Arts

Court in the act: Simon Paisley Day as Sir Walter Raleigh in Ralegh: The Treason Trial at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

Join a Jacobean jury at the Globe. Early modern theatre goes immersive – will it work?

24 November 2018 9:00 am

James I and VI liked to term himself Rex Pacificus. Like most politicians who talk a lot about working for…

‘Flip Top’, 1962, by Richard Smith

In the 1960s the brightest star of British art was Richard Smith – and you can see why

24 November 2018 9:00 am

It is easy to assume that the contours of art history are unchanging, its major landmarks fixed for ever. Actually,…

Hrachuhi Bassenz as Amelia Grimaldi in Elijah Moshinsky's Boccanegra for the Royal Opera. Photo: Clive Barda

This Boccanegra is not what you’d expect from UK’s best-funded opera company

24 November 2018 9:00 am

The People are angry. In fact, they’re bloody furious. As the lights flash up on David Pountney’s production of Prokofiev’s…

Diego Luna as Felix Gallardo in Netflix's latest series of Narcos. Photo: Carlos Somonte / Netflix

No, Narcos, those who’ve had the odd puff and cheeky line aren’t to blame for the drug wars

24 November 2018 9:00 am

Narcos is back on Netflix, set in Mexico this time, with a cool, world-weary, manly voiceover swearily lecturing us at…

Michelle Obama during the 2008 Democrat primaries. Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Is Michelle Obama a secret Archers fan?

24 November 2018 9:00 am

I wonder what Michelle Obama, the former First Lady who remade that role in her own image, would make of…

Vadim Muntagirov as Solor and Marianela Nunnez as Nikiya in Royal Ballet's Bayadère. Photo: ROH / Bill Cooper

How could anyone object to the Royal Ballet engaging in cultural appropriation?

24 November 2018 9:00 am

La Bayadère opens with a sacred flame and ends with an earthquake. In between, Marius Petipa’s ballet of 1877 gives…

Astonishingly powerful: Michelle Terry as Lady Macbeth and Paul Ready as Macbeth

One of the finest productions I’ve seen at the Globe – a triumph of crony casting: Macbeth reviewed

24 November 2018 9:00 am

Michelle Terry, chatelaine of the Globe, wants to put an end to penis-led Shakespeare by casting women in roles intended…

Forget Robin Hood and Girl in the Spider’s Web – Shoplifters is the film to see this week

24 November 2018 9:00 am

The major releases this week are Robin Hood, as a big Hollywood retelling, and The Girl in the Spider’s Web,…

They. Cannot. Write. Songs: Mumford & Sons reviewed

They. Cannot. Write. Songs: Mumford & Sons reviewed

24 November 2018 9:00 am

Grade: D+ I promise you this isn’t simply class loathing. Yer toffs have contributed to British rock and pop and…

Richard Tognetti and the ACO

24 November 2018 9:00 am

As leader of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Richard Tognetti has never done quite what was expected, other than to be…

‘He strikes me dumb with admiration.’ Van Gogh on Howard Pyle’s pirate illustrations

The facts – and fiction – of piracy

17 November 2018 9:00 am

Avast there, scurvy dogs! For a nation founded on piracy (the privateer Sir Francis Drake swelled the exchequer by raiding…

‘The Laden Table’, c.1908, by Édouard Vuillard

A charming celebration of Vuillard’s muse – his mum: Barber Institute’s Maman reviewed

17 November 2018 9:00 am

Fin-de-siècle Paris was not just the art capital of the world, it was also the fashion capital. In 1901, 300,000…

RLPO and the NDR Radiophilharmonie performing Britten's War Requiem in Liverpool Cathedral. Photo: Liverpool Philharmonic / Mark McNulty

Britten’s War Requiem almost sounded like a masterpiece – but it’s isn’t, is it?

17 November 2018 9:00 am

‘What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?’ We’ve heard a lot, lately, of the knell that tolls through the…

Games without frontiers: a scene from Red Dead Redemption 2

What does the commonplace cruelty of Red Dead Redemption say about our times?

17 November 2018 9:00 am

Every era has its western. For 30 years, from The Big Trail through to The Searchers, John Wayne reigned supreme…

The Somme battlefield today. Photo: Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images

Radio 3 had the most simple yet effective way of reflecting on war’s impact

17 November 2018 9:00 am

Amid all the remembrance, Radio 3 came up with a simple yet effective way of reflecting on war’s impact. Threaded…

‘Portrait of a Young Man with a Book’, c.1524–6, by Lorenzo Lotto

Lorenzo Lotto’s 16th century portraits come startlingly close to photography

17 November 2018 9:00 am

You can, perhaps, glimpse Lorenzo Lotto himself in the National Gallery’s marvellous exhibition, Lorenzo Lotto: Portraits. At the base of…

King David with his musicians: a page from the Vespasian Psalter, 8th century

To say this is a ‘once in a generation’ exhibition seems absurdly modest

17 November 2018 9:00 am

‘The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians; between these two means of death…

The whole narrative of Dynasties was too suspiciously shapely. Image: BBC NHU

How does David Attenborough know what the monkeys are thinking?

17 November 2018 9:00 am

The opening episode of BBC1’s Dynasties — the new Attenborough-fronted series from the Natural History Unit — introduced us to…

The ideal album for getting rid of guests over Christmas: Yoko Ono’s Warzone reviewed

17 November 2018 9:00 am

Grade: A+ Ooh, you can have some fun with this when the unwanted guests swing by this Christmastide. These are…

A mess: Fantastic Beasts reviewed

17 November 2018 9:00 am

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is the sequel to the Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find…

Lee Evans in Pinter Three. Photo: Marc Brenner

Lee Evans’s acrobatic clowning is the best thing about Pinter Three

17 November 2018 9:00 am

Pinter Three appeals to opposite poles of the play-going spectrum. The birdbrains like me will enjoy the music-hall sketches while…

Helen Thomson and Caroline Brazier

17 November 2018 9:00 am

By my count, the 2019 Season will be the 40th produced by the Sydney Theatre Company. The coming season is…

What do we learn from these poppies ‘weeping’ from a tower in Derby?

For the sake of art as much as society, it’s time to stop remembering the war

10 November 2018 9:00 am

A cascade of poppies falls from ‘weeping windows’ across Britain. A 50-metre drawing of Wilfred Owen appears in the sand,…

Maisie Williams as Caroline in the breathtaking new play 'I and You' at Hampstead Theatre. Photo: Manuel Harlan

One of the best plays I’ve ever seen: I and You at the Hampstead Theatre reviewed

10 November 2018 9:00 am

Lauren Gunderson’s play I and You opens in the scruffy bedroom of 17-year-old Caroline. Lonely, beautiful and furious, she’s unable…

‘The Doom Fulfilled’, by Edward Burne-Jones, 1888

Like today’s conceptual artists, Burne-Jones was more interested in ideas than paint

10 November 2018 9:00 am

‘I want big things to do and vast spaces,’ Edward Burne-Jones wrote to his wife Georgiana in the 1870s. ‘And…