Arts
Where art and pleasure collide
The morality of art always seems like such a simple thing. The Greeks want back the so-called Elgin Marbles pilfered…
Cell division
The Angel of Prisons dramatises the life of the penal reformer Elizabeth Fry, who lived near Canning Town. She married…
Hail, César!
In the Rodgers and Hart musical On Your Toes, a Broadway hoofer is forced to work at a community college,…
Vintage whine
The American Whine is one of the key vocal registers in rock and roll. You can trace that thin disaffected…
Child’s play
‘Germany’s greatest artistic asset, its music, is in danger,’ warned The Spectator in June 1937. Reporting from the leading new-music…
The beautiful and damned
The Forgiven is based on the novel by Lawrence Osborne and stars Ralph Fiennes (terrific) and Jessica Chastain (ditto) as…
There will be blood
House of the Dragon got off to a pretty uninspirational start, I thought: no major characters brought to a shocking…
The money shot
Is the onscreen portrayal of investment bankers as monsters true to life? Martin Vander Weyer talks to the writers of Industry
His lightning art
The combinations and permutations of different forms of artistic activity are always weird. Stacks of people will want to see…
Saved from slim pickings
With the major companies largely on their summer breaks, the Edinburgh International Festival struggles to programme a high standard of…
Never let it go
Who doesn’t love Eurovision? All that razzmatazz. The ghastly frocks and gloopy pop songs, the false bonhomie and bare-faced bias…
The script is the star
Southwark Playhouse has a reputation for small musicals with big ambitions. Tasting Notes is set in a wine bar run…
Rough justice
At 4.38 a.m., one morning in October 2013, the radio presenter Paul Gambaccini was understandably asleep when the doorbell rang.…
Woodstock this wasn’t
One learns the strangest things at festivals. That, for instance, this summer has been a bit of a blackcurrant disaster…
Less than meets the eye
Beast is, the blurb tells us, a ‘pulse-pounding thriller about a father and his daughters who find themselves hunted by…
Emancipation man
Winslow Homer may be too all-American for British tastes but a forthcoming retrospective could change all that, says Laura Gascoigne
Don’t be routine
It’s a marvellous thing that the great Indian conductor Zubin Mehta will be wielding the baton for that illustrious group…
Falling stars
If you want real acting in films, forget the leads – it’s in the supporting roles that you’ll find true talent, says Tanya Gold
We get the picture
Philip Guston is hard to dislike. The most damning critique levied against the canonical mid-century American painter is that he…
Finger-wagging and flawed
‘Diversity is woven into the very soul of the story.’ If those words of praise from a rave review in…
Doctor doctor
In a new hour-long monologue, Burn, Alan Cumming examines the life and work of Robert Burns. The biographical material is…
Curiouser and curiouser
My Old School is a documentary exploring a true story that would have to be true as it’s too preposterous…
Joyous freefall
The first part of the adventure was getting there. Out of the subway, past the tower blocks and under the…
A legend comes to town
‘Human beings are in trouble these days,’ says Herbie Hancock, chatting to us between songs. ‘And do you know who…
Trash and treasure
It’s cheering to see that the new head of Melbourne’s Arts Centre is Karen Quinlan. For years now, she has…
