Arts
Culture buff
If you haven’t yet seen Verdi’s Luisa Millar at the Sydney Opera House you’re already too late; no worry, there…
Ticket to ride
The latest film from the Coen brothers is a comedy set during the ‘golden age’ of Hollywood and in some…
Sex on legs
That joke about the young bull who tells the old bull, ‘Hey, Dad, see all those cows — let’s run…
Topsy-turvy
When Tom Birkin, hero of J.L. Carr’s novel A Month in the Country, wakes from sleeping in the sun, it…
Tragedy trumped by porn
Big fuss about Cleansed at the Dorfman. Talk of nauseous punters rushing for the gangways may have perversely delighted the…
Tragedy trumped by porn
Big fuss about Cleansed at the Dorfman. Talk of nauseous punters rushing for the gangways may have perversely delighted the…
Excess baggage
Near the end of Elena Langer’s new opera Figaro Gets a Divorce, as the Almaviva household — now emigrés in…
Excess baggage
Near the end of Elena Langer’s new opera Figaro Gets a Divorce, as the Almaviva household — now emigrés in…
Linked in
What makes the World Service so different from the rest of the BBC? I asked Mary Hockaday, the controller of…
Linked in
What makes the World Service so different from the rest of the BBC? I asked Mary Hockaday, the controller of…
Northern exposure
Some things I have learned about Iceland after watching six episodes of Trapped (BBC4, Saturdays). 1. They seem to feel…
The rite stuff
Religion remains a surprisingly popular subject for plays. It’s partly because there’s already a core of theatricality there, in the…
‘I enjoy the banal’: Stephen Bayley meets Martin Parr
The photographer Martin Parr claims to like ordinary people, but are his pictures celebratory or mocking, asks Stephen Bayley
Hell made fun – the joy of Hieronymus Bosch
The 20th-century painter who called himself Balthus once proposed that a monograph about him should begin with the words ‘Balthus…
Twee, treacly and tearful: Pre-Raphaelites at the Walker Art Gallery reviewed
Dear, good, kind, sacrificing Little Nell. Here she is kneeling by a wayside pond, bonnet pushed back, shoes and stockings…
On the trail of Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca is today acknowledged as one of the foundational artists of the Renaissance. Aldous Huxley thought his ‘Resurrection’…
The embarrassing story of Scotland’s most important 20th century structure
Finding St Peter’s is not straightforward. I approach the wrong way, driving up a pot-holed farm track between a golf…
Kit-car Chekhov: Uncle Vanya at the Almeida reviewed
Director Robert Icke has this to say of Chekhov’s greatest masterpiece: ‘Let the electricity of now flow into the old…
ENO must go
Last week Darren Henley, chief executive of Arts Council England, revealed that opera receives just under a fifth of the…
Long live ENO!
The three most moving, transporting death scenes in 19th-century opera all involve the respective heroines mounting a funeral pyre —…
What were they thinking? The Benefactor reviewed
The Benefactor is both a bad film and a thoroughly inexplicable one. It’s one of those what-were-they-thinking projects that wastes…
BBC1’s The Night Manager verges on parody
The Night Manager (BBC1, Sunday) announced its intentions immediately, when the opening credits lovingly combined weapons and luxury items. ‘Blimey,’…
Radio comedy still misses Kenneth Williams
It’s tempting to believe that somewhere in the bowels of Broadcasting House in London the voice of Kenneth Williams is…
Culture buff
He was named the first Australian of the Year in 1960; Sir Macfarlane Burnet OM AK KBE had been awarded…
Sweet and sour
Dear, good, kind, sacrificing Little Nell. Here she is kneeling by a wayside pond, bonnet pushed back, shoes and stockings…
