Versailles
The glory and the misery of Louis XIV’s France
I was flicking through an old copy of The Spectator the other day, one of the issues containing contributors’ ‘Christmas…
BBC1’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream seems deliberately designed to flush out purists
Spoiler alerts aren’t normally required for reviews of Shakespeare — but perhaps I’d better issue one before saying that in…
The strange death of Louis XIV
At the beginning of the summer of 1715 Louis XIV complained of a pain in the leg. In mid-August gangrene…
A Little Chaos review: Kate Winslet emotes her little socks off
A Little Chaos is a period drama directed by Alan Rickman and starring Kate Winslet as a woman charged to…
How the smile came to Paris (briefly)
In 1787 critics of the Paris Salon were scandalised by a painting exhibited by Mme Vigée Le Brun. The subject…
The queen, the cardinal and the greatest con France ever saw
You usually know where you are with a book that promises the story ‘would violate the laws of plausibility’ if…
Thanks to Audio Description, the blind have the best seat in the house
I did not mean to snort so loudly. There I was watching the amazing Simon Russell Beale in King Lear…