Arts
Thanks to Making a Murderer, Wisconsin’s bovine incompetence has been exposed
I wonder if Wisconsin has any idea what an international embarrassment it has become? By rights it ought to be…
When the first world war ended, many soldiers were left with ‘a terrible empty feeling’
‘It was so unreal,’ said one of the first world war veterans about the long-awaited Armistice. It was the most…
Why David Byrne deserves every penny he makes from his tour
Let’s get the ‘was-it-good?’ stuff out of the way first. Yes, it was good. It was better than good. It…
Exquisite and riveting: Wildlife reviewed
Wildlife is an adaptation of the 1990 novel by Richard Ford about a family coming apart at the seams, and…
One of the last living avant-gardists speaks – Gyorgy Kurtag on his new Beckett opera
Arriving in Budapest, I receive a summons I cannot refuse. Gyorgy Kurtag wants to see me. Famously elusive, the last…
There’s nothing radical about Mike Leigh’s films
So there I was in Soho Square on a cold and rainy morning, nibbling my complimentary almond croissant and eagerly…
Nadine Garner
As the most subscribed theatre company in the country, the Melbourne Theatre Company can be deservedly proud of its long…
Bring back Kevin Spacey
The sixth and final season of House of Cards has begun without Kevin Spacey, who played the murderous Democratic American…
The true face of Islam won’t be found in mosques or Muslim schools, but at the British Museum
In Britain today, Islam in its original essence is not to be found in mosques or Muslim schools, but on…
Why has BBC Radio been replaced by ‘BBC Sounds’?
You may have noticed that BBC iPlayer (for radio programmes) has been replaced this week with the new BBC Sounds…
Mean-spirited, muddled, idiotic and puerile: Martin McDonagh’s A Very Very Very Dark Matter reviewed
In the year since it opened, the Bridge has given us the following: a harmless Karl Marx comedy by Richard…
Real psychological horror and a mesmerising heroine: ENO’s Lucia di Lammermoor reviewed
How do you solve a problem like Lucia? Murder, madness, abuse, possibly even incest, all set to a soundtrack of…
Lucky the director of Little Drummer Girl is an ‘auteur’ or you might call the first episode corny
The Little Drummer Girl (BBC1, Sunday) is the new John le Carré adaptation from the production company that brought us…
It’s like being trapped in an episode of Poldark: Peterloo reviewed
Mike Leigh’s Peterloo is one of those films where you keep waiting for it to get good, and waiting and…
Gail Kelly by Paul Newton
Australians have a particular affection for portraits as evidenced by the popular Archibald and Moran portrait prizes and Anh Do’s…
‘Darmstadt taught me how to compose’: Ennio Morricone interviewed
Ennio Morricone’s staff wish it to be known that he does not write soundtracks. ‘Maestro Morricone writes “Film Music” NOT…
The objects that sound witchiest on paper just look sad: Spellbound reviewed
Just in front of me, visiting Spellbound at the Ashmolean last week, was a very rational boy of about seven…
In praise of the English Touring Opera — a minor miracle of the arts world
Wolverhampton; Workington; Blackburn; Sheffield; Lancaster; Hackney. Every year English Touring Opera does what our national opera company doesn’t: packs up…
What are the writers of The Archers trying to achieve with the Freddie Pargetter story?
‘I’m not here to rehabilitate,’ says Pamela, who teaches creative writing to prisoners in Northern Ireland. She doesn’t think of…
The Inheritance isn’t theatre — it’s mesmerically boring TV
Stories by Nina Raine is a bun-in-the-oven comedy with a complex back narrative. Anna, in her mid-thirties, had a boyfriend…
Why does the English National Ballet bother taking Manon to the provinces?
Like it or not, provincial ballet audiences love a story they can hum and any director planning to tour a…
How did mild-mannered eye doctor Bashar al-Assad end up a mass murderer?
‘How did this mild-mannered eye doctor end up killing hundreds of thousands of people?’ someone wondered about Bashar al-Assad in…
A succession of predigested clichés: Bohemian Rhapsody reviewed
There is a moment in Bohemian Rhapsody when the screen swims with print. The reviews for Queen’s epic new single…
Paul Cézanne Fruit 1879/80
This year both Melbourne and Sydney have major exhibitions of ‘modern masters’. The big Winter show from New York, MoMA…
Strawberry Hill revived
We can’t know what Horace Walpole would make of the continuing popularity of serendipity, a word he coined in 1754…
