Arts
‘I had no interest in the theatre whatsoever’
Lloyd Evans talks to Keith Allen about Max Bygraves, how he fell into acting and the sensitivities of contemporary audiences
Around the world in 80 studios
Picture the artist’s studio: if what comes to mind is the romantic image of a male painter at his easel…
Great Britten
No question, the Royal Opera is on a roll. Just look at the cast list alone for Deborah Warner’s new…
Oxxxymirin: Beauty & Ugliness
Grade: A+ I was going to review hyperpop chanteuse Charli XCX’s album this week, but it was such boring, meretricious,…
User friendly
‘I like to have a martini,/ Two at the very most./ After three I’m under the table,/ After four I’m…
Norwegian wood
The Worst Person in the World is a Norwegian film that has made a big splash. To date, its star…
Not worth the price of admission
There are moments when you wish the theatre would just be swallowed up and be as if it had never…
Go down, Moses
Robert Gore-Langton on the man who wrecked New York
Miller’s crossing
Bloody Difficult Women is a documentary drama by the popular journalist Tim Walker, which looks at the similarities between Gina…
Study in Scarlett
Without fanfare or apology, the Royal Ballet appears to have rehabilitated Liam Scarlett, but what a tragic balls-up it has…
Her dark materials
It took a moment to realise Keeley Forsyth was there. There were already three musicians, faint figures on a dark…
Away with the fairies
Scottish Opera’s new production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream seems to open in midwinter. Snow falls, fairies hurl snowballs…
Bunker mentality
Phantom of the Open is a comedy-drama telling a true story that would have to be true as no one…
Out of this world
Notoriously, the past is another country: what’s more, it’s a terrain for which the guidebooks need constantly to be rewritten.…
An Englishwoman in Paris
A couple of years ago, I happened to read Graham Norton’s third novel Home Stretch. Rather patronisingly, perhaps, I was…
Great musicals
It’s strange how literature finds its way into other mediums. The current French film festival includes a film of Balzac’s…
The Weather Station: How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars
Grade: C– Anyone remember that TV advert for Canada from the 1980s – a succession of colourful images, including a…
Renaissance radical
‘Camp,’ wrote Susan Sontag, ‘is the paintings of Carlo Crivelli, with their real jewels and trompe-l’oeil insects and cracks in…
Lobster and dead pig
ITV’s new version of The Ipcress File began with a close-up of a pair of black-rimmed glasses just like those…
Wonder woman
Shedding a Skin opens with an office nightmare. Amanda is a mixed-race employee in a predominantly white firm who gets…
Old Marr, new Marr
Andrew Marr got his voice back this week. That may come as a bit of a surprise to everybody who’s…
Me time
I think it was when she leaned forward and balanced on one leg that Barbara Hannigan jumped the shark. It…
The artful todger
Mikey (Simon Rex) first appears striding down a road in utterly wrecked jeans and shirt. He is carrying nothing and…
The head in the bed
Fifty years since The Godfather’s release, Thomas W. Hodgkinson revisits the film’s most unforgettable scene
Tinkling irrevelancies?
So Opera Australia is in quest of a new artistic director to replace Lyndon Terracini. It’s a good moment to…
