Arts
Comic genius
A global pandemic is no match for the Marvel multiverse, says Rosie Millard
Hot mess
These days, James Bond can no longer just be the main character in the Bond films. He’s also had to…
Revival of the fittest
In Oliver Mears’s new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto, the curtain rises on a work of art. The stage is in…
High Jencks
An editor once told me: always look at the loos. It was remarkable, she said, how many grand cultural projets,…
The beautiful and damned
Nick Cave has always been drawn to parable and fable, but more than ever these days he is engaged in…
About more than just the music
The single most boring and pointless thing that is ever said about rock and pop — and it always comes…
Alan key
Given my affection for M*A*S*H, I can’t think why I haven’t listened to Alan Alda’s podcasts before now, besides the…
Going for Goldberg
I sometimes think the classical record industry would collapse if it weren’t for the Goldberg Variations. Every month brings more…
A script to raise whirlwinds
Boy meets girl. Girl gets pregnant. Then the entire world collapses. That’s the story of Camp Siegfried, which is set…
Nic Denton and Frances O’Connor
As the northern hemisphere, that ambiguous spectral homeland we’re conscious of, starts to open up, it’s easy to be envious…
Going for a song
A new musical history is being written for Britain, says Nicola Christie
Lindsey Buckingham: Lindsey Buckingham
Grade: B– The first time Lindsey Buckingham had a big falling out with Stevie Nicks we at least got some…
Phantom thread
Blithe Spirit is a comedy with the plot of a horror story. Charles, a middle-aged novelist, lives happily with his…
There will be blood
Like musical supergroups and Olympic basketball teams, ballet galas tend to prize individual gifts over group cohesion. A recent one…
Man and boy
So how exactly did Tony Soprano become a New Jersey mob boss? It’s 1967 and young Anthony is struggling to…
Follow the science
It is, of course, not unknown for a man to become famous with the support of his family — and,…
Flower power
Elizabeth Blackadder, who died last month at the age of 89, was probably the most distinctive botanical artist of our…
Snap, crackle, shriek…
So it finally happened: I experienced my first vocal setting of the word ‘Covid’. An encounter that was, inevitably, more…
Diane Lane
It was doubly sad the other night to see Virginia Gay deliver a speech from her Covid-cancelled Cyrano on the…
Giving the devil his due
The Sopranos – the greatest television show in history – far outshines its progenitors, says Tanya Gold
No cojones
It’s a hard heart that doesn’t warm to the musical drama Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. I don’t have a hard…
Sub standard
Tense, claustrophobic, gripping, thrilling, realistic: just some of the adjectives no one is using to describe BBC1’s Sunday night submarine…
The yumminess of paint
‘Painting has always been dead,’ Willem de Kooning once mused. ‘But I was never worried about it.’ The exhibition Mixing…
Teenage kicks
For a one-hit composer, we hear rather a lot of Pietro Mascagni. His reputation rests on his 1890 debut Cavalleria…
Hot metal and methadrine
They may no longer get many teenagers at their shows spending all their money on merchandise, then throwing up on…
