Arts
Passion play
Illness forced Kim Cattrall to withdraw from Linda, the Royal Court’s new show, and Noma Dumezweni scooped up the debris…
Aural wonderland
My resolution this New Year is to get to grips with podcasts, to brace up and embrace this new aural…
Aural wonderland
My resolution this New Year is to get to grips with podcasts, to brace up and embrace this new aural…
Losing the plot
On the face of it, ITV’s Peter & Wendy sounded like a perfect family offering for Boxing Day: an adaptation…
Lessons from Utopia
As anniversaries go, the timing could hardly be more apt. As Europe braces itself for the next Islamist attack, the…
Lessons from Utopia
As anniversaries go, the timing could hardly be more apt. As Europe braces itself for the next Islamist attack, the…
Why would a dissolute rebel like Paul Gauguin paint a nativity?
Martin Gayford investigates how this splendid Tahitian Madonna came about and why religion was ever-present in Gauguin's art
The art of Beatrix Potter
Her best illustrations — limpid, ethereal, carefully observed — are masterly works of art in their own right, argues Matthew Dennison
The rise and fall of Sony
Sony was the Apple of its day and more. Stephen Bayley charts its years of creativity unrivalled in the history of consumerism
Royal Opera’s Cavalleria rusticana isn’t nearly vulgar enough
How often do you get a chance to see two operas by Leoncavallo in the same city in the same…
Darth Vader is dirty and it’s not just me that thinks so
Star Wars taught Hollywood how to make children’s films for adults, says Tanya Gold
A paean to the fleshy delights and tacky excess of Soho at Christmas
This Christmas, says Stephen Smith, we should raise a glass to the fleshy delights of Soho’s Raymond Revueba
Why did a Russian ballet dancer throw acid in his boss’s face?
The 16th June 1961 and 17th January 2013 are two indelible dates in the annals of Russian ballet. Two events…
Musical maestros and football managers have more in common than you think
You don’t have to be a follower of Liverpool Football Club, or football at all, to spot the difference. Two…
Grandma: a feminist comedy that punches magnificently above its weight
Apologies if you were expecting a review of Star Wars here, but Disney is not allowing critics access prior to…
Tricycle’s Ben Hur is magnificent in its superficiality - a masterpiece of nothing
It’s the target that makes the satire as well as the satirist. Is the subject powerful, active, relevant and menacing?…
Twenty things I will ban when I am elected your Dictator For Life in 2016
The two things I hate most about Christmas are a) Advertland showing me how sparkly and joyous my home and…
Radio is flowering because it’s so much more potent than TV
Who would have thought in this visually obsessed age of YouTube, selfies and Instagram that radio, pure audio, no images…
The Heckler: those who doubt the brilliance of Phil Collins are snobs
Three boos for those rotten spoilsports who started an online petition against Phil Collins coming out of retirement (there’s already…
Culture Buff
Time for a quick glance over my shoulder at the passing year. Culturally it was busy enough but with little…
The rise and fall of Sony
Here is a Japanese fairy tale for Christmas. An allegory of insight, opportunism and a fall from favour. It is…
The art of Beatrix Potter
‘I will do something sooner or later,’ wrote Beatrix Potter in the secret diary she kept in a private code.…
Grandma: a feminist comedy that punches magnificently above its weight
Apologies if you were expecting a review of Star Wars here, but Disney is not allowing critics access prior to…
Why would a dissolute rebel like Paul Gauguin paint a nativity?
A young Polynesian woman lies outstretched on sheets of a soft lemon yellow. She is wrapped in deep blue cloth,…
Why did a Russian ballet dancer throw acid in his boss’s face?
The 16th June 1961 and 17th January 2013 are two indelible dates in the annals of Russian ballet. Two events…
