Arts
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…
A paean to the fleshy delights and tacky excess of Soho
The other evening, surrounded by Christmas shoppers in the West End of London, I happened to glance up at the…
Darth Vader is dirty and it’s not just me that thinks so
Malcolm Tucker delivered the best description of Star Wars, in The Thick of It: ‘The one about the fucking hairdresser,…
Darth Vader is dirty and it’s not just me that thinks so
Malcolm Tucker delivered the best description of Star Wars, in The Thick of It: ‘The one about the fucking hairdresser,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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?…
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?…
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…
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…
Was my article the inspiration for this brilliant BBC dramatisation?
The two things I hate most about Christmas are a) Advertland showing me how sparkly and joyous my home and…
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…
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…
Nottingham resuscitates a classic of the 60s literary avant-garde
Peter Robins reports from Nottingham on a unique adaptation of a novel by the literary innovator B.S. Johnson
A devastating Jenufa - if you could hear it
About 15 minutes into act one of Jenufa, the student in the next seat leaned over to her companions and…
Is Twitter now in charge of the Royal Ballet’s artistic programming?
For all the billing and cooing on public forums about the Royal Ballet’s The Two Pigeons revival, there’s a silent…
How pop is Peter Blake?
Painters and sculptors are highly averse to being labelled. So much so that it seems fairly certain that, if asked,…
Awards await this mostly terrific new Homecoming
Jamie Lloyd’s production of Pinter’s The Homecoming is a pile of terrific and silly ideas. Mostly terrific. The action takes…
Sunset Song is close to masterly
Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song is the best-remembered title of a short career. Born in 1901, he was dead by…
Glenda Jackson is brilliant in Radio 4’s Zola adaptation - and terrifying
It was a stroke of genius to invite Glenda Jackson to make her return to acting as the star of…
Victorian music-hall comedy wasn’t funny. Why pretend it was?
Let’s start this week with a joke: ‘You know Mrs Kelly? Do you know Mrs Kelly? Her husband’s that little…
Culture buff
We are now officially in summer and the beach season. The importance of the beach in our national self-image the…
The still point
Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song is the best-remembered title of a short career. Born in 1901, he was dead by…
