Handel’s greatest hits — the glorious London decades
England has been home to three great composer-entrepreneurs since 1700: Benjamin Britten in the 20th century; Arthur Sullivan in the…
Dear Mr President: the ‘little people’ write to Obama
President George Washington received about five letters a day and answered them all himself. By the end of the 19th…
Playing for time
In a pleasing nod to Marcel Proust, Eustace, the middle-aged protagonist of Patrick Gale’s new novel, is propelled into memories…
‘Ted is liar. Ted beats me up. Ted wishes me dead’: Sylvia Plath descends into madness and misery
In 1923, a Frenchman, Emile Coué, persuaded millions of Americans to finger a piece of string with exactly 20 knots.…
Peter Carrington: loyal, funny and driven by a sense of duty
‘I’m sorry to bother you, Peter, but you were a famously successful Leader of Their Lordships and I wondered whether…
Bombs and begonias: gardening in a war zone
During the civil war in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, Mr and Mrs Roami, a science professor and a nurse,…
The ‘other’ life of Harvey Milk
This is the story of the ‘other’ Harvey Milk. We all know about Harvey the San Francisco politician who was…
Jan Morris talks to herself — about music, irony and cats
To Jan Morris, I am anathema. That goes, too, for David Attenborough. It is a word that this unarguably great…
Philip Marlowe’s last case? Only to Sleep, by Lawrence Osborne, reviewed
Only to Sleep is the third Philip Marlowe novel written by someone other than Raymond Chandler and while the authors…
A friendship in flux: Normal People, by Sally Rooney, reviewed
‘Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn’t…
‘You don’t want to end up like us’: How I got out of Soho just in time
On the one hand, I am supremely qualified to review this book. In 1984, bored beyond endurance after graduating with…
‘The reality was disgusting’: Peter Ackroyd slams Victorian Britain
‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… it was the epoch of belief, it was…
Deep in the forest’s mysteries: The Cloven, by Brian Catling, reviewed
Brian Catling’s great trilogy takes its title from The Vorrh, his first volume. This final book fulfills all the promises…
Alan Johnson: the rock and roll years
We’ve had Alan Johnson the lad from the slums of north Kensington, Alan Johnson the postman and Alan Johnson Member…
The burden of freedom: Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan, reviewed
It’s 1830, and among the sugar cane of Faith Plantation in Barbados, suicide seems like the only way out. Decapitations…
How do our surroundings affect our health and happiness?
![View of Marseille from the basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde, also known as La Bonne Mère, traditionally regarded as the city’s protectress. ‘The Good Mother intervenes at sick beds, down shadowy streets, and in the dark hours of night,’ writes Iain Sinclair [image: Getty]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Marseille.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
The Wellcome Trust puts on some of the most engaging exhibitions in London and holds in its permanent collection a…
Tintoretto unmasked
Tintoretto was il Furioso. He was a lightning flash or a thunderbolt, a storm in La Serenissima of Renaissance Italy,…
High culture or state-of-the-art murder simulators?: Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt reviewed
For the past few decades, admirers of video-games have every couple of years mounted a new attempt to persuade the…
J.S. Bach v. Joan Baez
I was at a funeral the other day at which the music was so inspiring that I struggled to feel…
Its producers should tape a cyanide pill to the programme: The Humans reviewed
Hampstead’s boss Ed Hall was so impressed by Stephen Karam’s play The Humans that he wanted to direct it himself.…
Gloriously macho: Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan reviewed
This week’s guilty pleasure is Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (Amazon Prime). It’s trash, of course, but very well done, high-octane,…
Often baffling but ultimately entertaining: Britten’s Paul Bunyan reviewed
‘I feel I have learned lots about what not to write for the theatre…’ There’s a prevailing idea that the…
Just an average romcom – or am I being too old-trouty?: Crazy Rich Asians reviewed
The cast and producer of Crazy Rich Asians were present at the screening I attended and said a few words…
My faux pas at the Duke of Beaufort’s bash
A letter from a reader in South Africa mentions that the writer’s father insisted a white dinner jacket was permissible…
Back from the brink
The long table was set out under four beautifully pollarded plane trees festooned with coloured lanterns and red balloons. Twenty…
