Dartmoor’s forgotten painter
Asolo exhibition opened at Oxford’s Ashmolean in October 1980 that appeared to mark the belated arrival of a major new…
Welcome to the Republic of Dyslexia
Kenya It used to be that the black sheep from prominent British families were sent out to Kenya and told…
My B&B guests keep stealing my books
‘Please do NOT wash up!’ reads the makeshift sign I have fixed above the kitchen sink. It instructs our B&B…
I could never sit through it again: The Cut reviewed
What set this apart, I would suggest, is its deep and unremitting unpleasantness The Cut stars Orlando Bloom as a…
The discombobulating delight of made-up languages
I wasn’t supposed to understand Potato language. It was my parents’ speech device employed when wishing to discuss certain apparently…
A tale of two Martins
Provence The canicule broke yesterday, heralding the end of high summer. Wild figs and mulberries litter the path, filling the…
Mercifully short: Interview at Riverside Studios reviewed
Interview is a blind-date play. Only it’s not a blind date but a showbiz interview for a journal called the…
Another Traitors rip-off – and it might be even better than the original: Channel 4’s The Inheritance reviewed
Another week, another show striving desperately to become the new Traitors. So it is that The Inheritance brings a group…
Shambolic, spontaneously chaotic and combustible: the Lemonheads at SWG3 Galvanizers reviewed
Nowadays, when the default setting for live music is ruthlessly choreographed efficiency, there is a queasy kind of thrill in…
Huge Fun: Le Carnaval de Venise reviewed
Summer’s lease hath all too short a date, but there’s still time for one last opera festival. Vache Baroque popped…
Why America needs the Department of War
Six months into President Trump’s second administration and there is perhaps no other government department that has been subject to…
By taking on the cartels, Trump is reasserting American authority
The reporting process on Donald Trump’s war on the cartels for my latest cover story for The Spectator, published here…
China intends to set the rules of a new world order
Beijing gave us a glimpse of the future this week. Across Tiananmen Square rolled column after column of tanks, missile…
Nadine Dorries was a low point in Reform’s Campest Show On Earth
Reform had clearly planned the Campest Show On Earth for their conference this year. Sparklers, club anthems and strobe lights:…
