Arts
A world away
Remember Gus the Theatre Cat in T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats? He says that he has acted…
The decline of Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival was established to champion the civilising power of European high culture in a spirit of postwar healing.…
The mystical hold of the 1990s over Gen Z
At some point during the past decade and a half, it was decided that the 1990s were a golden age.…
A Brigadoon better than most of us ever hoped to see
The village of Brigadoon rises from the Scotch mists once every 100 years, and revivals of Lerner and Loewe’s musical…
Alien: Earth is wantonly disrespectful to the canon
I once spent a delightful weekend in Madrid with the co-producer of Alien. His name was David Giler (now dead,…
The Seeds are primitive but magnificent
Plus: am I the only person who finds M.J. Lenderman’s voice whiny?
Glorious: Good Night, Oscar, at the Barbican, reviewed
Good Night, Oscar is a biographical play about Oscar Levant, a famous pianist who was also a noted wit and…
The masterpieces on your doorstep
I do not, if I can help it, catch a train to anywhere on a Sunday. Yet there I was…
I’ve had it with Anselm Kiefer
August is always a crap month for exhibitions in London. The collectors are elsewhere, the dealers are presumably hot on…
Shaggy dog tale
I thought it would be impossible to make a bad film about a dog but the production team for The…
Ultimately hard to resist: Elbow reviewed
Our relationships with bands are often very like our relationships with people. Some are pure and lasting love. Some start…
Disconcerting but often delightful new Bach transcriptions
Grade: B Everyone loves the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Rather fewer people love the sound of an unaccompanied organ,…
Woody Allen without the zingers: Materialists reviewed
Celine Song’s first film, the wonderful Past Lives (2023), earned two Oscar nominations. So expectations were riding high for Materialists.…
I love how awful My Oxford Year is
The punters are saying My Oxford Year is a disaster. ‘Predictable, uninspiring and laughable,’ complains some meanie on Rotten Tomatoes.…
The rise of cringe
No one wrote programme notes quite like the English experimentalist John White. ‘This music is top-quality trash,’ proclaims his 1993…
The problem with psychiatrists? They’re all depressed
Edinburgh seems underpopulated this year. The whisky bars are half full and the throngs of tourists who usually crowd the…
How the railways shaped modern culture
Cue track seven of Frank Sinatra’s 1957 album Only the Lonely and you can hear Ol’ Blue Eyes pretending to…
Modest, interesting – no masterpieces: Millet at the National Gallery reviewed
Jean-François Millet (1814-75). One Room. 14 items. Eight paintings. Six drawings and sketches. Modest, interesting. No masterpieces. The show appeals…
Getting down and dirty
It’s splendid to be sitting at the very front of the Playhouse watching a new musical from the Melbourne Theatre…
The terrifying charisma of Liam Gallagher
You’d have thought Wembley Stadium was a sportswear convention, so ubiquitous were the three stripes down people’s arms from all…
Wittily wild visions: Abstract Erotic, at the Courtauld, reviewed
If you came to this show accidentally, or as a layperson, it could confirm any prejudices you might have about…
What a slippery, hateful toad Fred Goodwin was
Make It Happen is a portrait of a bullying control freak, Fred Goodwin, who turned RBS into the largest bank…
Rattigan’s films are as important as his plays
A campaign is under way to rename the West End’s Duchess Theatre after the playwright Terence Rattigan. Supported as it…
The excruciating tedium of John Tavener
The Edinburgh International Festival opened with John Tavener’s The Veil of the Temple, and I wish it hadn’t. Not that…
