Arts
Old news, but good news
When TV makes shows about TV, it rarely has a good word to say for itself. In the likes of…
A sharp instant in nature
‘I like the way he puts on paint,’ Milton Avery said about Matisse in 1953, but that was as much…
Spare us the preaching
It doesn’t help the cause of The Railway Children Return that the original 1970 Railway Children film is currently on…
Black Midi: Hellfire
Grade: A+ The difficult question with Black Midi was always: are you listening to them in order to admire them,…
Clangers and colanders
Delius and Puccini: how’s that for an operatic odd couple? Delius, that most faded of British masters, now remembered largely…
Call of the wild
It’s fascinating to hear that Warwick Thornton––who took the world by storm some years ago with that knockout indigenous film…
Some like it hot
Mary Wakefield on Katia and Maurice Krafft, who loved volcanoes and each other
Where the wild things aren’t
Where the Crawdads Sing is based on the bestselling book (by Delia Owens) that I picked up from one of…
Acid test
Many years ago a man on the end of my cigarette stole my soul. Mr Migarette (for such was his…
Smoke and mirrors
I go back and forth on tobacco companies. On the one hand, they are merchants of death. On the other,…
Let them drink fizz
There are composers who are known for a single opera, and there are operas that are known for only a…
Divine comedy
Patriots, by Peter Morgan, is a drama documentary about recent Russian history. And though it’s a topical show it’s not…
The art of window-peeping
Themed exhibitions pegged to particular pictures in museum collections tend to be more interesting to the museum’s curators than to…
Genesis of a Dreamcoat
Just the other day came the announcement that a new production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat was to…
Brought to book
You may already have read early reviews of Netflix’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion saying it’s ‘the worst adaptation ever’…
Resculpting the past
Rather than tearing statues down, Hew Locke believes in reworking them to highlight their place in our imperial history. Stuart Jeffries speaks to him
Shelley addict
Last week I heard the actor Julian Sands give a virtuoso performance of work by Percy Bysshe Shelley to mark…
Chekhov in a straitjacket
The Southbury Child is a comedy drama set in east Devon featuring a distressed vicar, Fr David, with a complex…
Nick Cave: Seven Psalms
Grade: B There has always been a seriousness and intelligence about Nick Cave quite at odds with that which usually…
Hot stuff
One legacy of lockdown in the classical music world has been the sheer length of the 21-22 season. In a…
Softly, softly
Grizzled police officers of the old school should probably avoid Channel 4’s Night Coppers for reasons of blood pressure. Like…
Enthralled
The news that Germaine Greer had put herself into a retirement home in sight of the Queensland forest she had…
Mourning glory
On Tuesday night I was at the world première of a motet by Sir James MacMillan and I don’t think…
The dying of the light
Cornelia Parker wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but when she was growing up her German godparents…
Knives out
Daisy Dunn on the art of surgery
