Shapeless and facile: The Hot Wing King, at the Dorfman Theatre, reviewed
Our subsidised theatres often import shows from the US without asking whether our theatrical tastes align with America’s. The latest…
How a market town in Hampshire shaped Peggy Guggenheim
On 24 April 1937 Marguerite Guggenheim – known as Peggy – of Yew Tree Cottage, Hurst was booked by a…
A visit to the world’s worst capital city
Nouakchott in Mauritania is often referred to as the ‘worst capital city in the world’. That may be a little…
Spectator Competition: Pitch battle
In Competition 3359 you were invited to present an account of a historical event as football commentary. There were enough…
The plotting to find the next Pope
The Hollywood adaptation of Conclave, Robert Harris’s thriller about a conspiracy to rig a papal election, won’t be in cinemas…
My shameful shortcut to perfect pesto
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been… too long since my last confession. Picture the scene. I…
Will we always have Paris?
There are times when you might be fooled into believing all is well. I had a moment of such weakness…
Has there ever been a jockey like Oisin Murphy?
We are blessed these days with a rare stream of jockey talent including the likes of William Buick, Ryan Moore,…
Olympics on steroids: the millionaire behind the Enhanced Games
Aron D’Souza likes to celebrate the new year with Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist billionaire who is good friends with…
After Rwanda: what will Labour do now?
Keir Starmer is advertising for someone to head his newly created Border Security Command. The salary is higher than his…
How supporting Trump became cool
For the past decade, the basic lines of conflict in American public life seemed clear. Donald Trump was pitted against…
Portrait of the week: IT meltdown, riots in Leeds and the wrong kind of pandemic
Home Britain enjoyed its share of the worldwide failure of 8.5 million computers reliant on Microsoft, through a faulty update…
Evita meets Thatcher: the woman fighting Venezuela’s autocracy
Maria Corina Machado is showing the world how opposition politicians can fight an autocrat. When President Nicolas Maduro tried to…
The mystery of Melania Trump
While everybody at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee was preoccupied with Donald Trump’s triumphal story after the assassination attempt…
Me vs the plumber
My one finished bathroom featured a sink so small I could only wash one hand in it at a time,…
The Tories are a danger only to each other
On Monday night the Conservatives announced the rules of the party’s leadership contest. The reaction in Labour circles was incredulity…
The joy of party bags
The perfect, unpretentious, well-constructed party bag was given to guests leaving a recent Hatchards party. It contained a wedge of…
Joe Biden was never quite all there
As President Biden sank more deeply into the mire this month, kind friends kept urging me to write in his…
The curious rise of Kamala Harris
I’m struck just in your presence,’ a news anchor gushed to Kamala Harris in January. The Vice President beamed, nodding…
Clear, thorough and gripping: BBC2’s Horizon – The Battle to Beat Malaria
If you transcribed the narrator’s script in almost any episode of Horizon, you’d notice something striking: an awful lot of…
Does Donald fear Kamala?
On Monday, Donald J. Trump sent out an urgent campaign memo. ‘Joe Biden just dropped out of the race, and…
Charismatic, powerful and raw: Patti Smith, at Somerset House, reviewed
There are certain long-established rules for describing Patti Smith. Google her name and the words ‘shaman’ and ‘priestess’ and you’ll…
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