Red for danger
Jacky Colliss Harvey’s colourful history of the redhead includes sinners, temptresses, villains and feisty rebels from Boudicca to Thelma and Louise
A rollicking satire on the way we live now
A complex drama of cultural politics and family life, Purity fulfils our great expectations of this prize-winning American author — in more ways than one
Another near run thing
The battle of Agincourt — a high point of Cursed Kings, the penultimate volume of Jonathan Sumption’s history of the Hundred Years War — was a great English victory snatched from the jaws of defeat
It happened one summer
Elijah Wald explains how the music world changed forever on 25 July 1965 at Newport, Rhode Island
First-rate firsts
The trials of married life and the revenge of a spurned mistress are among the themes of promising debut novels from Michela Wrong, Natasha Pulley, Benjamin Johncock and Julia Pierpont
The day of reckoning is nigh
This updated version of How Long Will South Africa Survive? sees the country more crippled than ever by corruption, cronyism and greed
Life with old father William
In Kid Gloves, Adam Mars-Jones details the difficulties of caring for his cantankerous father — a distinguished judge who could never admit to being wrong
Gothic mysteries
Andrew Michael Hurley makes the sinister too seductive in his debut novel The Loney — but this is a writer to watch, says Susan Hill
Gnats
after Robert Hooke, Micrographia (1665) Their world is a glass of rainwater. They move up and down through the clearness,…
God’s architect
The Italian architect gave his name to a style that spread around the world. But has Palladianism been too successful for its own good, asks Stephen Bayley
The only art is Essex
From Eric Ravilious to Grayson Perry, the art of this much maligned English county is an unexpectedly rich theme, as two superb Fry Art Gallery shows prove
Strauss-ful
Grimeborn festival's budget production with just a piano for accompaniment couldn't hope to do justice to the only other thing the work has going for it: its orchestration
Will he was
The claim of The Other Prince William that 'you can have the woman or you can have the throne but you can't have both' might have been stronger if Prince William of Gloucester ever had any chance of the throne
Martian moves
Plus: a concise, precise emotional retelling of the life of Nijinsky at the Fringe and an ambitious visit from Ballett am Rhein. Meanwhile, in London, the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre offers up a travesty
All from nothing
Tom Courtenay gives a subtle performance but most of the credit for the brilliance of the film must lie with director Andrew Haigh and a transfixing Charlotte Rampling
Edinburgh on Thames
Lucas Hnath’s The Christians analysis religious feeling with high seriousness and sympathy and transfers to the Gate next week
The BBC’s music man
Plus: an odd but compelling start to David Byrne's new Sunday-afternoon show on 6 Music and a cleverly done Radio 2 drama about the 1965 meeting of Elvis and The Beatles
Real life
A lovely little house near Chipping Norton seems less attractive once you've accepted an offer on your flat
Bridge
I hope Zia Mahmood will forgive me. It’s not often I come across a contract that he has failed to…
Piratical
I have never met David Smerdon, the Australian grandmaster and author of Smerdon’s Scandinavian (Everyman Chess). Last week I gave…
