Arts
Death watch
All this week Radio Five Live has been giving us an insight into what it is like not just to…
An inconvenient truth
‘Our findings will shock many people,’ promised Trevor Phillips at the beginning of What British Muslims Really Think (Channel 4,…
Norman Sicily was a multicultural paradise – but it didn’t last long
There are lessons to be learned from the disintegration of this once majestic multicultural Norman kingdom, says Martin Gayford
Why do some museums insist on playing piped music into exhibitions?
There was a genteel brouhaha last year — leaders in the Times, letters to the Telegraph, tutting in the galleries…
Is there a funnier opera than Gerald Barry’s Importance of Being Earnest?
Comic opera is no laughing matter. Seriously, when was the last time you laughed out loud in the opera house?…
The rotten fruits of Peter Maxwell Davies’s modernism
The intransigence of Maxwell Davies, Boulez and Stockhausen is coming home to roost. Here were three composers, famous if not…
Quiet but potent film about the migrant experience: Dheepan reviewed
The French master film-maker Jacques Audiard has never been anywhere near Hollywood plot school. His films contain gathering menace —…
Millepied’s final spring programme for the Paris Opera Ballet is brazenly American
Paris Opera Ballet plays hard to get. It doesn’t deign to travel all the way over here, thanks to a…
I didn’t enjoy it but I couldn’t help loving it: Sunset Boulevard reviewed
Sunset Boulevard is a tale of fractured glory with Homeric dimensions. The movie presents Hollywood as a never-ending Trojan War…
BBC4’s Bob Geldof on WB Yeats was one of the best literary documentaries I’ve seen
In recent years there’s been a fashion for arts documentaries presented by celebs rather than boring old experts — presumably…
The Archers v the cricket: which was the more dramatic?
It was a toss-up on Sunday between the atmosphere in the Radio Five Live Sports Extra studio in Kolkata for…
Culture buff
Contemporary dance may not be to everyone’s taste but too many tired, grey performances of Swan Lake will encourage converts.…
The rise and fall of Sicily
A few weeks ago, I looked out on the Cathedral of Monreale from the platform on which once stood the…
Bitter sweet
The French master film-maker Jacques Audiard has never been anywhere near Hollywood plot school. His films contain gathering menace —…
An American in Paris
Paris Opera Ballet plays hard to get. It doesn’t deign to travel all the way over here, thanks to a…
Sound and fury
There was a genteel brouhaha last year — leaders in the Times, letters to the Telegraph, tutting in the galleries…
Modernist cul-de-sac
The intransigence of Maxwell Davies, Boulez and Stockhausen is coming home to roost. Here were three composers, famous if not…
Modernist cul-de-sac
The intransigence of Maxwell Davies, Boulez and Stockhausen is coming home to roost. Here were three composers, famous if not…
Close encounter
Sunset Boulevard is a tale of fractured glory with Homeric dimensions. The movie presents Hollywood as a never-ending Trojan War…
Close encounter
Sunset Boulevard is a tale of fractured glory with Homeric dimensions. The movie presents Hollywood as a never-ending Trojan War…
Comic relief
Comic opera is no laughing matter. Seriously, when was the last time you laughed out loud in the opera house?…
Comic relief
Comic opera is no laughing matter. Seriously, when was the last time you laughed out loud in the opera house?…
Intolerable cruelty
It was a toss-up on Sunday between the atmosphere in the Radio Five Live Sports Extra studio in Kolkata for…
Intolerable cruelty
It was a toss-up on Sunday between the atmosphere in the Radio Five Live Sports Extra studio in Kolkata for…
Singing Ireland into being
In recent years there’s been a fashion for arts documentaries presented by celebs rather than boring old experts — presumably…
