Arts

David Oyelowo as Javert in Andrew Davies's Les Misérables. Photo: BBC / Lookout Point / Laurence Cendrowicz

Les Misérables is another depressing example of the BBC’s woke quota targets

19 January 2019 9:00 am

As the Allies advanced towards Germany in September 1944, their supplies were brought all the way from western Normandy in…

Rupert Graves and Colin Mcfarlane in Pinter's 'hilarious sketch' Victoria Station. Photo: Marc Brenner

One masterpiece, one dud and one interesting rediscovery: Pinter Five reviewed

19 January 2019 9:00 am

One masterpiece, one dud, and one interesting rediscovery. That’s Pinter Five. Victoria Station is a hilarious sketch which might have…

‘March’, 1939, by Grant Wood

The joy of prints

19 January 2019 9:00 am

Artists’ prints have been around for almost as long as the printed book. Indeed, they have similar origins in Gutenberg’s…

Philipp Fürhofer's handsome and often ingenious designs for the Royal Opera's overcomplicated new production of The Queen of Spades. Photo: ROH 2018 / Catherine Ashmore

Never quite pivots from thesis to drama: Royal Opera’s Queen of Spades reviewed

19 January 2019 9:00 am

We increasingly accept the collision between life and art. Whether we’re puzzling over the real identity of Elena Ferrante, choosing…

Kitty Flanagan (courtesy Allen & Unwin)

Kitty Flanagan

19 January 2019 9:00 am

She’s bright and very funny. Kitty Flanagan was born and educated in Sydney. She is described as a stand-up comedian;…

Pounds of flesh: Takayasu throws Takakeisho to the ground to win the 2018 Kyushu tournament in Fukuoka

The balletic, bum-baring rituals of sumo

12 January 2019 9:00 am

An early morning in late November in the peaceful glades that surround an ancient temple complex. A Shinto priest in…

Divine comedy: Steve Coogan as Stan Laurel and John C. Reilly as Oliver Hardy

The best tribute possible to the greatest comics ever: Stan & Ollie reviewed

12 January 2019 9:00 am

You mess with Laurel and Hardy at your peril. Their fan base is essentially the entire world. Samuel Beckett adored…

Neil MacGregor shows German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron a model of the new Humboldt Forum. Photo: Carsten Koall / Getty Images

Neil MacGregor’s intense, impassioned new radio programme is shamelessly anti-Brexit

12 January 2019 9:00 am

I suspect that whether or not you admire Neil MacGregor’s latest series for Radio 4, As Others See Us (produced…

Doors drummer John Densmore and Police percussionist Stewart Copeland. Photo: BBC / Somethin’ Else Sound Directions Ltd / Nico Wasserman

According to BBC4, what was one of the ‘most important inventions in modern music’?

12 January 2019 9:00 am

Here’s a tricky quiz question for you. What word completes this sentence from a BBC4 documentary on Friday: ‘The world…

Pro-Trump propaganda at the Donmar Warehouse by Lynn Nottage. Photo: Johan Persson

A masterpiece of pro-Trump propaganda: Sweat at the Donmar Warehouse reviewed

12 January 2019 9:00 am

Sweat, set in the Pennsylvanian rust belt, looks at a blue-collar community threatened by a factory closure. The script uses…

‘The Artist with his Wife Margaret and Eldest Daughter Mary’, c.1748, by Thomas Gainsborough

It’s hard to think of finer images of children than Gainsborough’s

12 January 2019 9:00 am

When he knew that he was dying, Thomas Gainsborough selected an unfinished painting from some years before and set it…

Wozzeck (courtesy Opera Australia) Photo:Ruth Walz

Wozzeck

12 January 2019 9:00 am

The story is bleak, very bleak; the music bleak and very loud, yet Wozzeck is regarded as an outstanding 20th…

Writers of some of the best-loved programmes in British television history: Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement

Dick Clement on Porridge, Kirk Douglas and having seven projects on the go

5 January 2019 9:00 am

Given their track record, you might think that Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais would be spared the struggles that…

Serial's Sarah Koenig

How did the BBC’s podcast Unexpected Fluids ever get made?

5 January 2019 9:00 am

You may have noticed the flood of podcasts that’s been pouring out of the BBC since the launch of its…

The triumph of hope over experience: the Peanuts gang

Comparing Peanuts to existentialism is an insult – to Peanuts

5 January 2019 9:00 am

For the hundredth, possibly the thousandth, time, Lucy van Pelt offers to hold the football for Charlie Brown so he…

A horror show that appeals to the intellect but not the gut: The Tell-Tale Heart reviewed

5 January 2019 9:00 am

The Tell-Tale Heart is based on a teeny-weeny short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The full text appears in the…

January as you would wish it: Royal Ballet’s Les Patineurs reviewed

5 January 2019 9:00 am

The Royal Ballet’s Les Patineurs is January as you would wish it. No slush, no new-year sales, no streaming chest…

Flat-out fabulous: Emma Stone as Abigail Hill in The Favourite

I don’t just recommend you see The Favourite. I command it

5 January 2019 9:00 am

The Favourite is a period romp set during the reign of Queen Anne, but it’s not your average period romp.…

Beware of Pity

5 January 2019 9:00 am

Festivals are an opportunity to present performances that might not otherwise be seen; there are several in this year’s Sydney…

‘The Nativity’, 1470–75, by Piero della Francesca

The fascinating story behind one of the best-loved depictions of the Nativity

15 December 2018 9:00 am

In the early 1370s an elderly Scandinavian woman living in Rome had a vision of the Nativity. Her name was…

Charles J. Tebbutt at Littleport, January 1893, unknown photographer

A short history of ice skating

15 December 2018 9:00 am

In landscape terms, the Fens don’t have much going for them. What you can say for them, though, is that…

The people have not forgotten me: the exiled Empress of Iran interviewed

15 December 2018 9:00 am

Somewhere in the bowels of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art is a portrait from a lost world. Its subject…

King's College Choir rehearsing for the Christmas Eve 'A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols'. Photo credit: Geoff Robinson Photography / REX / Shutterstock

High and mighty

15 December 2018 9:00 am

In this 200th anniversary of the birth of Mrs C.F. Alexander, author of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, all of…

True stories: Gary Kemp in 1971

Gary Kemp on pop, Pre-Raphaelites, politics and playing Pinter

15 December 2018 9:00 am

The first thing Gary Kemp bought when Spandau Ballet started making money was a chair. He’s very proud of that…

Practically perfect in every way: Joel Dawson and Emily Blunt in Mary Poppins Returns

There’s something about Mary

15 December 2018 9:00 am

So, Mary Poppins returns, and I was, of course, primed to be spiteful, as is my nature. Not a patch…