
Daniel Barenboim was supposed to perform with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra earlier this month. His recent health concerns made…
Listening to walls
Frank Lawton talks to Maurizio De Luca, former chief restorer at the Vatican, about the pitfalls of his profession
Cardinal virtues
George Pell is dead. Although he was 81, no one would have predicted it. The Cardinal who had had to…
Close to perfection
Watch on the Rhine is the curiously misleading title chosen by Lillian Hellman for a wartime family drama that became…
Lounge-funk for vampires
There’s a case to be made for John Cale being the most daring ex-member of the Velvet Underground. Lou Reed…
A frog’s-eye view
Whenever I listen to Great Lives on Radio 4, which is often, I am reminded of the gulf between fame…
Made to order
Kaleidoscope is a fairly routine eight-part heist drama with a supposed novelty spin: apart from the beginning and the end,…
Don’t bank on it
Bank of Dave is the ‘true(ish)’ story, as this puts it, of Dave Fishwick, the Burnley businessman who wanted to…
Worlds gone mad
‘Graphic’ scenes of violence are now associated with film, but the word betrays an older ancestry. The first mass media…
Bitter sweet symphony
Norman Lebrecht on his hatred of Beethoven’s Pastoral
Feast of epiphanies
January 6, the end of the twelve days of Christmas and the Feast of the Epiphany when the three wise…
Polar exploration
The National’s new comedy by April De Angelis is a clever and amusing attempt to deliver that most elusive artefact,…
The power and the glory
Todd Field’s Tár stars an insanely glorious Cate Blanchett – if she doesn’t win an Oscar I’ll eat my hat…
Crocks of gold
There are various staples of still life painting, some symbolic, some not. Skulls and musical instruments suggest the transience of…
The strangest figure in pop
On 3 February 2003, the emergency services in Los Angeles received a call. ‘I’m Phil Spector’s driver,’ a voice told…
