Arts
Composer Nico Muhly on drugs, cults and James MacMillan
There’s a scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie in which Tippi Hedren is emptying a safe while a cleaning lady silently…
Baxter Dury on London going to the dogs, his acclaimed new album and his dad
In the last week of October, the middle-aged Baxter Dury and the boy Baxter Dury were brought together. The 45-year-old…
An overrated news satire directed by an inexplicably popular director: Network reviewed
The inexplicable popularity of Ivo Van Hove continues. The director’s latest visit to the fairies involves an updated version of…
Presenting a quiz is far from easy
It’s a weird sensation getting your child back for an extended period when for the previous decade you’ve been packing…
The Chinese classical-music revolution up close
On a bullet train out of Shanghai, a nuclear family catches my eye. The father, weather-beaten and wearing an ill-fitting…
Who will be the first woman on the moon?
Wally Funk is on a mission — to make real her dream that a woman will walk on the moon…
Like a Melanie Phillips column set to bad music: Morrissey’s Low in High School reviewed
Grade: B- It is truly painful to criticise someone who greatly enrages the Guardian and the leftie music press, and…
Musically superb but there isn’t a moment where one feels for anyone: Semiramide reviewed
The late arch-Rossinian Philip Gossett regarded Semiramide as a neoclassical work, vaguely and alarmingly suggesting to me a musical equivalent…
It will amply satisfy all your comeuppance needs: Battle of the Sexes reviewed
Battle of the Sexes recreates the famed, culture-changing 1973 tennis match between 55-year-old Bobby Riggs, a self-proclaimed chauvinist, and 29-year-old…
Elizabeth Harrower returning to Sydney in 1959
It is a wonderful story in itself. After a self-imposed ‘exile’ of four decades, Elizabeth Harrower became an internationally acclaimed…
A short history of flash photography
All photography requires light, but the light used in flash photography is unique — shocking, intrusive and abrupt. It’s quite…
What can we learn from Jeremy Bentham’s pickled head?
Under the central dome of UCL — an indoor crossroads where hordes of students come and go on their way…
Christian Slater is mesmerising: Glengarry Glen Ross reviewed
David Mamet’s plays are tough to pull off because his dialogue lacks the predictable shapeliness of traditional dramatic speech. He…
The time is right for an Erté revival – a new hero for our gender-anxious times
Erté was destined for the imperial navy. Failing that, the army. His father and uncle had been navy men. There…
Why local radio is thriving
It’s 50 years since the first local radio stations were launched by the BBC in yet another instance of the…
Sun readers will be disappointed – E.M. Phwoar-ster it is not: Howards End reviewed
Any readers of the Sun who excitedly tuned in to Howards End on Sunday night with their pause button at…
She is a severely limited songwriter – and singer: Taylor Swift’s Reputation reviewed
Grade: D+ I was suckered in by the brio of Taylor Swift’s first big single, ‘Love Story’, despite the clunking…
Reducing the lead to an demented rape victim is just what ballet needs: The Wind reviewed
A kindly cowboy, an East Coast bride, adultery, murder and madness. The Wind, Dorothy Scarborough’s 1925 Texas gothic novel (and…
If Annette Bening isn’t Oscar-nominated, I’ll eat my hat and also yours
Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is plainly wonderful, and stars Annette Bening, who is plainly wonderful, as Gloria Grahame,…
Embarrassing – but electrifying: Bernstein 100 reviewed
‘There is something enviable about the utter lack of inhibition with which Leonard Bernstein carries on,’ wrote the critic of…
The art of larp
‘It’s all wizards and elves, right? Dungeons & Dragons stuff?’ Such is the general response when you mention larp, or…
Helen Sherman
This year sees the 450th anniversary of the birth of Claudio Monteverdi, a pioneer of opera and a crucial transitional…
Does disability make a difference to art – or does art transcend disability?
The moment you invite friends to some new ‘cutting-edge’ disability theatre or film, most swallow paroxysms of social anxiety. What…
I never understood the appeal of Ken Dodd
It’s always odd to hear a familiar voice on a different programme, playing an alternative role. They never sound quite…
Hearts and minds
Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune begins with a sigh: a long, languorous exhalation played on the lower notes of…
