Arts
Trainwreck wastes Amy Schumer’s talents
Trainwreck is a romcom as written and directed by Amy Schumer, the American comedy prodigy whose Comedy Central sketch show…
I can’t stop thinking about the Courtauld’s Unfinished exhibition
A while ago, David Hockney mused on a proposal to tax the works of art stored in artists’ studios. ‘You’d…
The stars of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe: Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage
Propaganda is said to work best when based upon a grain of truth. Ukip! The Musical assumes that most electors…
Is medical screening bad for your health? Michael Mosley dons a pair of ‘dignity shorts’ to find out
When the link between tobacco and lung cancer was first established in the early 1950s, one obvious question arose: should…
As the Hindenburg burned, you could hear radio news being born
It’s really hard to imagine now a world before 24-hour news, continually and constantly accessible in a never-ending stream of…
Culture buff
‘I Love a Piano’ sang Fred Astaire and Judy Garland, courtesy of Irving Berlin, in Easter Parade. So do most…
Great expectations
Trainwreck is a romcom as written and directed by Amy Schumer, the American comedy prodigy whose Comedy Central sketch show…
I reshot Andy Warhol
It’s one thing to make the most boring film in cinema history — at least you can kid yourself at…
Afterthoughts
The blackness that sweeps along the stage behind Sylvie Guillem’s disappearing figure in the Russell Maliphant piece on her farewell…
Sick and tired
When the link between tobacco and lung cancer was first established in the early 1950s, one obvious question arose: should…
Richard Long interview: ‘I was always an artist, even when I was two years old’
William Cook explores the elemental art and Olympian walks of Richard Long
Four of the best albums to write books by
I have been writing a book this summer, in the usual mad tearing hurry. (Much as I admire those who…
The forgotten Swiss portraitist and his extraordinary pastels: Jean-Etienne Liotard at the Scottish National Gallery reviewed
This is not the biggest exhibition at Edinburgh and it will not be the best attended but it may be…
Why is the garden absent in English painting?
One of the default settings of garden journalists is the adjective ‘painterly’ — applied to careful colour harmonies within a…
The band that nearly saved the Cuban revolution
By chance, my first night in Havana in 1987 was the night the clubs went dark to mark the death…
The plot has enough holes to file the Albert Hall: The Gift reviewed
Were you ever not very nice at school? A bit of a tosspot to others, perhaps. Ever so slightly a…
Feels like Chekhov scripted by a Chekhov app: Three Days in the Country at the Lyttleton reviewed
Chekhov so dominates 19th-century Russian drama that Turgenev doesn’t get much of a look-in. His best known play, A Month…
All that postwar anxiety about being vaporised by a nuclear bomb was a complete waste of emotion
When I was growing up in the 1970s, my three main fears were: being blown up by the IRA; being…
Why are we so silent over Hiroshima?
It’s 70 years since the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and yet there has been no rush to…
The Heckler: architecture would be better off without Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid is the most famous woman architect in the world. Would women or, indeed, architecture, be better off without…
Culture buff
It was at a Ball at the Trocadero in August 1955, sixty years ago this month, that I first heard…
Music to write books by
I have been writing a book this summer, in the usual mad tearing hurry. (Much as I admire those who…
The Trump doctrine
Were you ever not very nice at school? A bit of a tosspot to others, perhaps. Ever so slightly a…
Cuban comet
By chance, my first night in Havana in 1987 was the night the clubs went dark to mark the death…
Cuban comet
By chance, my first night in Havana in 1987 was the night the clubs went dark to mark the death…
