livestreams
Zoom’s last hurrah
Lockdown is about to end but some theatres are gripped by cabin fever and want to explore the two new…
Off-the-peg ire
Over the decades, Van Morrison’s role within the tower of song has shifted from chief visionary officer to head of…
Shades of Fleabag
A new work by Alan Bennett features in Still Life, a medley of five ‘untold stories’ from Nottingham Playhouse. The…
Master of the notes
Stepping into the Sistine Chapel, the choir loft is probably the last thing you’d notice. ‘Loft’ is, frankly, a stretch…
Sandy psychedelia
The other week someone posted on Twitter a link to a YouTube clip titled ‘Family Lotus and D.J. Cookin’ at…
The perils of lockdown drama
Hats off to the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond. They’ve discovered a new form of racism. Some people say we…
Nowt so great as folk
Has any musical moment extended its tendrils in so many unexpected directions as the English folk revival of the mid-1960s?…
A changed woman
Everyone knows Helen of Troy. The feckless sex popsicle betrayed her husband, Menelaus, and ran off with the dashing Paris,…
Mainlining sunshine
One thing about a streamed festival is that the toilets are better than at the real thing. The other thing,…
The imitation game
Copycat Hamiltons are everywhere. Lin-Manuel Miranda led the way by turning an unexamined corner of history into a smash-hit show.…
Rock and awe
You very possibly know the music of the Glaswegian band Mogwai, even if you don’t think you do. You might…
Aussie rules
The One Day In the Year is an Australian drama about the annual commemoration of the Gallipoli campaign in 1915.…
Perfect to fall asleep to
Good Grief is a new drama starring Sian Clifford who shot to fame as the older sister in Fleabag. The…
Holy maximalism
The two most depressing words in contemporary classical music? That’s easy: holy minimalism. I know, I know. Lots of people…
Recorded delivery
For an orchestra to lose one anniversary concert may be regarded as unfortunate. To lose two? Welcome to 2020. The…
Slow off the Marc
The Flying Lovers of Vitebskbegins with a phone conversation between a pretentious art critic and a man called Marc. This…
Poetry in motion
How did the universe begin? Did the great god Bumba vomit us up, as the Kuba believe? Or did we…
Victorian values
Blackeyed Theatre is another victim of the virus. Its production of Jane Eyrewas midway through a UK tour, and due…
Spotted dick and custard
I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue has just been voted the greatest radio comedy of all time by Radio Times,…
Going for a song
Alexandra Coghlan on how we became a nation of choirs and carollers
Kitchen-table opera
Covid has been many things to the arts — most of them unprintable. A plague, a scourge, a disaster from…
Return to gender
Emilia is a period piece about Emilia Bassano who may have been the ‘dark lady’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets. The writer,…
Cannibalism meets feminism
In Bad Taste is a slapstick comedy about five female terrorists who murder the governor of the Bank of England.…
All together now
It’s the breath I miss most. The moment when a shuffling group of men and women in scruffy concert blacks…
Mum’s the word
The virus has broken Edinburgh. The shattered remnants of the festival are visible on the internet. Here’s what happened. The…
