Arts and culture
The sheer scope of his work
When Tom Stoppard, playwright extraordinaire, was at the early height of his fame, with Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons in…
Confused and cumbersome
Anne-Louise Sarks’ production of that dazzling dramatic opera Carmen at Melbourne’s Regent was sometimes lit like a Christmas tree, sometimes…
Pit full of snakes
What a cheering thing it is that David Szalay has won the Booker Prize for Flesh which is a masterpiece…
Give Stellan Skarsgård an Oscar for Sentimental Value
Recently, a friend of mine found himself having a bad day for a reason I now forget. I made a…
Equal to any quirk
Richo is dead. The supreme fixer of the Labor party is gone. That wise and moderate man Brian Johns who…
David Bowie was no starman
No one has a bad word to say about David Bowie, but it’s about time they did. The pop star’s…
The brilliance of her technique
It’s strange the way comedy lives. A legion of the young continue to listen to Pete and Dud or watch…
Florence and the Machine is back
It may be coincidence or clever record company marketing, but the two current reigning queens of the British pop music…
The necessity of love
Everyone has been preoccupied with television and the way in the wake of Covid we have seen the streamers (and…
Del Toro’s Frankenstein deserves the big screen
If you want to see Guillermo del Toro’s no-expense-spared adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein this Halloween, you’ll have to hope…
Transcending the cloaks and jewellery
Mrs Warren’s Profession (in selected cinemas from October 23) is one of Shaw’s ‘Plays Unpleasant’ and it’s an extraordinary play…
Is Jeremy Strong our John Cazale?
If you’re a big Bruce Springsteen fan, then this weekend’s new release, Deliver Me from Nowhere, will be one of…
La de da
Everyone who has read the work of the late great Thomas Bernhard, the Austrian novelist forever spitting his fellow Austrians…
The Chair Company is the workplace comedy we need right now
If you watched The Paper and, like most of its viewers, remained unimpressed by its comparatively limp updating of The…
What’s the point of remaking Amadeus?
At the close of Milos Forman’s Oscar-winning film, Amadeus, the central character, the terminally envious court composer Salieri, declares: ‘I…
The rustle of underwear
If ever there was gorgeous chocolate-box theatre it’s this magnificently staged production of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca directed by Anne-Louise…
Jilly Cooper’s novels could well become classics
Dame Jilly Cooper, who has died at 88, had a remarkable career, turning herself from a sparkling writer for newspapers…
Has Taylor Swift lost it?
The Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant once remarked that every successful musician has what he called ‘an imperial phase’, during…
What can we expect from the Simpsons sequel?
It is now more than three decades since President Bush the First declared that American families should be “more like…
Why the snobs were wrong about Jilly Cooper
Dame Jilly Cooper, who died today, finally achieved the acceptance that she’d always deserved. She wrote numerous volumes of witty,…
Looming horror of the heart
What are we to make of dramatic classics and classics of music and dance? That very distinguished actor Bille Brown…
Gore Vidal was the Virgil of American populism
America’s Montaigne, Gore Vidal, was born 100 years ago today. Born Eugene Luther Vidal, this Virgil of American populism entered…
High artistry and hilarity
It’s bizarre the level of sheer wastage in Ian Michael’s production of Troy. Yes, there’s a bit of hieratic glamour…
Dazzling reverse-mirror farce
It was good to see that Vivien Gaston was lecturing about portraiture in the context of the travelling Archibald Prize…
What Hollywood owes Robert Redford
Robert Redford was more than a film star, though he knew that was how he would be remembered. He didn’t…
