Arts
Cartier London Halo Tiara 1936
We’ve grown used to fashion and related objects being the subject of exhibitions at our major galleries but a commercially…
The loveliest episode of Holy Week – Christ rises from the potting shed
In Nicolas Poussin’s ‘Noli Me Tangere’ (1653) Christ stands with his heel on a spade. He appears, in his rough…
How Debussy slipped past Wagner into the unknown
A spectre haunted the first weekend of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s Debussy Festival: the spectre of Richard Wagner.…
It was good but I preferred slurping my genitals: Deborah’s dog reviews Isle of Dogs
The latest film from Wes Anderson is a doggy animation set in a fantasy Japan and as there was a…
The glorious history of Chatham Dockyard, as told through the eyes of artists
‘Ding, Clash, Dong, BANG, Boom, Rattle, Clash, BANG, Clink, BANG, Dong, BANG, Clatter, BANG BANG BANG!’ is how Charles Dickens…
Paradise Lost is made for radio – but you need to concentrate
It’s a tough listen, Paradise Lost on Radio 4 at the weekend. In bold defiance of the demands of a…
At last, a great achievement at the Royal Opera: Macbeth reviewed
At last, a great time at the Royal Opera: a magnificent performance, in every way, of Verdi’s Macbeth, curiously but…
The Plough and the Stars at the Lyric Hammersmith shows Sean O’Casey is one of the greats
The Plough and the Stars by Sean O’Casey looks at the Irish nationalist movement during the events of Easter 1916.…
Thank you, West Midlands, for the blind alley of heavy metal – blues without rhythm, wit or soul
They’re still alive, then. Chuggedy-chug, grawk, screech screech, chuggedy-chug. First mention of demons — line one, song two. Song one…
The genius of This Country
Sometimes — really not often but sometimes — a programme that’s good and honest and true slips under the wire…
Kathryn Stott
It may not be paradise in every respect, but Townsville in mid-winter could be a reasonable approximation. The Australian Festival…
The artist who creates digital life forms that bite & self-harm. Sam Leith meets him (and them)
Digital art is a crowded field. It’s also now older than I am. Yet despite a 50-year courtship, art galleries…
A beautiful but bizarre show, beset by ‘great ideas’: Summer and Smoke reviewed
Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams dates from the late 1940s. He hadn’t quite reached the peaks of sentimental delicacy…
Unsensitive, Unhumane and Uncredible: Unsane reviewed
Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, Unsane, is a psychological thriller about a woman who is incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital even…
How the Moody Blues only became good once they realised they were crap
Rarely has one irate punter so affected a band’s trajectory. Without the anger of the man who went to see…
Intelligent, poetic and profound: Tacita Dean at the National and National Portrait galleries
Andy Warhol would probably have been surprised to learn that his 1964 film ‘Empire’ had given rise to an entire…
ENO’s La traviata was so comprehensive a flop that it is painful to go into detail
Handel’s Rinaldo has not been highly regarded even by his most ardent admirers. I have never understood why — even…
Shamelessly undemanding: ITV’s The Durrells reviewed
For as long as I can remember, Sunday nights have been the home of the kind of TV drama cunningly…
Vince Staples is Christian, yet it’s hard to imagine Jesus singing along to GTFOMD
Grade: B+ Another ex-Long Beach crip replanted in pleasant Orange County via the conduit of very large amounts of record…
The BBC admit they’re not ready to switch off analogue radio
As Bob Shennan, the BBC’s director of radio and music admitted this week, there are almost two million podcast-only listeners…
ACO at the Barbican
As Australians, we have a need to be recognised ‘overseas’. International tours by Australian performing arts groups have been an…
The subtly savage world of filmmaker Ruben Ostlund
There is a culty YouTube video shot three years ago on the laptop camera of Ruben Ostlund. It shows the…
Surreal jokes and juicy strokes: Martin Gayford on the power of paint
René Magritte was fond of jokes. There are several in René Magritte (Or: The Rule of Metaphor), a small but…
Babylon Berlin is so brilliant I’d advise you not to start watching it
Babylon Berlin (Sky Atlantic), the epic German-made Euro noir detective drama set during Weimar, is so addictively brilliant that I’d…
What’s in a name
Janacek is the master of the operatic title. Think of the slippery, sleight-of-hand emphasis of Jenufa in its original Czech…
