The doctor will patronise you now
How a profession speaks to its subjects is always of interest to a writer, sometimes perversely so. Over the past…
Letters: Let children drink
Chagos stupidity Sir: To British Establishment watchers, Michael Gove’s dissection of the dubious and devious machinations of Jonathan Powell, Richard…
Electrifying: Annie & the Caldwells, at Ronnie Scott’s, reviewed
Annie & the Caldwells are a long-running family gospel ensemble from West Point, Mississippi – father and sons playing guitar,…
Fascinating: The Fabulous Funeral Parlour reviewed
The Fabulous Funeral Parlour ended with possibly the least necessary caption in TV history: ‘Filmed in Liverpool’. Whenever I go…
Richard Jones’s Boris Godunov feels like a parody
Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov is back at Covent Garden, and there are ninjas. This isn’t a spoiler. There hasn’t been a…
Marvellously conservative: Cable Street reviewed
Cable Street is a musical that premièred last year at the Southwark Playhouse and has now migrated to the Marylebone…
Gripping: Melania reviewed
The documentary Melania, which follows the first lady in the 20 days leading up to her husband’s 2025 presidential inauguration,…
The joy of Paul Taylor
When the American choreographer Paul Taylor died at the age of 88 in 2018, he should have been consecrated a…
The demise of London’s junk shops
‘The place through which he made his way at leisure was one of those receptacles for old and curious things…
The alt-right are clueless about neoclassicism
The adherents of the American alt-right are not known for their delicate aesthetic sensibilities, but there is an exception. They…
Forgetting was the best defence for the Kindertransport refugees
Alfred and Doris Moritz remained largely silent about their persecution in Nazi Germany, having tried their best to erase the memory, according to their son Michael
Goddesses and courtesans: six centuries of the female body in art
Amy Dempsey explains how nude representations, from Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ to Manet’s ‘Olympia’, express both emotion and the attitudes of the day
Lust for gold: White River Crossing, by Ian McGuire, reviewed
In 1766, a small party from the Hudson Bay Company head to the subarctic tundra in search of untold riches
Musical bumps: Discord, by Jeremy Cooper, reviewed
The ebb and flow of harmony between a composer and her chosen solo saxophonist is charted with meticulous precision
What hope is there for the Church of England today?
With attendance in long-term decline and too many clergy trapped in the headlights of identity politics, the ‘ark of salvation’ seems barely seaworthy
Are western governments actively facilitating money laundering?
The inadequate scrutiny of shell companies and continual printing of vast quantities of high-denomination banknotes are just some indications of a shameful systemic failure
The tale of John Tom, the Cornish rebel with the Messiah complex
The 19th-century merchant from Truro who posed as a charismatic preacher and saviour of the poor was far more deranged than anyone realised
Who’s the victim in Zohran Mamdani’s New York?
Mayor Zohran Mamdani made a hospital visit to comfort the victim of a knife attack on a police officer, who…
The growing conservatism of the Democrats
Kamala Harris is destined to be the Democratic nominee in 2028 because the American left is now conservative. Democratic politics…
Labour has bottled it – what happens next?
Where are we then, after the most consequential week in British politics since the last one? Keir Starmer no longer…
Kamala’s comeback?
Political candidates aren’t people these days so much as brand logos for the business of politics. Their stock – the…
Starlink has dealt a huge blow to the Russian army
It is remarkable how heavily the Russian army has relied on western technology during a war it claims to be…
