Arts
Joy and melancholy from Tame Impala
About 15 years ago, I spoke to a relatively unknown neo-psychedelic musician from Western Australia called Kevin Parker. It was…
What have they done to Tom & Jerry?
Time was you knew where you were with Tom and Jerry. He chases the mouse; catches the mouse; the mouse…
The Arts Council’s bleak vision for the future of opera
English National Opera’s first production created in Manchester is Angel’s Bone, a one-act opera by Du Yun and the librettist…
The Venice Biennale was just that bit worse than usual
The 61st Venice Biennale arrived freighted with portent. To cut a long story short: Russia and Israel were invited to…
Derek Jacobi on playing Lucian Freud
Lucian Freud almost had a second career in the cinema. He acted as an extra in a couple of films…
A masterpiece of economy
There’s something very odd about the fuss that’s been made about David Szalay who won the Booker a few months…
Rosalia’s O2 show was a landmark concert
If Olivia Dean is the girl next door, Rosalia is the girl next planet. Their shows in successive weeks at…
The BBC at its nation-unifying best
Children of the Blitz began with the surprising news – to me anyway – that while 800,000 British children in…
A charmingly bold food podcast
It takes some gumption to name a podcast History’s Greatest Dishes and proceed to offer episodes on pizza, blancmange, balti,…
A Beatles show without the love
Please Please Me is a play about Brian Epstein whose brief and troubled life remains relatively unknown. Tom Wright’s linear…
The Trocks’ shtick is getting tired
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo were popular regulars at Washington’s Kennedy Center until Trump’s demented blast against decadent queerness.…
The Christophers is delicious
Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers is a deliciously sly, twisty, darkly comedic take on the art world starring Ian McKellen who…
The British modernist who was airbrushed from history
Elsewhere in British music in 1960: William Walton was writing his Symphony No 2, Benjamin Britten his opera on Midsummer…
In defence of Hindemith
There’s a photo of Paul Hindemith with the pianist Artur Schnabel on hands and knees, surrounded by model railway track.…
Peter Shaffer should be up there with the greats
Commercial success has a way of corroding critical regard. The more popular a playwright becomes, the more the critical establishment…
How Winston Churchill painted himself out of the darkness
At Chartwell, Sir Winston Churchill’s home of 42 years, now owned by the National Trust, lies his painting studio. Reached…
The performance of her career
It’s odd, isn’t it, the uncanny relationship between success and achievement. Just the other night the Melbourne Theatre Company had…
Students of theatrical history will adore David Hare’s Grace Pervades
Grace Pervades by David Hare is a drama-documentary about the life and theatrical work of the great Victorian thesp, Sir…
How to win MasterChef
‘Warmer, sharper and funnier than ever,’ claims one reviewer of ‘the BBC’s disgraced cookery show’ MasterChef. But this is nonsense.…
The art of noise
I’m bullish about AI. All aesthetic snobs should be. In the war on man-made slop – still the most pressing…
Compelling: Cowboy Junkies at Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, reviewed
Anyone who was listening to independent music back in the 1980s and 1990s might find it surprising to learn which…
Riveting: Kokuho reviewed
A three-hour Japanese epic about a classical performance art (kabuki) isn’t the easiest sell, I’ll grant you, but I’ll give…
A spring mood lifter: Tales of Love and Loss at the Linbury Theatre reviewed
This year’s Jette Parker Artists showcase is a triple bill of modern-ish operas; a cleverly assembled trittico of one-acters, linked…
How to dress a queen
The problem with exhibiting costumes is well known. Should the mannequins be lifelike with human features, or faceless? What about…
The art of flowers
Multi-sensory exhibitions are old hat, but in the case of In Bloom – How Plants Changed Our World at Oxford’s…
