Sound and fury
Compton Verney’s Shakespeare in Art show is all but ruined by the ambient sounds – visit instead its small but superb companion exhibition Boydell’s Vision
Comic relief
An anarchic musical cut-up of Wilde’s play that’s dangerously hilarious is revived at the Barbican Theatre
Modernist cul-de-sac
By leaving the public behind modernists pushed music into a cul-de-sac, the only way out of which has been a headlong rush into superficial soft-harmony
Bitter sweet
A patchwork family flee the Sri Lankan civil war for Paris, where Jacques Audiard’s Palme d’Or-winner reaches a climax of symphonic heft
Singing Ireland into being
Geldof is unfailingly good company in this engaging, informative and thoughtful piece of television
Intolerable cruelty
Plus: a lost early screenplay by Alan Bennett, Denmark Hill, is given a beautifully paced performance on Radio 4
Low life
I took the dead mouse with a horse and handed it back to him. He threw the mouse down again
Bridge
Well done to Janet and her team for their victory at the London Easter Congress. My own team — David…
Sergey’s sensation
Sergey Karjakin, who in 2002 became the world’s youngest-ever grandmaster at the age of 12 years and seven months, has…
No. 403
White to play. This is a variation from Aronian-Svidler, Moscow 2016. In this game Aronian misplayed his attack and Svidler…
Gender reassignment
In Competition No. 2942 you were invited to submit a rhyme incorporating the lines ‘What are little girls made of?’…
2255: In the pink
Four unclued lights (eight words in all) form a phrase describing an activity. The other unclued lights give the author,…
To 2252: Writer deploys me
The works were Striding Folly (anagram of 11/22), Whose Body? (36/1D), The Nine Tailors (2/48), Strong Poison (9/30) and Gaudy…
A big hand for the two-faced tax hacks
Do they not know, or have they forgotten, that Guardian Media Group used a shell company in the Cayman Islands?
My tip for the next cool shop: Argos
Every trend has a counter-trend. And Argos might just be the counter-trend to Amazon
A gentleman of Bordeaux
This column has had harsh words for Bordelais vignerons. But Anthony Barton has always been an exception
