Arts
Andrew Roberts’s guide to Churchill on screen
Gary Oldman has joined a long list of actors who have portrayed Winston Churchill — no fewer than 35 of…
Turning marble into cushions and stone into flesh: the magic of Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Seventeenth-century Roman art at its fullblown, operatic peak often proves too rich for puritanical northern tastes. And no artist was…
What Rwanda can teach us about gender equality
What an incredible statement we heard on My Perfect Country. ‘I can walk into a boardroom and forget I am…
The National Youth Orchestra showed that they’re the equal of any professional band
Everyone knows — don’t they? — that the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain is the UK’s youngest world-class symphony…
Three Billboards is a hoot and a blast, which I never thought I’d say about a rape movie
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri does, indeed, feature three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. They have been placed at the roadside…
Channel 4’s Kiri is already shaping up to be one of the TV highlights of the winter
These days a genuinely controversial TV drama series would surely be one with an all-white, male-led cast that examined the…
The latest astonishing achievement from the creators of War Horse
The Twilight Zone, an American TV show from the early 1960s, reinvented the ghost story for the age of space…
Vox Clamantis
For many of us it probably qualifies as ‘a distant country of which we know little’. Estonia, after decades of…
Debussy, Tippett and Wagner: the musical treats of 2018
Claude Debussy died on 25 March 1918 to the sound of explosions. Four days earlier, the Kaiser’s army had deployed…
Indulgent rather than stinging satire: Brad’s Status reviewed
Brad’s Status is a midlife crisis film starring Ben Stiller as a nearly 50-year-old man whose status anxiety is through…
Podcasts have a long way to go to catch up with radio
It’s racing up the UK podcast charts, overtaking (as I write) the established favourites such as No Such Thing as…
As a musical, it’s overwhelming – politically, it’s an outrage: Hamilton reviewed
It’s all about the rhythm. Hamilton is a musical that tells the story of America’s foundation through the medium of…
I wish the BBC made more dramas like McMafia – but it’s too busy virtue-signalling
My third most fervent New Year wish — just after Litecoin goes to £20,000 and Jacob Rees-Mogg becomes PM —…
The Enigmatic Mr Deakin
Judith Brett has written extensively about liberalism in Australia. The emeritus professor of politics at La Trobe University, her output…
The time has come for one of the most fascinating and idiosyncratic Renaissance artists
Lorenzo Lotto’s portraits — nervous, intense and enigmatic — are among the most memorable to be painted in 16th-century Italy,…
Time to update our notions of disability and quit with the pity – and Tiny Tim
Here we go again. Partridges in pear trees. Lovely big Christmas turkey. The Queen’s speech. And then, at some point…
Showman, con man, family man: P.T. Barnum’s many faces
‘There’s a sucker born every minute.’ That was the P.T. Barnum battle cry. It has come to have a ring…
If this is Aaron Sorkin’s riposte to those who criticise his portrayal of women, God help us
Molly’s Game marks the directorial debut of Hollywood’s most celebrated screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, and is based on his adaptation of…
Parliament Square at the Bush is theatre that believes it knows politics better than professional politicians
A new play at the Bush with a catchy political title. Parliament Square introduces us to Kat, a young Scots…
Pete Waterman on hits, HS2 and gay clubbing
One of the members of the government’s HS2 Growth Taskforce is remembering the first time he went to a gay…
The nymphs are hit and miss, but Osipova is a witty, multifaceted Sylvia: the Royal Ballet’s Sylvia reviewed
You can pay homage to a ballet classic or you can tear it up and reinvent it. Both approaches were…
The 280-mile walk that made Bach who he was
It was in his organ loft at Arnstadt that I began my acquaintance with Johann Sebastian Bach — with JSB,…
St Vincent’s Massediction is my album of year (in that I don’t actually hate it yet)
This has not been an appalling year for pop music — it was better than 1984, for example, and 1961.…
Radio 3 offers a refreshing antidote to the current conversations about Europe
The season of Advent, for most children, means anticipation, gleeful waiting, the counting down of days. But after a certain…
A recording that makes you realise Les Troyens is one of the greatest operatic masterpieces
Grade: A- Berlioz’s Les Troyens, one of the greatest operatic masterpieces, manages to be neglected even if it is…
