Arts
Odd and odder
Leos Carax is the director whose films have always been wilfully odd. Ron and Russell Mael (the brothers from the…
Melodic genius and trainspotter
For some reason, I’d got it into my head that the main work in the Gringolts Quartet’s midday recital at…
Rottweilers in frocks
It’s a rum beast the new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Cinderella is set in Belleville, a European city of 18th-century…
Incredible hulks
Laura Gascoigne on the art of pillboxes
Nicole Kidman
And, as even Canberra locks down, so do all the shows. The Melbourne Theatre Company shuts down its production of…
Screech, howl, yelp, crash
The new Lily Allen vehicle opens in a spruced-up terrace in the East End. Allen plays a self-satisfied yuppie, Jenny,…
Doyenne of applied arts
Great Swiss artists, like famous Belgians, might seem to be an amusingly underpopulated category. Actually, as with celebrated Flemings and…
Why I love Basic Instinct
Our occasional series on cinema’s most underrated films arrives at what many have considered the peak of misogynistic trash. We’re…
A fat king with a sex chair
When it comes to history programming, television’s loss is increasingly audio’s gain. People moan to me most weeks over the…
The human condition
Opera buffs enjoy their jargon. We all do it, scattering words like ‘spinto’ and ‘Fach’ like an enthusiastic pizza waiter…
Happy cross-pollination
This year we must love Edinburgh for her soul rather than her looks. The EIF should be commended for making…
What a farce
Lloyd Evans talks to Nigel Planer about the death of comedy theatre — and how he’s trying to revive it
Ernest Hemingway
Entertainment in a public place shrivels as the lockdowns continue. The Australian Ballet has cancelled its Melbourne season, Anna Karenina…
Men and sheds
The interview podcast is a genre immoderately drawn to gimmicks, as the logical space of possible formats is gradually exhausted.…
Should it stay or should it go?
There are many examples of beautiful old buildings being knocked down in favour of undistinguished new ones. But not everything can be preserved in aspic, says Martin Gayford
Grateful for large mercies
Glyndebourne is nothing if not honest. ‘In response to the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions our 2021 performances of Tristan und Isolde…
Cosy catastrophe
When the apocalypse comes, I want it to be scripted by a 1970s screenwriter. That’s my conclusion after watching the…
Musical Medicis
The new music economy relies on cross-promotion and artists reaching out to different scenes. And the rise of streaming means…
Food for thought
What use does a fallen and corrupted world have for a man of integrity? This was not the question I…
Homeric levels of misery
The National Theatre has given Sophocles’s Philoctetes a makeover and a new title, Paradise. This must be ironic because the…
Aden Young
No one has any guarantee of seeing Sigrid Thornton in Lifespan of a Fact with the Sydney Theatre Company now…
Top of the chocs
Last Sunday on Channel 4, a man called Eric Nicoli proudly remembered ‘the bravest thing I’ve ever done’. In November…
Still life
Lloyd Evans finds the newly returned Edinburgh Fringe quieter, more low-key — and all the better for it
Frankly terrific
Sinatra: Raw (Pleasance, until 15 August) takes us inside the mind of the 20th century’s greatest crooner. The performer, Richard…
Billie Eilish: Happier Than Ever
Grade: C+ Time to get the razor out again — Billie’s back. The slurred and affected can’t-be-arsed-to-get-out-of-bed vocals. The relentless,…
