Arts
Vive la gloire
The refurbishment of Paris’s galleries and museums continues apace, with money no object, finds Rupert Christiansen
Time takes a cigarette
June 16 was Bloomsday, the day we celebrate James Joyce’s Ulysses, and it was a special Bloomsday because 2022 is…
Bloated waffle
The Old Vic’s new show, Jitney, has a mystifying YouTube advert which gives no information about the play or the…
Overmilking the crime cow
Nothing new under the sun. Or at least it feels that way these days, doesn’t it? The movies are TV…
Fever pitch
Elvis is Baz Luhrmann’s biopic of Elvis Presley and it’s cradle to grave but told at such a gallop you’ll…
Naughty but very nice
Sir David Pountney, it appears, has been to Prague. He’s booked himself a mini-break, he’s EasyJetted out, and after (one…
Shooting star
Tanjil Rashid on the polymathic Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray, who spearheaded a new school of Indian cinema
Read his lips
Of all the photos of artists in the studio, the one of Glyn Philpot being served a martini by his…
This will end badly
I don’t think it’s my imagination: it really is getting harder and harder to find anything worth watching on TV.…
Tinkering with the masters
It was sad to see Ray Liotta, that magnificent actor, had died the other week. He was most famous for…
Central line
James Graham has made his considerable name writing political-based dramas of a highly unusual type: non-polemical ones. And this certainly…
Principle of Pan’s People
I’ve always felt uncomfortably ambivalent about the work of Matthew Bourne. Of course, there is no disputing its infectious exuberance…
Tony’s looney tunes
Harry Hill’s latest musical traces Tony Blair’s bizarre career from student pacifist to war-mongering plaything of the United States. With…
Born again
Richard Bratby on the resurrection of wunderkind Erich Korngold’s long-neglected masterpiece
The borrowers
‘Version’ is an old reggae term I’ve always loved. It refers to a stripped-down, rhythm-heavy instrumental mix of a song,…
Let’s talk about sex
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande stars Emma Thompson as a retired, widowed religious education teacher in her sixties who…
Bathed in molten glory
When Parsifal finally returns to Montsalvat, it’s Good Friday. He’s trodden the path of suffering but now the sun is…
Style and substance
One of the New York Met Gala stylists is sharing tips for wearing a corset to an evening do. ‘Breathe…
Sheer erotic pulsation
Anyone whose extreme youth was graced by the experience of watching the Nederlands Dans Theater is liable to be astonished…
Friends reunited
All My Friends Hate Me is a film about a university reunion weekend and should you have an upcoming university…
The real deal
One of the biggest talking points in pop these past couple of years has been how successful old musicians have…
A lethal disdain for the poor
Dictating to the Estate is a piece of community theatre that explains why Grenfell Tower went up in flames on…
On the offensive
Just how edgy and dangerous is Ricky Gervais? There is no one more edgy and dangerous, we learn from no…
Fantastic beasts
Sam Kriss on the power of paleoart
Wet wet wet
In April, ten years after opening its gallery on the beach in Hastings, the Jerwood Foundation gifted the building to…
